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".

Same person, probably.......:suspect:

At one Open Day, the engineers cooked up a good spoof for the 'little aluminium stepladder folk' :8 - a totally spurious 'Sidewinder Mod Program State' chinagraph board for their resident Hunters was left in a prominent spot on an office wall for the spotters to see......

Agreed, Pilot Pacifier!

CAMRA Member trumps Tractor and Bowser spotters.:)

Or unserviceable camera, radio, thermos flask, bicycle pump.....

You know a serious spotter when he writes the definitive work:

"Janes: All The World Aircrew".

sons who went to displays with you as children and the experience had such a lasting impact on them that at sixteen and a half they both joined the RAF.:ok:

Walking into St. Mawgan Air-Day from the car park, past the area with all the display aircraft. In a gap someone has arrange a couple of chocks, a set of steps and a hand-written sign 'Stealth Aircraft'.

Loud comment from the group in front of 'Oh, damn. It must have left early'. :hmm:

Spotting got one started ...
 

A 10-year old sees Blackburn Bothas (gotcha ???) and other fine machines flying from Squire's Gate in the early days of WW2 - buys The Aeroplane Spotter instead of comics with his pocket money, can soon "spot" most RAF and German aircraft, later does NS pilot training and some 16 years after that says "G'bye" to driving airframes with a great tour on Canberras in FEAF.
"Get 'em early" say the Jesuits, "and they stay got" (or similar ... ). And 60+ years later, he's still "got" , but don't "spot", 'cos no anorak nor no ladder and very little weight-carrying ability left. He's happy to live near a low-flying route and see C-160s, rescue and copper-choppers and the occasional triangular fast jet or two, plus new-build transports and sometimes a Beluga ...
Keeps the corpuscles circulating ...
:O

Worst spotter of the lot has to be a Telegraph pole spotter. I kid you not, there are even web sites dedicated to the poles
Or even worse the ceramic insulators that were mounted on them.

Contributers to Teleramics 2007.

And how exactly did you find that out.....:hmm:

In the early eighties outside the Queens Building near T2 there was a public viewing area, in which was a model Mustang on a plinth in recognition of Brig Gen Blair, the husband of Maureen O'Hara the film actress. It was an overcast lunchtime, drizzling and cold, and there were two chaps leaning on the wall looking at parked aircraft. Along trots a very pretty girl in a black leather skirt and jacket with a guy with professional looking cameras. Girl unzips skirt and jacket and stands beside spotters stark b*****k naked posing whilst colleague takes several photos. Spotter glances at girl standing beside him and turns back to watch aircraft. Girl waves at gawking BA Shuttle Standby pilots staring through nearby window, slips her skirt and jacket back on and trots off.

Now, those two chaps were real anoraks.

p.s. Ten minutes later PC Plod appeared looking rather frustrated.

I hope you and your mate got the numbers you wanted:E

Beag's
 

Google can be your friend as well.

Amazingly, some peoples hobby is to hit a white ball with a stick, chase after it, hit it with a stick again, until it falls down a hole. Then, can you believe this, they hit it again and again and again until it falls down more holes. Strange. DON't run down other peoples hobbies!!! At least they are passionate about SOMETHING, unlike a lot of youngsters these days. I started as a spotter when I was young, went onto glide, flypowered, and skydive. Some of these guys are top photographers, are passionate about aircraft, and jealous of the guys who get paid to fly them. It is a harmless hobby, like most hobbies, and, although not a spotter myself, I don't run it down simply because I don't do it.I never saw anything interesting about art either.

Just a thought, but could some of the above posters be described as 'spotter spotters' ??

Spotters
 

Nothing can compare to the ardent Eddie Stobart truck spotter who worked at a certain Cambridgeshire logs base a few years ago, very proud of the fact that he had spotted 85% of the company fleet!

Stealth jets
 

Mad's Dad
When we set up the next spot to our Nimrod at Mildenhall show as you described, the power set lead was (obviously) lying on the ground and the full set of steps and a big board stating "Stealth Nimrod - Remember! You didn't see it here first". People actually stopped and took photos of it, a smallish crowd gathered and the chap delegated to do the "face the taxpayers" role was confronted by a large-ish chap with small step ladder and lots of cameras and a rucksack with the words "'ere! This is a fookin joke - in't it?" Chap puts finger to his lips and shakes his head. Photo gets taken.
The Ancient Mariner

Tram and bus fleet numbers are available in spotters 'reg' books, as are the London Underground, and even more oddly the Glasgow underground trains. I used to work in a shop a long time ago selling such items, and its fair to say many of the customers had 'issues'.

Similar to telegraph pole spotting there are a select few:8, and I'm not sure who selected them, who 'do' the post box numbers:ugh: Like telegraph poles each post box has a little white number tag 'reg' on it.

In the early 90's in civvy ATC it was not unknown before CFMU and mobile phones, to file a dummy AFTN plan into the unit, from the self same unit, and the plan presented with the originator line stategically torn off. Once the 'duty binker' on the unit had clocked the unusual type/reg flightplan and phoned his mates (landline only) to come and see the movement, the plan was discretely cancelled but the hard copy left on the unit. Cue some very very annoyed binkers:oh: How we laughed:E

Had a guy at work once who had, maybe still has, a web site about mobile telephone masts. Caught him updating it at work once.

Also back in the 70's visited the Saab works making the Viggen.

Some "Spotters" in the group were happy to say they had seen an certain aircraft if all they saw was the construction number on a plate by the piece of metal waiting to be worked on, some were only a few inches square.