spotting in Cuba

[stipjes]

Hello,

At the end of oktober I will travell to Cuba and will try to do some spotting. May-be someone has some info;

Are the spots around the IAP a bit more relaxed now?
When I look at the air base of san Antonio de los Banos I see a beautifull storage close to the road and a museum on the base. Has anyone been there?
Can something be spotted from the lookoutpoint on Guantanamo Bay? It is far but who knows.
Are there possibilities around Holguin? There are some roads around the base.

The airfields, technical schools and musea around and in Havana look ok, I will try to cycle there but if someone has tips .

Hope to hear from somebody.

[AndyMarden]

I walked around Ciudad Libertad in Mar08. Having noticed a lot of locals using the runway as a short cut, I followed them and was able to get to the airside fence of the rework area.
There wasn't a great deal to see, a couple of An-26s, plus a tailless MiG-23 that had huge stickers over the serial on both sides.
Regards,
Andy Marden

[Stefan]

Hello,

At the end of oktober I will travell to Cuba and will try to do some spotting. May-be someone has some info;

Are the spots around the IAP a bit more relaxed now?
When I look at the air base of san Antonio de los Banos I see a beautifull storage close to the road and a museum on the base. Has anyone been there?

Hi Patrick,

Been to San Antonio. The storage area is just behind the cemetery. The cemetery is accessible and OK for landing if they use the closest runway. It is surrounded by a wall though and judging by the situation I encountered, the trees and shrubbery that is visible on GE I would say that the storage area is not visible. Did not try it though!

Operational a/c can be read on both ends of the base.

Will send you a PM on possible info for Holguin.

Regards,
Stefan

[evhest]

My stay in Cuba in 2006 started in Holguin. Could see some MiG21's and a lonely Mil upon landing. I think spotting here from the outside shouldn't be too hard, but Stefan probably knows more. Next, in Baracoa (at the eastern tip of Cuba) I noticed a fantastic looking operational Mil at the airfield. I mananged to take one photo of it - or actually I didn't, because that pic was hopelessly out of focus.


Haven't been to San Antonio so can't comment on that. The museum in Havana is easy to find. The MiG29UB I saw there three years ago seems to be gone now, can anybody confirm? Took a quick look at Ciudad Libertad but didn't see much of interest.

Be advised that you can make world headlines by spotting in Cuba . There are people everywhere it seems, so going about unnoticed will be quite hard.

Hope this helps - well I tried!

[stipjes]

thanks for the reactions so far, very usefull!!
Just heard from a spotter (via Jetphotos) that the museum in the west of Havana has no more aircraft on display..... I hope this is not the FAR museum..

In case you are planning to go to this nice outdoor museum (also in the western part of Havana), don't bother going, as the planes were moved somewhere else and the only thing left were some rockets (found out after walking and searching for 2 hours..).

[evhest]

That sounds a lot like the FAR museum, I'm afraid.....

edit; I just looked up the museum in Google Earth. That's actually one of my pics with somebody else's credit showing up there (MiG23MF # 822). Oh well, whatever.

[Antilliaan]

Can confirm the DAAFAR museum in Havana has shut its doors late last year. All aircraft moved to San Antonio and are currently in storage over there. Not visible from outside, bereaving Cuba of its main aviation attraction. Also the base museum in San Antonio can not be visited nor seen from outside.

There's about five Scramble airfield guides available to learn about spotting possibilities in other bases. Santa Clara is probably one of the better airfields to see something, Holguin is also not too bad. You have to be lucky though.

At least check out the ITM, a technical school in Havana (23 05 47.86 N 082 25 02.34 W), aircraft can easily be seen from outside. A place that still needs exploration is the Mausoleo del Segundo Frente in Mayari Arriba in eastern Cuba, it has at least five aircraft on display (a P-51, a T-28, a C-47, parts of another C-47 and a OS2U). Even better is the former shooting range at Crucecitas (22 06 05 66 N 80 09 41 68 W), it has 12 MiG-17 as targets, which can easily be seen from the road, but no serials are known so far!

Generally, be careful, but do not hesitate to share your log here!!!

[Antilliaan]

Forgot to mention the beautiful Lenin Park in Havana (23 02 06 43 N 82 21 45 20 W), a Mi-8, MiG-21, An-2 and An-26 can be found here.
For some reason most people forget to visit this place... and if you can check the c/ns of these aircraft!

[Gulfbiz6]

The Lenin Park indeed is a nice place to see some aircraft. I also visited the Havanna museum as it was open in 2007.

I did no active spotting in Cuba but driving around in Havanna i passed the Technical School. To see the aircraft there is no problem at all. Just look over the wall. But the school lies at a busy road so a lot of people can see you. Be carefull. I managed to take some photos there of the aircraft present. These photos are published in Scramble 345 page 158. By the way. There also is another MIG stored in Havanna but i do not know the exact place. I just passed when driving through Havanna. I have a picture of it so let me know if you want to see this.

I was also at the other side of Cuba all the way to Guantanamo Bay. The lookoutpoint was closed in 2007. There was no other possibility to see something of the base as i recall. It's a long way going there so for spotting reasons maybe do'nt bother.

Gr. Ron

[stipjes]

Can confirm the DAAFAR museum in Havana has shut its doors late last year. All aircraft moved to San Antonio and are currently in storage over there. Not visible from outside, bereaving Cuba of its main aviation attraction. Also the base museum in San Antonio can not be visited nor seen from outside.

There's about five Scramble airfield guides available to learn about spotting possibilities in other bases. Santa Clara is probably one of the better airfields to see something, Holguin is also not too bad. You have to be lucky though.

At least check out the ITM, a technical school in Havana (23 05 47.86 N 082 25 02.34 W), aircraft can easily be seen from outside. A place that still needs exploration is the Mausoleo del Segundo Frente in Mayari Arriba in eastern Cuba, it has at least five aircraft on display (a P-51, a T-28, a C-47, parts of another C-47 and a OS2U). Even better is the former shooting range at Crucecitas (22 06 05 66 N 80 09 41 68 W), it has 12 MiG-17 as targets, which can easily be seen from the road, but no serials are known so far!

Generally, be careful, but do not hesitate to share your log here!!!

thanks very much for the info!! The School and Lenin Park I found on Google Earth but the ranche and the mausoleo I did not know yet. I will definitely try to visit them and some air bases. =censored= that the museum has moved... strange action. I hope to be able to put a log when I am still there