Heading to the airport to watch planes or wave off family members used to be a big thing all over the world.
As a result, airports often provided viewing facilities – usually atop their terminal buildings and piers – to allow you to get up close to the action and marvel at the airliners coming and going.
Undoubtedly, this provision created legions of plane spotters in days gone by.
However, today it’s quite rare to find viewing terraces at airports, removed often in the name of security, expansion of buildings, or the cost required to run them.
As a result, spotters often have to find alternative places to watch planes around airport perimeters. Our books detail these where known.
But some airports, thankfully, still provide dedicated places to go plane spotting. Here are some in the UK:
Birmingham
Photo (c) Elliott Brown
This airport provides an official viewing area in the Long Stay Car Park 5 alongside the runway 33 threshold and taxiway.
There are benches and a good view of aircraft movements through the fence, and shortly before touchdown.
Follow signs from the terminal. Open 24 hours a day, but parking charges apply if you use the car park.
Glasgow Prestwick
Not really the thriving place of unusual civil and military traffic that it used to be, Prestwick can still be interesting if you’re passing.
You can view and photograph airliners on the ground from the spectator’s galley upstairs in the passenger terminal. Photography is through glass.
London Heathrow
This giant hub airport – the busiest in Britain – has a few places where spotters congregate to watch movements. Myrtle Avenue is one of the most popular. However, the only official viewing area is the grandstand provided outside the Heathrow Academy along the Northern Perimeter Road, alongside the famous Renaissance Hotel.
You’ll see most movements from here, with the southern runway being quite distant. However, the presence of trees, fences and lampposts makes photography impossible.
London Stansted
London’s popular low-cost airport in Essex makes spotters go quite out of the way to find any official viewing locations.
. In the tiny village of Burton End turn left onto Belmer Road (use postcode CM24 8UL). After half a mile find a place to park by the side of the road, and then walk through the paths in the trees to find an official viewing area alongside the fence, opposite the runway. You have distant views of the passenger and cargo terminals, but all runway movements are easy to see, with photography through the fence.
Manchester
Probably the large UK airport which provides the most for spotters (although never quite as good as its viewing terraces of the past).
The Runway Visitor Park was built on the north side of Runway 05L/23R to replace facilities lost when the new runway was built and rooftop terrace closed. As well as a raised area to view aircraft on the runway and taxiway (which has sadly been restricted due to a new building on site), it also has an aviation shop, café, toilets and various preserved airliners – some of which are open to the public. These include a DC-10 section, British Airways Concorde, Trident, Nimrod and Avro RJX. The park is open daily (except 25/26 December) from 8am till dusk (4pm in winter, 6pm in spring/autumn, 8pm in summer). There is a car parking fee. Those on foot/bike enter free. www.runwayvisitorpark.co.uk
Airport Spotting Guides UK & Ireland
For more information on where to spot planes and photograph aircraft at over a hundred airports, airfields and military airfields across the UK and Ireland, our recently updated book is a must-have.
With maps, directions, descriptions of what you’ll see and much more.
Author
