It is one thing to smell jet fuel (which we did), but we also enjoyed the smell of burning rubber after each aircraft touched down. Most times I will use my longer lens when spotting at airports, but we were so close that I often had to swap out for my shorter one… and that is not a bad thing. I am by no means a professional photographer (I use auto mode, like a noob), but Francis is. So, here are some amazing photos, most taken by Francis, that we took during our little adventure…
Living in the greater Seattle area has its advantages. Being able to go pretty much any time and drive around Paine Field Airport (KPAE) is for sure one of them. Plus, if you book yourself a night at the Hilton Garden Inn, you are very likely to get a room that looks over the airport. Heck, you can even spot from your room and/or car and have yourself a bit of an AvGeek hootenanny. I recently did just that and my pal Jeremy joined me. Although this story might mostly be photos, I am likely to add a snarky comment here or there.
I decided to do a little blast from the past and use my “real” DSLR camera instead of my iPhone. It is amazing for the close-ups, but I think I might need a refresher course. Jeremy ended up taking a few of the photos, but I was too lazy to label them properly. Just assume if one looks like someone with talent took the picture, it was him. Here we go…
I’ve always loved the plane spotting at New York’s JFK International Airport. A lot of America’s other biggest airports are dominated by hub operations from individual airlines, like Delta @ Atlanta, American @ DFW, United at nearby Newark. But JFK feels more like the United Nations of airports, with a variety of airlines from tons of countries. Here’s a quick video of a loop between some of the terminals at JFK.
If you want another way to virtually travel to New York JFK, check out our inside look at the airport’s new and VERY avgeek-friendly TWA Hotel, which we pass by in the video above. The plane spotting from the hotel’s roof is AMAZING.
TPA Airport’s CEO Joe Lopano, an AvGeek!. – Photo: Ashley Iaccarino for Tampa Airport
How AvGeek-friendly is your airport? In many areas, it seems a lot more than in prior years. All across the U.S., the trend of airports opening up, being more engaging, and accommodating aviation fans continues in favor of the enthusiasts. This airport community engagement behavior is most deserving of praise, as there still remain some airports clinging to draconian, misguided harshness.
Two airports, Louisville (SDF) and Tampa (TPA), have recently caught my eye with their own outreach programs. They are doing great work, work that lays the foundation for others to adopt, and roll out on their own terms. At the end of the day, a safe airport is one with an engaged and well-informed general public. These airports get it. Does yours?
JetTip makes it easy to get notified when unusual aircraft are scheduled to visit your local airport. Sure, my avgeek friends *might* have told me about this MD-80F that visited KBFI last month, but it’s also nice to be self-sufficient.
There are lots of online aviation tracking and spotting tools available to AvGeeks and folks with a legitimate business concern for tracking aircraft.
JetTip is a new entry into the spotting category, created by Nick Benson. The web app is a one-trick pony, but it does that trick really well. Once a user is logged in (and paid up, natch; it’s not free, the service costs $5/month), they’re able to select the airports they’re interested in, choose from a variety of notification options for when interesting aircraft have filed for either arrival or departure, and away you go.
The app is web-based, which means there’s not a phone-specific app. On iOS, for example, I just bookmarked the site by saving a link to the home screen, and it simply launches the site in my default browser. Easy.
A good friend was a beta tester for this app and became quite a fan. That made me curious about it, so I contacted the developer to ask for a review and I was given free access. I wasn’t actually sure that it would impress me enough to end up with a story, but it turns out that I was quite wrong about that.
I’ve been using the app for a few months now, both locally and while traveling. Here are my observations.