For European aviation photographers Japan is one of the most exotic countries in the world because of a wide variety of unique aircraft types and colourful paintings. While many Asian countries are not open to our beloved hobby, Japan has proven to be the opposite with a lot of good photo opportunities and many active fellow hobbyists.

Being two aviation photographers from the Netherlands (Holland), we, Iwan Bogels (34) and Tieme Festner (36), met in 1994 as voluntary members of the Scramble Magazine editorial team. Our co-operation grew beyond the magazine and as close friends we made several long-distance trips to Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Italy together. In 2000 we started a joint spotters film project by the name of DAPPA, aimed to provide cheap films to all aviation photographers by combining their film orders and buying in bulk. This successful project is still operational today. Besides aviation photography Tieme works as an editor of Airpower magazine in the Netherlands and free-lance aviation journalist for a variety of magazines throughout the world. He is married, has a 9 year old daughter and lives in Spijkenisse. He works as a Customer Services Representative at Vopak, a big chemical storage company in the port of Rotterdam. Iwan Bogels lives together with his girlfriend in Voorhout, near NAS Valkenburg. Working as a station master for the dutch railways, he works in shifts at the railway station in Leiden.

In the early 80's we were young boys growing up in the Netherlands. Living near airbases and having visited local airshows it didn't take long before we were both infected with the Aviation Photography Virus. As young teenagers the world really started opening up for us during short trips to other airbases by train. Together with other young friends our own country was explored, and an occasional visit to an airbase in neighbouring Germany or Belgium was considered to be an almost extra-terrestrial trip. But with a community of well over a thousand military aviation photographers in Holland alone, and about 15 friendly countries within a 1500 kilometer range around us, western Europe proved to be a good place to expand our hobby rapidly.

After several years of joining special bus tours to airshows in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and France, we started making week long independent car trips to interesting countries around us. NATO airbases around western Europe had just become regular targets for our hobby when in 1989 the Iron Curtain came down and a new exciting world with unexplored possibilities opened up in former communist eastern Europe. But as the cold war ended, many older aircraft were retired from service around Europe. Within five years the situation deteriorated for aviation photographers and we had to start looking for new hunting grounds that would satisfy our need for beautiful and photogenic aircraft and helicopters. Having heard reports about Japan from other enthusiasts, and seeing the occasional photo in magazines and on internet our goal was clear. We both wanted to make a trip to Japan !

Preparations for our trip started early 2001. Trying to gather information about the Japanese defense system we consulted several leading sources on the internet and in books. The most valuable internet website turned out to be the Srcamble website (www.scramble.nl/jp.htm) with a complete order of battle for the JASDF, JMSDF and JGSDF, explanation on the serial system, photos and various good links to other websites. The most useful book we found was World Air Forces by Aerospace Publishing (ISBN 1-86184-045-4) which contains a lot of background information and great photos. But we needed more information to get around in Japan. Details maps, reports and other data were necessary to find out about the exact location and fotospots near all of Japan's 47 military airbases. Spotting Group Volkel published a two part series with detailed maps, base lay-outs en descriptions in their AIM-magazine. Together with various written reports on visits to Japan, taken from other Dutch spottersmagazines and fellow aviation photographers, all available information was printed or copied and bundled in our self-made "Japan Planning Guide".

After having gathered all necessary information we started planning our route. As we wanted to see as many different types as possible from all three JSDF-departments, we made a list of all bases that we would like to visit. But with only ten regular flying days available in our 18-day trip, we had to be very selective in choosing our airfields. With the US-1, T-1B, F-1 and F-4 as primary targets and at least ten or more secondary goals including unfamiliar types as C-1, T-2, YS-11 and OH-1, we split the trip up in two weeks. One week would be spent in Kyushu and southern Honshu while the other week could be used to visit the greater Tokyo and Nagoya areas. With careful planning we could visit the Iruma airshow in one weekend and the Gifu and Hamamatsu airshow in the weekend after that, and the two seperate area's in the weeks around it. Our plan was to visit only one airbase per day in order to get maximum photographic results, and the dates for our trip were set from 1 - 18 November. This resulted in a schedule that started at the Iruma airshow, followed by Kanoya, Nyutabaru, Tsuiki, Iwakuni and Akeno in the first week. Then the Gifu and Hamamatsu airshows would fill the second weekend after when we would visit Komaki, Atsugi, Kizarasu, Hyakuri and Matsushima. The last weekend would be spent on sightseeing in Tokyo and visiting the famous Shinjuku area for some camera shopping.

As we had decided on our schedule it was time to get some up-to-date information and to start looking forward to our trip. The JFB-BBS (this BBS no longer exists) was consulted almost daily and the photos published on it fired our will to visit Japan. Compared to Europe the JSDF-aircraft feature extremely attractive paintings, with high visibility markings and exotic colorschemes. Some bright colourschemes like on the UH-60, U-36, T-1B and OH-6 can't be seen anywhere in Europe, while the Japanese camouflage colors like on the RF-4's, F-1's and Agressor Eagles form a welcome change from the boring grey and green schemes worn by fighter aircraft on this side of the world. But also the eye-catching markings like the P-3 tailpaintings, Flightchecker colours and full colour badges and tailbands are attractive features to shoot our film on, not to mention the 17 types of aircraft that are not operated in this area of the world. In order to get some inside information we send emails to get in touch with Japanese photographers. We tried to contact the people behind some of the good photos at the JFB-BBS, but unfortunately many of them were unable to respond to our messages in English. Luckily we also contacted Masanori Ogawa and Koji Nakano, with whom we set up intensive contact about almost every subject on our trip to Japan. It was with their great help and assistance that we managed to clear the last questions and finalize the last details on our trip.

As we all know by now, the 11 September attacks in the USA messed up the situation in the world, causing all airshows to be cancelled just prior to our trip to Japan. This new situation forced us to change our schedule, not only leaving us all three weekends for travelling and sightseeing, but also forcing us to do two bases on the same day at least twice in order to see what we wanted to see. Fortunately Mr.Nakano and Mr.Ogawa each offered to join us on our trip for several days, thus making our stay in Japan more interesting, easy and enjoyable. Our trip trip started on Thursday 1 November when we departed from Holland for a 16 hour journey with SAS-airlines that took us from Amsterdam, via Copenhagen to Tokyo-Narita airport.

To get around in Japan we had to choose between travelling by train, airplane or car. Trains could provide a fast and easy way to get around in Japan, but it would not get us exactly where we wanted to be. With all our luggage to carry around this kind of transportation would only be suitable for cheap and fast long distance travelling (Tokyo - Fukuoka). But flying would be even cheaper, faster and more convenient, as ANA offers every tourist five domestic flights for just Yen 12.800 each. In either case we would have to rent a car at the train station or airport to take care of local transportation in the region. But with all airshows canceled just prior to our trip, thus leaving us the weekends to travel, we decided to do all travelling by rental car. This would give us more flexibility and a good chance to do some sightseeing on the way, and would save us a lot of time consuming efforts of changing transportation.

After arriving at Tokyo-Narita we picked up the Honda Torneo that we had reserved from Avis and we set out to find the first airbase. Being unable to understand any Japanese characters we were very happy to see that almost all roadsigns were also marked in English. Together with our bi-langual road atlas we managed to set off in the right direction. But although the signs were readable, the system is completely different from the European system. In Japan all directions are given with roadnames or numbers, while in Europe the signs show the main cities and near villages as primary directions. This difference requires constant attention while navigating.

When arriving near an airbase we had to find the right spot. For short-range navigation we used the maps and descriptions taken from AIM-magazine, which showed the small roads around the base as well as detailed lay-out maps with runways and hangars. On many occasions AIM showed us the way easily, but with some Japanese airfields locked up between large residential areas we needed a different method to find the fence of the base. From Holland we had brought a small GPS receiver (satelite navigation) which could direct us to any coordinate in the world. With the coordinates from all Japanese airbases at hand, the receiver always pointed us in the right direction. Especially for Yao, Iruma, Kasuminome, Utsonomiya, Hofu and Iwakuni, the GPS receiver saved us a lot of time finding the airbase.

Driving in the streets, roads and expressways of Japan was a completely different experience compared to Europe. Driving on the left side of the road and having the stearing wheel on the right was a little confusing at first, but we quickly got used to it without any problems. Although the different car setup did cause some funny situations though, especially because the handles for the direction indicator and windscreen whipers had been switched. What took us by surprise were the narrow roads, hundreds of trafficlights and the enormous amount of traffic though. While in Europe most urban traffic is helped with special exit lanes and roundabouts, the (many!) narrow trafficlight-crossings in Japan tend to slow traffic down considerably as there is always somebody holding up traffic when he wants to cross opposite traffic. With an average of 25 km/h in the city we tried to avoid urban roads as much as possible and use the expressways whenever we could.

The expressways in Japan are very convenient and easy to navigate. The only downside is the toll that you have to pay. During our 4500 km trip we had to pay around Yen 110.000 on toll, which is really astonishing compared to European standards. Nevertheless we were happy to pay for using the expressway, as they were a welcome relief from urban traffic. It was very funny to see that the speedlimit at the experssways is 80 km/h, but every Japanese driver seems to ignore this limit. Even within range of police speed cameras cars don't seem to reduce speed. This gave us a "european feeling" as we are allowed to drive 120 km/h in Holland. But without any knowledge of Japanese characters we couldn't read the speed trap warnings, and thus we made the crucial mistake of speeding where we weren't allowed to. A bright red flash in the dark made us aware of our misdemeanour. But although the police tried to identify us via Avis, we haven't heard from them ever since.

Arriving at the airbases we were pleasantly surprised by the very open base lay-outs. While in Europe most operational areas at airbases are hidden from view by woods and sandhills, in Japan you have a clear view at almost every platform. Dozens of aircraft and helicopters can been seen from outside the fence, lined up at the platform and waiting to fly their daily missions. This is a very welcome change from the regular European operations, where aircraft start up in hardened aircraft shelters and only come out just minutes prior to take-off.
Another nice thing about Japanese military aviation are flying operations. We were very pleased to see that on many occasions the early missions took off well before 08.00 hrs and the last aircraft returned after sunset. This is in sharp contrast with Dutch military flying, which usually starts around 09.30 hrs and ends by 16.00 hrs. Also the quantity of aircraft is astonishing to us European spotters. Many different aircraft are flying multiple missions on a day, which remind us of the good old days in the early '80s. And with many cross country visitors every day can be a good day with a variety of exciting aircraft and helicopters.

Almost every airbase has multiple good photospots that allow for varied aircraft photography. On several airbases taxi, take-off and landing action could be photographed without any problems. It is very important though to bring a small ladder (three steps) and a long lens (400mm minimum) as the fences are just too high and the distance to the runway requires long lenses. With the right equipment it was possible to change position almost all day long and shoot many different shots.

Our favourite airbases were Nyutabaru, Akeno and Kanoya. Nyutabaru must be the best airbase in Japan (Asia ?) with beautiful Phantoms and agressor Eagles flying many missions all day long. Just for that reason we spent two days at Nyutabaru. Akeno is a fantastic army helicopter base where you can shoot both taxi and landingshots from the same position during the morning hours. You can use any lens between 135 and 400mm and shoot many beautiful Cobras, Hueys, Blackhawks, OH-1's and OH-6's. As these helicopters are flying around almost non-stop, this base looks like a hornet's nest. Kanoya is a personal favorite because NAS Valkenburg (P-3C Orions) is Iwan's homebase. The beautiful tailpaintings, good photospots and a great variety of aircraft and helicopter types make this airbase a lust for the eye.

But although almost every airbase was worth spending the entire day, some of the airbases needed special attention. Bases like Iruma, Atsugi, Komaki, Shimofusa and Iwakuni have a north-south runway which makes photography very difficult during lunch hours. Therefore we decided to spend some of the days at two different bases, enjoying the best light at either base by travelling during lunchtime. We did this trick at Akeno/Komaki, Atsugi/Iruma, Komaki/Gifu, which helped us get the most out of the sunny days.

In general we can say we were very lucky at almost every airbase, exept for Iwakuni and Matsushima. To our surprise Matsushima had a non-flying day on 16 november, which forced us to do some alternative visits instead (Kasuminome, Utsonomiya, Shimofusa). And at Iwakuni we encountered minimal flying (no P-3 Orions in the morning) and bad weather, in combination with poor photo-opportunities, which made us decide to travel to Kyushu earlier then planned. While en-route to the next airbase and during the weekends we did visit some extra airbases in order to just have a look and decide if it would be worth planning the base for any future visit. This way we dropped by at Tachikawa, Yokota, Hamamatsu, Hofu, Ozuki, Yao, Kasuminome, Utsonomiya and Shimofusa.

It is very nice to see that aviation photography and spotting are very common in Japan too. Almost every airbase seems to have its own group of local spotters and aviation enthusiasts. As we were looking for the best spots it was not surprising that we encountered some of them. But although not every enthusiast speaks english, it was not very difficult to get in touch with our collegues. As we had brought our portfolio with photos and articles to Japan, we were always able to show some of our work. This opened the way for communication, in English or with hands and feet. And as Koji Nakano and Masanori Ogawa joined us for several days, they did some translating for us when communication was difficult (thanks guys !).

The best meetings we had with Japanese spotters were at Iwakuni, Komaki, Gifu, Atsugi and Iruma. It was very nice talking with them about all kinds of things and for us this was a really good opportunity to learn about our hobby in Japan. Some of the photographers gave us some very good advice and tips, while others showed us the way around the base (Iruma). We were extra happy with the guys at Komaki who asked a local company to allow us at their parkingroof from where we had the best possible photo-opportunities. Great work guys ! Observed as outsiders it was very funny to see the difference between each group of enthusiasts. Apparently the origin of each group determines their interest for aircraft. The photographers at Iwakuni were fully focussed at US Navy and Marine Corps aircraft while spotters at Atsugi had a real preference for all kinds of P-3 Orions.

Compared to European aviation photographers the Japanese photographers are very well equipped. To our surprise almost every photographer had a long and powerful lens (500mm) and high quality camera. Especially the long lenses are quite rare here in Europe, as 300mm is the longest that many spotters have available. Nevertheless we were well prepared for Japan as we had both brought our new Canon EF 400mm/f2,8L and Canon EOS-1V HS. Together with the Canon Extender 1.4x and 2.0x this gave us all the range we needed. Over 70% of all shots were made with these lenses while the rest of the photos were made with Canon EF 70-200/2.8 and Canon Canon EF 300/4.0 lenses. As we are doing a special film purchase project for aviation photographers around the world (www.dappa.nl/films.htm) we had many films to choose from. Kodachrome 64, which we sell for only Yen 780 (including film, processing and mounting), was used on sunny days, while on other occasions we also used Fuji Sensia II 100. In total we shot about 100 films each during our visit, which we consider to be a large number. The combination of good weather, perfect equipment and nice subjects produced some of the most beautiful photos we had ever taken.

On many occasions the local enthusiasts were not the only people we met at the fence. With higher security levels implemented after 11 September, our western looks drew the attention of base security and local police many times. Almost every day somebody would come up to us to ask about our identities, our intentions and our whereabouts. This could be somebody on the other side of the fence, some local police-officer on our side of the fence or any undercover agent in a neat suit. As we expected these situations to occur we had prepared photocopies of our passports and special business cards with photo and Japanese text to give to any security agent. Together with an explaining talk from our two accomanying Japanese photographers and a brief look through our portfolios, this convinced many offficials of our harmless intentions. Nevertheless at bases like Iwakuni, Komaki and Akeno extra people were assigned to us to watch our movements and see to it that we didn't do anything illegal.

After every exciting day at the airbases it was time to find a place to sleep for the night. And although this may not seem like a hard task at first, it sometimes was difficult for us. Unable to read Japanese characters, it was very difficult to find a suitable hotel. With only the love hotels recognizable to us because of the neon and the western word "hotel", we did stay in there for two nights (Hamamatsu and Komaki). On other occasions we managed to find a business hotel near the trainstation, or we were helped by our two Japanese friends who were able to make reservations in advance. With their help we stayed in a traditional Japanese hotel and a capsule hotel, and we visited a hot-spring which all contributed to an unforgettable experience. Our visits to downtown Tokyo, the Peace-park in Hiroshima and the temple at Muroji completed the tourist part of our holiday.

Having breakfast, lunch or dinner was another challenge, but as experienced travellers we surely didn't starve from hunger. As hotel breakfasts are quite expensive, and are often served just too late, we usually stopped at the Lawson Station of Family Mart for some shopping. This early stop would also provide us with our lunch so we wouldn't have to leave the airbase to get our food and drinks. In the evening we had dinner at various places. With the help of Koji and Masanori we visited several traditional restaurants to enjoy the good Japanese food. On other occasions we had dinner in restaurant-chains like Joyfull where we were able to choose from various kinds of meat thet we could order from pictures. And ofcourse we also made some stops at western style fastfood shops like McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Mos-burger.

All together we can say that we had a perfect trip in Japan. Many beautiful aircraft, very nice people, a lovely country and glorious weather made our trip a real success. We would like to thank all the people that we met for their help and kind words, and a special word of gratitude to our two Japanese companions Koji Nakano and Masanori Ogawa. At this moment we are saving money again for next year as we really hope to come back in October or November 2003.

If any of our Japanese fellow aviation enthusiasts would like to contact us, please send a message to iwan.bogels@wxs.nl, or t.festner@planet.nl, but please consider that we only speak English, German, French or Dutch.