Following my visit to Japan in 2018, I was so awed by the Asian region, in particular its military aviation portfolio, that I decided to visit Asia again in 2019, however at a much larger scale. This time I decided to visit South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. This trip was made possible and easier thanks to three different airshows in each country that all fell within a particular time window, enabling planning to be easier. Firstly, I set out to South Korea for ADEX, one of the few possibilities that exist to be able to easily take pictures of South Korean military hardware. This was followed by a visit to Taiwan, starting with the Tainan Open Base Airshow organised by the Taiwanese military, and then on to Japan for the Shimofusa Airshow (which was eventually cancelled due to typhoons in Japan).
As soon as we touched down in South Korea and collected our rental cars, out first step was to proceed to Suwon Air Base to verify whether we would have any problems with air base security personnel. Much to our delight we spent the entire afternoon spotting ROKAF F-5s and F-4 phantoms without encountering any particular difficulties. Since our main aim and objective was to at least take pictures of one F-5 and one phantom in sunny conditions, we were more than happy when we managed to bag more than one of each type in sunny conditions. This brought to an end our first day in South Korea and it was time for some well deserved rest.
The following day we presented ourselves at the gate of Osan Air Base, a USAF base in South Korea that hosts a squadron of A-10s and F-16s, as well as ‘ZZ’ coded Sikorsky Pavehawk helicopters and a detachment of U-2s throughout the year. After a very fruitful morning on base (you can read more about this visit here), we moved again to Suwon to check for more phantoms, because the weather forecast was better. However after noticing that no flying activities were going to take place, we relocated to Osan air base to capture the landings of the afternoon missions.
The following day was already the last day of our brief visit to South Korea, and we woke up at Seongnam Air Base to attend the last trade day of ADEX 2019. Taking pictures of the static was difficult due to the roping and placards, however after some negotiations we managed to persuade security to allow us to remove the roping for the aircraft that we wanted to focus on.
Besides static displays, we also took pictures of several other aircraft that are present on base but did not take part of the show, such as C-130s and Casa Cn-235s, as well as multiple electronic reconnaissance aircraft and VIP and Government flight aircraft. In the afternoon we relocated outside the base to take pictures of landing aircraft due to the rotation of the sun.
This brought to and end our brief but very fruitful trip to South Korea, where we managed to see most types of aircraft in service with the ROKAF and ROK Army as well as managed to take pictures of ROKAF phantoms and F-5s, types which are soon going to be replaced the F-35 Lightning.
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