USCGAS Elizabeth City, NC  10 May 2005

After our narrow escape at MCAS Cherry Point (you can read the story below) we drove towards USCGAS Elizabeth City to read as much US Coast Guard stuff as possible. From various places at the south and the east side of the base we were able to read almost everything which was parked outside.

As you can see we even had the change to take some pictures of a departing C-130H through the fence. We had a nice score here, twelve C-130s including all six new J-versions, two HU-25s, four HH-60s and two HH-65s.

From Elizabeth City we drove towards NAS Oceana (our main goal of our US East Coast Tour). Here we already booked 3 rooms for 5 nights, and after we entered the base and checked in at the lodging office Mo and I couldn't resist having already a quick look inside the open hangars, which resulted in some Hornets and every two Tomcats. Around 11 o'clock we went back to our rooms to have a good rest. More stories about our stay at NAS Oceana can be read at the next pages.

MCAS New River, NC  10 May 2005

Since we skipped NAS Patuxent River for this day we had some spare time. So we decided to go to MCAS New River and MCAS Cherry Point instead. Again it was very easy to enter the base at MCAS New River. From the Base Ops building we had a nice view on the flightline which was filled with helicopters but unfortunately it was very hard to read all the aircraft from here because of the heat waves. Luckily we were able to find some other spots to read some of the helicopters parked here. In the end we read ten MV-22s, twenty CH-46s, fourteen  CH-53s and only one UH-1. We did see more UH-1s and some AH-1s but we were not able to read them at all. Again we asked for a photo permission at Base Ops and the Military Police Office but again our permission was denied.

MCAS Cherry Point, NC  10 May 2005

From MCAS New River we had a nice off road trip to MCAS Cherry Point as you can see on the pictures below. We were really in the middle of nowhere. When we arrived at MCAS Cherry Point we were able to gain access with our military IDs again. First we dropped Mark at the BX to do some shopping and then Mo and I drove around the base to read as much as possible. Unfortunately there were not a lot Harriers and Prowlers but we did see our first TAV-8B's. When we finished our self guided tour around MCAS Cherry Point we picked up Mark again and left the base. Outside the base we tried various places to take pictures of the landing Harriers, but most of the time they came directly overhead us. When we finally found a place at the local KFC we heard some police sirens coming towards us, which made us leave very quickly. We were lucky the police car entered the parking place from the wrong side so we were able leave just in time.

Langley AFB, VA  11 May 2005

After spending the night at NAS Oceana we drove towards Langley AFB. There was a lot of flight activity but unfortunately they were flying from runway 26 which makes it impossible to take pictures from outside the fence. We entered the base very easily and started reading all the F-15s taxing, flying and parked at the flightline. We also saw five F-16s of the North Dakota ANG parked here for their QRA commitment. When we drove further around the base we found a nice spot near a fishing place to take pictures of the landing aircraft. There was only one problem, it was on base. After taking some sneaky pictures of two departing F/A-22s we parked our car here and hoped for a good moment to take some pictures of the landing aircraft. Unfortunately the security police came and parked their car close to the fishing place. This made it for us to risky to take pictures for there so we decided to leave Langley AFB and go back to NAS Oceana. When we crossed the water at Hampton Roads / Chesapeake Bay we had a nice view on Norfolk Naval Station. So I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the carriers out of a moving car.