"Japan Navy 7"

Heard this guy on the freq. yesterday heading up the West coast. Transited Victoria BC zone at low level then handed off to Comox. I was too far away to see and there was partial obscuration, but being so low I assume he had come from Whidbey NAS on the way to Alaska for fuel.

Any thoughts ? What do the Japanese Navy have that would be in the US, and why ? P-3 perhaps.

Training.

Wikipedia has a listing of what the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force uses…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Mari … ense_Force

Mostly P-3s…back in my Navy days, they flew in a squadron of P2V’s to Barber’s Point in Hawaii (1979 or so). That was a cool sight…

There’s a flotilla of Japanese ships currently on an American tour (Tampa today: tampasdowntown.com/tampa-eve … 8&eid=2152 ) so it might have been a support mission. Probably a P-3 as you say.