Airport Spotting Blog

Following in the success of Airport Spotting Guides Europe, Matt Falcus has produced a new book, this time entitled Airport Spotting Guides USA.

The book boasts guides to 67 airports, each with a detailed map of spotting locations, plus descriptions and directions. For each airport, a run down of airlines, radio frequencies, contact details, hotels with views and other statistic are included.

Additionally, nearby attractions are listed for each airport, which includes nearby airports, museums and aviation-themed attractions.

Matt states: “The Europe book has been very well received, and this was the natural progression for the series.” He adds “America is very popular with European spotters who love to visit the storage airports and the big hubs like Memphis and Atlanta. This book has it all in a handy size, you shouldn’t got without it.”

The book is published through Destinworld Publishing Ltd, and available from early April from all good aviation stockists, plus sites such as Amazon.

It’s that time again - some spotters have been arrested for acting ’suspiciously’ and a newspaper has printed the story (click to read it).

Two spotters in India had booked into the Radisson New Delhi, requesting a room overlooking the airport. When the pair didn’t emerge from their room for 24 hours, hotel staff got suspicious and called the police, who promptly arrested them.

The spotters were found with binoculars, laptop containing Google maps of the airport, cameras, and an electronic ‘gadget’ which can track individual movements of aircraft.

Now, to all of the fellow spotters out there, we know these tools as part and parcel of the hobby. You take binoculars to note registrations, cameras to photograph aircraft, maps to find the best spotting locations, and an SBS (read, electronic ‘gadget’ for tracking aircraft movements) to monitor which aircraft are coming and going - particularly at night when you can’t see the registrations.

And as for not emerging for 24 hours - well, when you find a good, comfortable room with a great view of the aircraft, then why would you leave before you had to?

So, is this going to start a whole new wave of suspicion and unneccessary arrests of innocent people enjoying their hobby - just because of the jittery nature of air travel these days? Will this make you think again about booking your favourite plane-spotting hotel for a future trip?

Jaunted have posted another great report of where to spot - this time a beach alongside Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport is the perfect location for watching the action, as heavies literally roll by your beach towel!

Take a Dip at This Beach Down Under for the Best Plane Spotting || Jaunted

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If you’re planning on spending any time spotting at Tokyo Narita, you might want to consider the information below on the best spotting hotels and which rooms work.

Holiday Inn
This is fairly expensive, but has some views. Room 1250 is the best, giving you a view of everything on the western runway. If aircraft are landing to the west then you can poll everything that taxis to the end of the runway. If you have a SBS box you get everything landing and departing.

You can also see everything that takes off on the other runway and visa versa if they are landing in the other direction, but aircraft are very high by the time they are visible.

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/1/en/hotel/narja?rpb=hotel&crUrl=/h/d/pc/1/en/hotelsearchresults

Holiday Inn
Tobu Narita
320-1 Tokko
Chiba
Narita
Chiba
286-0106

The Rest House
A basic, cheap hotel with a few rooms that have very limited views. You can see about 60% of the cargo ramp and if they are taking off to the west then stuff taxying off to the runway on the North only.

You can walk to T1 from here as it’s only 5 minutes away. There are plenty of places to eat in both terminals. T1 is good for Ti and there is a free shuttle to T2 and T2 has two observation decks that allow you to see most of the stuff around T2

http://www.apo-resthouse.com/english/index.html

Rest House Hotel
Narita International Airport
Narita City
Chiba-Pref
Japan
282-0011
yoyaku@apo-resthouse.com

Nikko Winds Hotel
A great spotting hotel at Narita. Room 910 is noted as having the best views of the action on the ground. It also has a restaurant on the top floor with great views of the airport.

http://www.jalhotels.com/domestic/kanto/winds/

560 Tokko
Narita-shi
Chiba 286-0106
Apan

With a new year approaching, we’re looking for your suggestions on the must-have gadgets and items for the aviation spotter.

What pair of binoculars or pole has shown the most promise and reliability from the airport hotel or perimeter fence?

Are you using SBS or Radarbox?

Which books are perfect companions for your trips, or ideal for keeping track of the aircraft you’ve seen?

And finally, which camera gets your shots on Airliners.net every time?

We’ll take some of the better gadgets and give them a full feature in future posts here on the blog, so you can read all about them. We’ll also be featuring reviews of new items as and when we hear of them so you can be best informed.