Spotting At MAN and LCY

Comet · Post by **Comet** » 03 Aug 2003, 15:11

In my opinion, MAN and LCY are superb for spotting and photography/video. In Terminal 1 at MAN, there is an open cafe area which has a huge window, offering superb views of the apron, and passing aircraft which are on the way to take off or have just landed. When I was there in June, I stupidly left my video camera behind at the hotel, and missed some exceptional (from my point of view) opportunities. As I walked to the terminal from the railway station, SN Brussels landed (early), so I missed a good look at their aircraft. When I reached the cafe with the window, I was greeted by the sight of a totally unexpected visit from a VLM Fokker 50 (unexpected because it was the wrong time for the ANR flight and the wrong terminal for the LCY flight). I never found out where it was going. The Fokker was OO-VLV "States Of Guernsey", and the view of it was superb, I've never been as close to a VLM aircraft without boarding it!! It was just being prepared, and I watched the crew board, and then the passengers, and finally saw the aircraft depart. Then the SNBA flight SN2178 left. A very unusually marked Tu-154 of Balkan arrived in the early evening, and then Aer Lingus BAe 146. Also sighted a few days later was the AN-124 (in Antonov Design Bureau markings) in loading/unloading mode, with the nose wheel collapsed and the nose hinged open upwards, I was mad to miss the opportunity to photograph it.
LCY is great for filming the smaller aircraft, such as F50, Dash, ATR, Dornier 328, BAe 146 and Saab 340/2000. A long walkway is parallel to the runway, absolutely guaranteeing great take off and arrival footage. I managed to get excellent footage of a VLM Fokker 50 departing for Luxembourg last year, and narrowly missed out on the Saab 2000 (which has since been withdrawn from the airport). Also, it can be possible, if you are a departing passenger, to get superb ground level footage of your aircraft if you are at the departure gate when the aircraft arrives. The gates are at ground level, and flights are called sometimes before the aircraft arrives, so sometimes you can be lucky like I was last year with OO-VLQ as it arrived to operate the Brussels flight.

Sabena_690 · Post by **Sabena_690** » 03 Aug 2003, 16:47

I spent a whole day in the airport pub in MAN, very good over there!

VLM has a lot of flight to MAN...

Regards
Frederic

Comet · Post by **Comet** » 03 Aug 2003, 16:57

Yes they do, Frederic, but they have been very foolish (in my opinion) and decided to cut the Rotterdam and Antwerp service.
I have to say that probably the worst place for viewing and photography at MAN has to be the official viewing area. Back in 2000, the day before my first Sabena flight, I arrived at the airport to film a Sabena aircraft as it left, as a good start to my holiday video. There is wire mesh (quite high) all around the viewing area, so you have to try and keep the lens of your camera or video camera in between the wires, and it is tricky. My Sabena take off footage has alot of out of focus wire in the front as I tried to keep the focus on the aircraft, and this spoils video-ing somewhat. Heathrow was better for that sort of thing.