Historic Landing On Tinian

Posted 30 May 2012

TAGS:

Photo by LCpl. Benjamin Pryer

A US Marine Corps KC-130J crew landed on historic North Field, Tinian, Northern Marianas Islands on 30 May 2012, marking the first military aircraft to land on this airstrip since US forces left the island in 1947. The crew, assigned to Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 152 (VMGR-152) at MCAS Iwakuni, Japan, landed on North Field as part of Exercise Geiger Fury 2012, a Marine exercise to execute and assess combined expeditionary operations in an austere environment. At the height of World War II, North Field, with four 8,500-foot-long runways, was the busiest airfield in the world. The field was also the launching point for the atomic bomb raids on Imperial Japan.

Comments

U-2 Articles
U-2 News
U-2 Video
U-2 Photos

View All Articles

U-2 Anniversary
7/16/2015
For sixty years, the U-2 Dragon Lady has been America's eyes, ears, and nose in the sky. Code One looks back at the U-2 program on the anniversary of its first flight.

U-2 Pilot Describes Earliest Missions
4/30/2015
Vito’s mission took him directly over Moscow and its extensive network of newly built air defenses, which ringed the city in three concentric circles at twenty, forty, and sixty miles from the city center.

Today's U-2 Fleet
9/14/2014
The end of U-2 production in 1989 marked the beginning of a host of evolutionary upgrades.

U-2 Factoids
9/13/2014
Facts, figures, and other essential details about the U-2 Dragon Lady.

Interview With U-2 Stats Keeper
9/12/2014
Reliability maintainability, and supportability lead engineer, tracks statistics for the U-2 program.

U-2 Life Support In Palmdale
9/8/2014
Mark Schroeder has had the responsibility of prepping, maintaining, testing, and inspecting survival equipment for U-2 missions.

U-2 Early History
2/15/2002
The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, though designed and developed in great secrecy in the 1950s, has somehow never fully emerged from the shadows even though it has outlasted one successor, the SR-71 Blackbird.

View All News