Jaunted blog recently ran an interesting piece on New York’s Citi Field stadium, where the Mets play their baseball games. Whilst those in the highest seats have usually paid the least for them, and suffer the long climb and distant views of the game, there is actually the benefit of having a view of arrivals at La Guardia Airport. Planes will also depart right over the stadium.

Take a look at the blog post here for an interesting picture of what you can see.
http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/23/132132/122/travel/Watch+For+Fly+Balls+And+Landing+Planes+At+NY%27s+Citi+Field

Plane Spotting Hotels website has a nice section on hotels at New York JFK for those wanting spotting views at the airport.

The Holiday Inn and Ramada Plaza hotels are the best options.

The Holiday Inn has distant, but good, views – particuarly for those with telescope poles. Having a SBS is also definitely useful here! Rooms that don’t face JFK have distant views of La Guardia airport, which is also useful if you have a SBS.

From the Ramada, rooms have views of aircraft when landing on runway 13L, but there’s also a grassy bank area a short walk from the hotel with much better views.

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates lately. I’ve been off touring South America – airport reports to follow soon!

Anyway, here’s a note about the Marriott Hotel at Philadelphia Airport. If you’re at the airport spotting, then this is probably the best choice for you.

The Marriott has great views over the airport and movements on all of the runways and a lot of the aprons. Since the hotel is tall, you’re better off going for rooms on floor 10 and above to get the best views.

A recent report (credit Bob Smith) states that the following rooms are the best: 1407-1419, 1429-1439. All of these rooms have views of the main runways, but the latter ones look mainly towards the UPS apron.

This small airport is located to the north of Los Angeles LAX, and a mile or two inland from the famous pier and seafront in Santa Monica.

The airport handles mainly GA and biz movements, although it is very much hemmed in by buildings and the road network, so it’s quite small.

At any time you can expect to see a large number of light aircraft, and a few biz jets, plus a historic DC-3 N242SM mounted on a pole.

Parking at the playground car park on Airport Avenue, you can walk down the road picking off the aircraft you see parked about.

The Typhoon Restaurant on Douglas Loop Road has a panoramic terrace. Both are open for spotters to look over the biz jet ramps, which is an excellent spot for photography.

Las Vegas McCarran’s runway 07R/25L has reopened following resurfacing work. The closure has made spotting quite difficult at the airport as this runway offers the best opportunities along Sunset Road.

Denver is the largest airport in Colorado, and one of the busiest in the USA. It plays host to a large number of movements by Frontier and United Airlines. It also has services from all other main US airlines, and a number of international airlines.

Denver Airport has three terminals – A, B and C

Terminal A hosts Frontier’s regional fleet, operated by Lynx, and is the best terminal for spotting. Inside, walk to the end of the terminal where there are large glass windows. This overlooks the commuter aircraft, and across to the United gates. This is the best spot for covering most movements, although the airport is so big and has so many runways that it is impossible to cover everything.

Terminals B and C also both have large windows at their gates, which offer views of aircraft moving around.

There are few accessible views from around the perimeter due to a lack of public roads.

Anyone know of any other good spots? Please comment.

Derek Oldham has provided this excellent report on spotting at Memphis – a haven for FedEx and Northwest (soon to be Delta) jets.

I stayed in the Radisson at the airport. Contrary to what somebody said, I found the reception staff very helpful. I was given a room at the back overlooking the taxiway, but the view of the runway threshold was blocked by part of the hotel kitchen. I decided Room 373 looked the most promising and luckily it was free. The receptionist warned me it would be noisy (bless her!) and it was – NWA DC 9s and FedEx 727s actually shook the building! My advice would be to go for the corridor 351 – 373 (all odd numbers). Probably the same numbers on floor 2 would be good enough, but you will be at ground level and looking up at the taxiway. Floor 2 is the outward looking ground level because the inward facing part of the hotel has a floor 1 as well. Before 2 of you go booking room 373, I was on my own and therefore had no problem with the Queen bed! All these rooms lookonto the taxiway linking FedEx to RW 18R, and the higher the number, then the more chance you have of seeing the other aircraft taxying out from the terminal for take-off. At night you will only get the FedEx that taxy past – there is not enough light for the others – and even for the FedEx you will have to go outside (the fire escape at the end of the corridor is ideal). I don’t think any of the other rooms will have much of a view, but at the front you may have distant views of RWs 18C & L.

I had e-mailed the police beforehand about spotting at Memphis. (Google “Memphis Airport Police” and go to “Contact Us”) – I got an almost instant reply from the chief with a phone number to ring when I got there.
I arrived late afternoon Friday and saw some departures from the room, followed by a constant stream of arrivals from 2230 until I gave up at 0030. From what I heard there were a good few departures in the middle of the night.
I did Graceland Saturday morning and then phoned the police in the afternoon, was told they had my details and I spent the afternoon on the terminal car park roof with no problems at all. (It is walking distance from the Radisson.) The busy period was about 1415 to 1630 – about 50 FedEx departures and 60 or so others – mainly Northwest of course. When it went quiet, I drove around the north of the airfield and got most of the remaining FedEx from the main roads. Leave the terminal area on Winchester East, turn left on Tchulahoma and left again on Democrat. I had read elsewhere about other roads around here with views, but they have clearly been eaten up by the FedEx complex and are no more. Also the National Guard complex is now completely shut down and they have what appears to be a new complex close to the RW 36R threshold. If you now retrace your route, when you get back on Winchester, you are on the correct side of the road to turn into the Wilson Air Center and Signature FBOs where you can easily read off anything there. Coming out of Wilson you are straight across from anything on the UPS ramp.

On Sunday afternoon there were 75 Fedex departures between 1455 and 1645 with one or 2 after that. 45 used RW 18R, 4 on 18C and 26 on 18 R, so it is definitely worth going to the car park and not staying in the hotel. I saw 20 that I hadn’t seen on the Saturday. Again I telephoned the police and was left alone all afternoon – there are plenty of patrols who drive around and would have seen me up there, so contacting them is definitely worth the effort.

What can be seen at Memphis then? Loads of Northwest (some are now appearing in Delta colours) and Northwest Airlink, a few US Airways Connect, American, Continental Express a few Biz (I was there at the
weekend – maybe more during the week?) and a few twins and lights. I saw plenty of FedEx DC-10s, lots of A300s and A310s, quite a few 727s and MD-11s and a handful of 757s.

In this time of global economic downturn, business for the storage boneyards for aircraft in the USA is booming. More and more airlines are parking aircraft, with levels not seen since the year following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Read this interesting article about Victorville, CA.

Obviously this has benefits for the spotter. Lots of older aircraft all parked up in one place. Makes playing catch-up very easy!

Keishi Nukina recently posted a great overview of the main Washington DC area airports from a spotting perspective, following his recent visit. If you’re planning on heading there, it makes great sense to give this a read:

WASHINGTON – NATIONAL
Traffic consisting of mostly domestic narrowbodies with a couple of Air Canada Jazz mixed in. For spotting, there is an exibit hall between terminal A and B, from where you can see all movements and in the afternoon you can take nice photographs there as well.

WASHINGTON – DULLES
Spent there one day, spotting from the parking lot of the museum and Daily Garage 2, both are excelent for photos, but you will miss a couple of movements from both. Notable international traffic include Qatar Airways, Saudi and SAA.

BALTIMORE – WASHINGTON
A couple of movements from each major airline from the US, with a lot, and I mean a lot of Southwest and AirTran aircraft. If youre in the area, definitely an airport that is worth a visit for a half day or a full day. You can spot all day from the observation room located inside terminal without being bothered, but the place is not the best for photography due to being backlit almost all day.

COLLAGE PARK AIRFIELD
If youre going to Baltimore by public transport, you will most likely be on the green metro line to Greenbelt. After the University of Maryland stop sit on the right and get your camera ready. Right after the train leaves the station, there is that airfield with a couple of light aircraft parked outside, so you will be able to get a couple of new light frames by reading them off the photos you take. Was a nice surprise for me. Nothing for those who dont collect light aircraft.

The ban on spotting from the parking garage at Orlando MCO airport in Florida has now been lifted by the Director of Security.

The airport’s website will soon be updated with such details. They request that spotters fill out a Use of Facilities form from the security offices during normal business hours (not in advance), along with copies of your passport/driving license.

This is great news for spotters visiting Orlando. The security measures are worthwhile for the hassle-free access it gives.