Printable View
Hello everybody and greetings from Ireland
A few of us are flying to Orlando on November 15th and will be driving down to Miami the next day. We will be spending a week in the area and would love if anyone could give some info on any of the other airfields in the general area. We are mainly interested in civil airliners but would also like to see any stored aircraft or military in the general area.
Any information would be greatfully received
Many thanks.
Eric
This should have about all you need to know
http://www.nycaviation.com/2014/04/t.../#.VEPSH_ldWk8
and http://www.nycaviation.com/spotting-...otting-guides/
In addition to what's in the article above, Opa Locka has loads of stored and a small Coast Guard detachment. You can generally roam the field with little interference, but the neighborhood surrounding the airport is not great, so don't linger in the area.
Fort Lauderdale Executive has lots and lots of biz, some stored, mostly active, and it's a common place for GA craft heading to or from South America. There's a designated viewing area, but if you want to see what's there, you're going to have to poke around in every driveway, and the place is a maze.
Kendall-Tamiami is a bit out of the way, but it's reported to have a bunch of stored Jetstreams.
One of the Goodyear blimps is based at Pompano Beach, but it's usually on its way to or from a football game at this time of year.
The only place that I know of that's unfriendly down there is Boca Raton, but if you work quickly and keep your head down, you should be able to log most of what's there. There's an OK amount of biz.
Thank you guys.
On the journey down to Miami, would it be worthwhile calling in to any of the following?
Titusville,Melbourne, Vero Beach,Fort Pierce,Stuart, West Palm Beach, Pompano Beach.
Many thanks
West Palm: Top biz field in South Florida. Fairly boring selection of liners. If your choice is between West Palm and spending more time at FLL, go to FLL.
Pompano: The Goodyear blimp. If you're there Thursday-Monday, it's almost guaranteed to be away. If it's one of the other days, it might be there, but the hangar might be closed. Otherwise, lots of light aircraft. It's 3 minutes off of I-95 at Atlantic, and maybe 10 minutes from Executive, so what's the harm? Just beware, a good circuit at Executive will take 60-90 minutes, so account for that in your time planning.
Can't vouch for any of the other fields. My advice would be to take a look at the aerial to see what's based and how busy the FBOs are, and then look them up on Flightaware to see what moves on a regular basis.
b707fan, is this your first Miami trip? Not many stored airliners anymore unfortunately on the S. Florida airfields. FLL Executive might have the most stored airframes nowadays, but almost all are small private aircraft, once in a while a turboprop airliner or two might be there. Opa Locka used to be paradise, but the number of stored airliners now is very small compared to how it was - but if you've never been to the area before the few airliners at OPF are interesting including the lovely N88ZL (b707 fan here too!). Unfortunately for me (since i don't care about bizjets or private stuff) to me OPF has become really boring because that's what OPF is mostly about now, an Executive airport.
Tamiami is very slow and it's harder to photograph from inside unless one asks to get in the ramp and even then it's mostly light private aircraft and Cessnas from the flight schools. There's two or three stored turboprops at Tamiami, Jetstream 41s and 31 in not that great of a shape plus a Venezuelan registered An26 and An28. Miami International sometimes gets C-130s from foreign air forces and USAF C-17s, otherwise the only place to see military around here would be Homestead AFB (never been there).
I'm also interested in what airliners are stored in Ireland, feel free to send me a PM if you like. If you are looking for airliners i wouldn't even bother stopping anywhere until you reach FLL, WPB is like FLL but less traffic. There used to be 2 or 3 DC-3s based at WPB for Missionary relief flights but i don't believe they're there anymore but i haven't been in a while, so I'm not sure.