Spottingtrip Japan: Gifu

Next airfield that was on our planning was Gifu. It was planned that we did 2 days of spotting at Gifu. But on our first day there, it was extremely bad weather and flying activity was next to nothing, so we left very early.

The second day the weather couldn’t have been better. Clear blue sky and quite a lot of movements. As runway 28 was in use, we parked our car at the Soranomori Park. This park is situated next to a calm road and offers a decent parking to park your car. Closeby the car parking are public toilets and vending machines where you can purchase cold and hot drinks which makes spotting here even more enjoyable.

As Gifu is the test base for aircraft that are used within the JASDF (and experimental aircraft), an example of nearly every type is stationed at the base. The aircraft are used to test new upgrades on the airframes, to test new pods or ordnance that was developed or purchased by the JASDF.  

Besides the flying of quite a few locally based aircraft like the F-4, F-15, XF-2, T-7, BK-117 and C-1, we also saw the visit of a couple of Fuji T-7’s from the 11th Flying Training Wing.

Compared to the other bases we visited, flying activities at Gifu were quite low, but the variety of aircraft we saw more made up for that.

Below an impression of what we saw during our visit at this test base of the JASDF. 

Text: Tim Van den Boer

Photography: Tim Van den Boer, Ludo Kloek