You might be an aircraft spotter if...
 

You possess any 3 out of the following 5 items

1. Open toed sandals
2. Thermos Flask
3. Cagoule/Anorak
4. Large telephoto lens
5. Tupperware sandwich box

6. A step-ladder.
7. Totally bored bird sat in car.

A Step Ladder.

I kid you not - on arrivals day at Waddington Air Show a couple of years ago, Police removed a spotter from the middle of the A15 where he was perched on top of his step ladder taking photographs of aircraft directly down the runway.

And he could not see why this was wrong......

Wen

Surely the aircraft are not THAT low on short finals :confused:

One assumes, since this is an aircraft spotter, said bird is his mother.

Has an access pass for all areas round his neck and climbs over the fence complete with Camera's x 3 large lens x 2 and one of those things that you mount the lot on and hold into your Shoulder like a Rifle to cross the runway. I kid you not witnessed this last year at Kemble Air Day:confused:
CS

8 : an ill fitting growbag with a multitude of patches sewn on (mostly USN Vietnam sqns from Gulf of Tonkin or where-ever)

9 : a baseball cap with pin badges all over it

I can almost see the attraction of trying to get a good photo but it's the whole collecting serial numbers thing that borders on mental illness. Apparently the following count as seeing the aircraft and ticking it off in your book.

1. Seeing any part of the airframe by peeking through a crack in the hangar doors.
2. Spotting an aircraft at high level with your telescope then ringing around your mates to find out the number.
3. Hiring an aircraft to fly you over Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona equipped with a list of serial numbers counts as seeing them all.
http://wiki.rpg.net/images/0/07/MPos...ayneDibley.jpg

You can identify Mod states and versions of Aircraft better than the engineers.

Nah, sister!!

I once aprehended someone at a RIAT acting supsiciously in the car park.

He was a coach spotter , which is even sadder than collecting a/c reg numbers...

Tractor spotter trumps coach spotter every time. I got real good at tractor spotting - money in it.

Try asking the fence at the end of the A15 how low the French aircraft was

Y_G

Changed a number on a Chinny we had at RIAT once, stood back and watched the spotters going nuts as it wasn't on their lists! Nowt better than spotter baiting! :E

Wensleydale



Thanks after the police chased him from the A15 he came & plonked himself & his Ladder right in the way of everyone else's approach shots;

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...nfriday149.jpg

Someone went over & had a right go at him and asked him to move somewhere else seeing as he wasn't taking photo's at the time hence the missing camera in this shot....................

He didn't need a ladder that high for where he was then.................:ugh::ugh::ugh:

I was on the gate at the WAVE on the spotter on ladder occassion. The police demanded that we stop our visitors from leaving the official enclosure. We pointed out that this was an airfield and not a POW camp and we did not have any authority to stop them. This is what led to the loss of "pass outs" at subsequent airshow arrivals days.

I would be interested to hear any comments from the lorry drivers as they swerved around the plank on the ladder in the middle of the road.:O

I once caught a chap acting suspiciously around our antique Foden bowser one Saturday morning.
When I enquired what he was up to, it transpired he was a Bowser spotter. :ooh:

He regaled me with the history of our bowser and how he collected them and that he owned a similar model to ours.

I left him to it.

They go to airshows but are never interested in what is flying, instead they stand around in groups writing down a serial number of a plane they saw somewhere else. Writing it in their book that they have now seen it at an airshow but this time it has a scratch on it... or a different marking.

They carry one camera with a big lens on one shoulder, another camera with a small lens on the other shoulder. Their cap has badges all over it. Their bag has badges all over it.
They wear chequered shirts with dodgy trousers with white or black trainers (un branded) or sandles.

My sister in law who's just turned 70 decided she needed a hobby for her twilight years so took up spotting. She's in Lincolnshire so some of you blokes may have encountered her. She doesn't collect serials, just waches the aeroplanes, wallows in the noise and then heads off to the boozer where the aircrew hang out and wallows in the banter.

They say an unserviceable aircraft has "gone tech".