Philly PD

I was sitting on Hog Island Rd next to PHL for about 45 minutes Saturday before 2 PPD SUV's came up behind me and sort of boxed me in. I walked over to the passenger side of one of them and told them I was planespotting. One cop said "somebody driving by called in a report of someone with a scanner and a telescope". Expecting the usual, I said "do you want to see my license" and the one cop was like "yeah if you have it on you". I handed him my DL and my card and he was like "oh, I thought you had a planespotting license" and I said "no I was expecting you to ask for some ID, there is no such thing as a spotting license". They were both totally cool, even apologizing for "bothering" me. Then one of the guys said he bought himself a digital camera recently and was amazed at how quickly he took around 200 shots while patrolling the ramp. Seizing what I thought was an opportunity, I said 'hey, you guys have the best access in the world, anytime you can give someone a ride along, please call the number on my card." They both laughed and said "enjoy the rest of your day" and took off. Oh well at least I tried. Probably the smoothest encounter I've ever had with LEO's.

Forget "Bigmos"; from now on my Sigma 150-500 is known as the "telescope". I love it!:biggrin:

PPD is usually cool at PHL.. i was spotting there back in 2009, just chillin on the tracks near rwy 9R, i must have seen a few squad cars come by, wave but again ID saves the day..

What a brilliant idea............a plane spotting license! I guess you must have some astronomical shots with your telescope. All in all sounds like you had a pleasant exchange.

Well done, a little cooperation goes a long way.

The PPD seemed cool as hell when I was in town back in Sept. They usually just drove by and waved. The only time they stopped was when an older gentleman had stopped and was talking to me and he was parked on the airport side of the road. They simply said that he had to move his car to the opposite side of the street and they took off. I think they were more worried about the 50-100 people down the road on their ATVs.

Yep; Philly PD is fine as long as you're on the non-airport side of the road. This attitude, by the way, is largely thanks to the efforts of a few locals (PK and others) who developed a good rapport with PPD and demonstrated to the Captain in the area that guys watching airplanes weren't a threat.