Great series of shots Dave. Love the Migs at sunset!

thank you Chris, it was a cool evening show which provided some nice shots

You are correct, though. -81 is part of a West Coast (Pacific Fleet) airwing (CVW-17).

not according to this links

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/vfa-81.htm

http://www.wavy.com/dpp/military/VFA-81-to-return-to-NAS-Oceana-Monday

The VINSON is a west coast ship now. I drive by it every day. She was on her way to San Diego for a port change when Haiti happened (I was there, as well, and landed her many times) and was delayed there for several weeks, then continued on to SD.

According to VFA-81's website, they're part of CVW-17, which is out of Lemoore, again, a west coast wing. Yes, -81 is out of Oceana, which I wasn't arguing. What I was saying is that they are part of a West Coast airwing, hence the Nx tail code.

It's not abnormal for squadrons to be in different locations than the Wings nowadays. After Miramar was "lost" to the Marines and Cecil went away, everything went to Whidbey, Lemoore or Oceana for TACAIR. I work next to a squadron (helo, in this case) that's number is even, which denotes it's an East Coast squadron, but it's actually on the West Coast. The reason was that one of the CVWs (it might be -17, not sure) moved after the squadron was named.

Cool, I didn't know all that, I was only going off the website info.

No sweat. Global Security (and fas.org) are notoriously out of date (and/or wrong) about a lot of the aviation stuff. To be honest, they're wrong about a lot of other military stuff, too. It's a sad day when Wikipedia has more correct and current data.

that's funny because I was afraid to quote Wiki because they're always known as being wrong and looked else where.. lol

At my last squadron, a couple of the JOs went into Wikipedia and said that their boss was the first pilot to loop a SH-60B helicopter. It made it in and they printed it up, then posted it in maintenance. It was expunged within a day, but still kind of amusing.

those Migs look cool

good to see you still rock your D200

Awesome, a new theme for my Desktop

Thank you Jim, having 2 keeps the shuter count down on both

does the size work or do you need a bigger one?