One place I frequent is under the flightpath from SFO. Unfortunately, by the time they get to where I am, they are nearly directly overhead and over 5,000 feet up. I have a hard time figuring out who is who.
I searched for a site that would show aircraft from the bottom in addition to normal 3 views (front, top, side). Does anyone know of site that would have views of the bottom of the aircraft and, ideally, color schemes of the airlines that choose to paint their bottoms (e.g. United’s color scheme extends to the bottom of their aircraft).
Planes arriving to PBI make their turn over my house. I can immediatly identify a Jet Blue plane (A320) by the distinctive whine from the engines. They also have a dark blue underside on all their A320’s. Thats all I can offer you as far as underside paint schemes.
I don’t know of a site. I have an old book somewhere that shows a blueprint type drawing of airliners. Also I have a Boeing book with similar drawings.
I can usually tell what most planes are at cruise. I see european flights heading for California, alot of arrivals going into Seattle and the occasional SWA 737 between GEG and PDX. SWA is easy because of their colors. I just use a process of elimination to figure out what they are. I might have picked up some of it by listening to my scanner and then looking for the plane as it went over. Now if I’m not sure, I look them up on FA.
Unfortunately, where I see them, photography is frowned upon (see my profile).
I do know that many of them are United due to the blue bottoms and I can identify the American because of the polished aluminum and the fact that they are MD80s.
I spend my winters in Florida [Snowbird, get it?] about 2.6SM west of the threshold of KFLL’s runway 9L. Where I live is about 1500 Ft from that runway’s axis. Most of the time, the runway in use is 9L, therefore we are under the approach route at approximately an 11 o’clock angle. Someone scorching him/herself in the sun there will witness at least a couple of hundred approaches per day.
Most approaches are right on the axis, but a few will fly right over us. I got to admit, identifying aircraft from the bottom using paint schemes as reference can be a bit tricky.
-Some airlines like Southwest, US Air, Delta, Air Canada, to name a few, are in a long term program to change liveries on their aircraft.
-Star Alliance partners each have a few aircraft painted in Star Alliance livery, with the specific airline name written in smaller characters somewhere towards the front of the plane.
-Some airlines have special-themed liveries on one or a few aircraft (Southwest’s Texas One , Sea World or Air Canada’s Make-a-Wish foundation etc…)
KFLL is a great place for plane spotting, there is a parking lot near the 9L with a speaker system set up so we can hear the ATC. It didn’t take me too long to learn that THAT is the place they want us to be! One afternoon, when I biked over there, I went on the stretch of the Airport Perimeter road [public rd, btw] between I-95 and runway 9L. I stopped right under the approach route, with the intention of taking pics of the undercarriages of the 3 planes I could see on approach. Within minutes, a Broward Sherriff’s car pulled up and “politely” told me to either use the designated area or face the consequences.
I ought to be down there by the middle of November, so if no “Aircraft from Bottom” topic is started by then, I’ll start one with pics.
Just busy…When I haven’t been sleeping (what’s that?), eating, or working, I’ve been…well, busy. Kids in school, working lots, horse shows winding down (Thank God); my life is a whole lot of nothing…and everything.
Oh yeah, and TRYING to follow my college football (Go Bucks!!), especially now that my Indians didn’t make it to the World Series …at least we beat the “Sawx” three times I guess…I’ve checked in at least once or twice a week, but I haven’t had nearly as much time to reply and follow up the discussions.
Kids, work, school, horse shows, eating, sleeping, and THEN FlightAware?
You gotta get your priorities straight.
You can easily combine eating and FlightAware, work and FlightAware, and FlightAware on the can.
Peculiar thing, my camera time (That I keep within 1 minute from GPS time) shows 13:55. The DH8C was about half a minute from KFLL runway 9L threshold, but the arrival log of flight BHS103 in FlightAware shows 13:46.
(It was the only DH8 landing at KFLL within an hour before or after 1400, so the wrong flight is not an explanation)
The order of my other pictures and the list of arrivals in FlightAware don’t quite correspond. I’m trying to figure that out. Any help out there please?
TMI TMI!!! 
…at least we beat the “Sawx” three times I guess…I’ve checked in at least once or twice a week, but I haven’t had nearly as much time to reply and follow up the discussions.
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