Welcome to the DeltaVA Pilots!

I've gotten quite a few hits from your site related to a few people that are coming to Las Vegas and have an interest in plane spotting.I'm flattered that my little 'ole blog was mentioned as a reference...Thank You! I must say I'm far from an expert on plane spotting in Vegas, but I'm happy to share what I can.

On a typical day, and it can change from hour to hour, most traffic will be landing on 25L and taking off from 25R. Sunset Boulevard is a good choice for plane spotting. There are many little strip malls on the south side of Sunset Blvd to park and take photographs. There is also a designated plane spotting area on the north side of Sunset Blvd east of Paradise Rd. They even broadcast on 101 on the FM dial so you can listen in also.

The best spot though, and it will soon be gone, is along the Fed Ex Cargo building on along that is near Rnwy 25R. It elevates you above the fence so you are looking slightly down on the runway. Here are some pics from that position:
From here you can also hear the radio transmissions. I'm usually there on the weekends and the Fedex Building is more or less closed with the occasional FedEx employee coming or going. They have never said a word to me. Not sure what its like during the week though.

Also anywhere along Eastern, which borders McCarren to the east, is a good spot also. I also like Sunset Park that is located on Eastern north of Sunset Blvd. If you head north on Eastern from Sunset Blvd and go past the ball diamonds and turn right into the first entrance you will find many places there.

Although possible to shoot from Tropicana, it is difficult because of limited parking.

If you want to see the Janet flights you can go from the south end of the strip near Russel and Las Vegas Blvd and head north. Turn right on Diablo at the McDonalds and follow it until it ends and turn left. There on your right will be the B727 Janet aircraft. There will likely also be a DOE guard watching you also. I have parked ton the left side of the street, right across the street from the guard, and never been bothered, only watched! there is also good general plane spotting here also.


Also on the strip, south of Russel Rd. you can occasionally see military aircraft parked. I've seen F-18 to Cobra helicopters parked there. It is, from what I'm told, used as overflow for Nellis.

As far as Nellis goes, the weekend traffic has been rather limited in my experience. The two best spots I've found are on Cheyenne Rd west of Nellis Blvd from which you can see the runway....kind of, but can get a good shot of the planes taking off. And on Las Vegas Blvd near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. At the speedway I normally have parked right at the entrance to the speedway with no problems as it is usually closed. During the week it is common to see flights of 4-6 A-10s, 8-10 F-16/F15s, AWACS, Tankers, C-17s. You can occasionally also see forign Tornados and other aircraft. Seems to be slim picking on the weekends though.

Jersey Girl

Above you can see Jersey Girl racked
and stacked third in line for landing on
runway 25L.

Here she is just about at the theshhold for 25L.

FIRE!

Today I wnet to McCarran to try to
photograph "Jersey Girl". Jersey Girl is
an Atlantic_Virgin Boeing 747-400 that
flies more or less daily as Virgin Flight 43
between Gatwick U.K.(EGKK) and
Las Vegas(KLAS). Somewhere beyond the Allegiant
Aircraft is a rather large fire. Never did figure out
what it was though. I did get some pics of Jersey Girl thoguh that I
will post next.

Nevada One

This is a photo of Nevada One. A Southwest
Airlines Boeing 737 just after taking off
from RNY 1. Because of the weather that
day, most flights were taking off on these
runways. I had positioned myself on a dirt
parking lot just west of the airport. This also
placed me about 100 feet from the guard
shack at the entrance to the Dept of Energy
airport facility. There was also a guy about 300
yards away from me with a big huge video camera
on a tripod filming planes taking off and landing.
I took a little while for me to realize that I was being watched,
but sure enough the guards from the DOE facility were
spying on me with binoculars.

(If you do not know the signifigance of this place let me explain:
This is where the government operates
flights to a place called Area 51.)

Along with the videographer
too I assume. The guards were trying at first to be
very conspicuos, standing in the middle of
the entrance to the DOE facility bearing down on me with
the binoculars. Then they tried the sneaky approach
and would pop their heads up around corners or up
from bushes near the shack. I opted not to photograph the guards.
I wish I would have now. I then saw the guard standing,
binoculars in one hand starring at me, phone in another.
Shortly after that I saw the first LVMPD car in my mirror.
Then another. The two cops raced down the road I was on, past me.
The videographer, by this point had left, or so I thought. He had really only
moved to another spot. When they got to where the videographer was,
they pulled off the road into the dirt parking lot I was in, and began
to talk to each other. You know how they do. Driver's door to driver's door.
Then the 3rd LVMPD car showed up. They all drove off, seemingly going
around the block several times. Not one of them even looked at me
the whole time. Thats how you know they are watching you....hahahah.
Then they all dissapeared. Shortly after that I left. When I turned the corner
I saw the videographer pulled over by two LVMPD cars. Apparently where he decided to
park this time was not legal. They never did stop or talk to me so I'll be back next Saturday...
Check here for pics of the guards spying on me....lol.

More plane spotting

This is n F-16 at McCarran. You usually don't see them there, but for some reason he was. I waited for him to take off, but he didn't until I was out of position to photograph it. I heard him though. No mistaking him for a civillian jet!

This is a cool Alaskan Airlines plane I saw earlier in the day.

Karen's Home!

This is Karen's flight returning her to Las Vegas, and to me! Me and the dogs went and listened to her flight come in and watched as it landed. The weather that day was kind of windy and I had seen earlier planes make "missed approaches" so I was happy to see her make it on the first try.

McCarran

Some of the different airlines at McCarran. This is Alaskan Airlines Boeing 737.
This Delta Boeing 767 is just soooo big I had to snap a picture.
This is also a Boeing 767 "Thomas Cook Condor".
Other than this being a Boeing 737-NG, I can't say anymore than that. Although it has Asian writting on the back it is a US registered plane. Unfortunately the FAA web site does not list it's tail number in the database.

Crosswinds

I'm not the only one to enjoy plane spotting at McCarran. You can also see the scissors lift that just seemed to be sitting there in the middle of the parking lot. I wanted to climb on it so that I wouldn't have to shoot pictures through the fence. I figured that it may not be a good idea though. Most of my aircraft pictures are taken through a fence, but if you set your camera settings correctly you can make the fence "dissapear". Actually it just get so out of focus that it cannot be seen in the picture.
These next two pictures show the planes on final approach. They look like they are going to fly right over me, or that I am standing on the runway. Actually they are flying crooked to compensate for a very stron crosswind today.
They are actually flying about 6-8 degrees(my guess) left of the cener of the runway. They are not actually flying where they are pointed.
This monster is a Delta Boeing 767.

More Spttong at McCarran

The Virgin Atlantic 747-400 named "Barbarella". You can see all of the dust sucked up by the vortex created by this massive plane.
Can't say I've ever heard of Max Jet before. This is a Boeing 767 series. Quite a large plane.
The little baby. This is a Skywest Embraer 120.
And of course the ubiquitous Airbus 319 or 320. Hard to tell the difference.

No trip

is complete without a bit of plane spotting at McCarran.

The Boeing 767

Not the biggest plane by far, but it certainly dwarfs the Boeing 737. This is a Delta Boeing 767.

More plane spotting

More plane spotting this morning. I found a new spot that gives you a good view of the runways and as an added bonus, the background is mostly the mountains. This makes for some good picture I think.

Boeing 747-SP

This is a Boeing 747-SP sitting at McCarran. It has been here for a few days now. Essentially it is a shortened version of a passenger 747 that is used to haul cargo. I'm not sure where it is registered from, other than to say that it has what I believe to be a European registration. It is a fairly rare aircraft to see though.

Plane Spotting...

Plane spotting in Vegas is much different than in Detroit at Detroit Metro Airport(KDTW). In Detroit you always had to be weary of encounters with law enforcement, who did not particularly care for people who engaged in plane spotting/photographing. I had a few encounters with the Detroit Metro Airport Police. Most were non events, but on one occasion the officer threatened to turn me in to the FBI, because taking photographs of aircraft is, well, terrorist like. I was parked on a dead end street that did not have no parking signs on it. The cross street, Eureka, did have no parking signs. He pointed to them and said I was not allowed to park on the street I was on. I pointed out to him that the no parking sign he just pointed to were not on the street I was parked on. In fact, the street I was parked on had no signs what-so-ever. I told him I would leave, but that I would be back because what I was doing was legal, and that while he had the right/duty to investigate if he thought I was suspicious, he did so and should have left me alone after that. It was at that point he said he would turn it over to the FBI. He didn't like it when I told him "Go ahead, I'm not afraid of them either because what I'm doing is totally legal." I would also like to point out that I was never anything but totally polite and respectful to the officer. He was also polite to me, he just did not like my answers. Here are some of the shots I got at Detroit Metro:

If you like you can see even more here.

Contrast that with plane spotting in Las Vegas, specifically at McCarran International Airport(KLAS). Here the provide you with a place to park, adjacent to runway 25L as seen below:

In addition, if you tune your car radio to 101.1 FM, they even let you listen to the tower and aircraft as they communicate with each other.

Here are some shots from KLAS:

You can view more here.

Technorati Tags: Airplanes, Airports, plane spotting, KLAS, KDTW, McCarran International Airport, Detroit Metro Airport