Whidby Island NAS 05-09-2014

[rf104g]

Hi

Spend the morning of 05-09-2014 at Whidby Island NAS during a non-spotting vacation in Alaska and Washington. There was enough action with the stationed EA-18G's and Orion’s. Did not see any EA-6 but had an nice Marines C-9 as a bonus. All the Bu numbers from the EA-F18G's are from the Scramble site, so any comment on those would be welcome.


166857 NE-553 EA-18G VAQ-129


161414 YB-414 P-3C VP-1


AC-502 EA-18G VAQ-130


168776 NJ-504 EA-18G VAQ-129


168237 500 EA-18G NSAWC


168261 NE-500 EA-18G VAQ-136


168266 AB-500 EA-18G VAQ-137


161530 C-9B VMR-1


Old school at the gate

Thanks for looking.

Regards Ronald.

http://www.Karo-Aviation.nl

[sovietjet]

Nice photos Ronald . There are no more EA-6B at Whidbey, the last squadron VAQ-142 got rid of them very recently. The other one VAQ-134 is on the carrier and will be the last to go. I suppose they will fly them from Whidbey for a month or two following their return from deployment.

[PeteM]

They are all very nice. Always good to see a P-3 with squadron markings

[iainpeden]

Interesting that both the VAQ-136 and VAQ-137 aircraft carry the 500 nose number - I assume that means the 5th squadron in different air wings?

[Mad Dan]

That's why they have different code letters. AB is Carrier Air Wing 1 and NE is Carrier Air Wing 2. And, for the record, AC is Carrier Air Wing 3... I could list the others but this is getting tedious... I suspect that all of the deployable EA-18G carrier squadrons are using modex (number codes) in the 500 sequence - while the non-CVW assigned outfits (which may all have NL codes, though I need to check that) use 520, 530, 540, 550 etc.

[Rule 27]

Correct; east and west coast too I think (Ax and Nx codes)