Ford vs. Chevy
Gibson vs. Fender
Puffed vs. Crunchy (Cheetos I'm referring to, of course).
Sadly the aviation spotter community isn't immune from this. I've spoken in the past with photographers who "only" track military aircraft as well as an equal number who look at the "drab colored pointy nose" aircraft with an equal amount of disdain.
Personally, I don't understand it. For me, the sight of anything weighing anywhere from a few hundred pounds (think of a 1,000 pound Super Cub) to several hundred thousand pounds (think of a C-5 Galaxy at max. ramp weight of 840,000 lbs.) banking and soaring like some mighty mechanical bird is utterly mesmerizing. I have stood in the approach lights at Anchorage's Ted Stevens Airport with MD-11s and 747s skimming above me and thinking there was no better place in the world to be. At that moment. I've stood in the Welsh hills with front line RAF fighters screaming past below my position at the speed of heat and thinking there was no better place in the world to be. At that moment.
Wednesday I was able to gather with some of the other members of the Arizona Aviation Photographers group in Tucson for a day of spotting aircraft. For some reason the AZ ANG / UAEAF folks weren't flying but there were some interesting Civilian jets come in: a Mexico registered Raytheon Hawker 800XP that's not been documented much (apparently), a Canadair Regional Jet that has been pulled from storage to fly with Mesa Airlines with a plain-Jane white paint scheme and (perhaps because of all the whining we do about seeing only Sheldon the turtle) a Frontier Airbus A318 with Benny the grizzly on the tail. There was no better place in the world to be. At that moment.
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