Asia-Pacific
Photo essay: US fighter pilots train in Japan
Stars and Stripes
December 23, 2012
This Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012 photo shows a self portrait of the U.S. navy aviator Lt. j.g. Douglas Spence, 27, of Houston, Texas, on board an F/A18F Super Hornet with the VFA-102, ''Diamondbacks,'' during a training mission in Japan. (U.S. Navy, Douglas Spence/AP Photo)
There are over 50,000 U.S. servicemembers in Japan and some of them are Navy pilots assigned to a strike fighter squadron with the USS George Washington aircraft carrier.
A photographer with the Associated Press recently accompanied a 27-year-old F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter pilot as he prepared for a training mission out of Naval Air Facility Atsugi, which is southwest of Tokyo.
The photos, captured Dec. 20, 2012, show Lt. j.g. Douglas Spence of Houston, Texas, as he gears up, flies his jet over Japan, and returns safe with his colleagues.
Spence is a fighter pilot with the Navy’s VFA-102 Diamondbacks, a squadron that has been around since 1955. The Diamondbacks were initially assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk but were transitioned to the USS George Washington in 2008 when the nuclear powered aircraft carrier became the first in history to be home ported in Japan.
Two of the cockpit photos were captured by Spence, the rest were captured by Eric Talmadge from the Associated Press.