Winter Spotting in LAX (Imperial Hill Exclusive)
PHX Spotter Member Saurabh Patel had a chance to visit LAX and wanted to share his story.
This winter I got a chance to visit the city of Angels for a week for spotting while my family was out on vacation. LAX is one of the busiest airports on the west side with an abundance of international heavy traffic. LAX has a few world famous spotting locations where people from all over the world come to enjoy spotting. The few spots are namely Inn-n-Out Burger on Sepulveda, Imperial Hill just off of Imperial Highway and the bridge over Lincoln blvd on Westchester Parkway. Inn-n-Out Burger and the Lincoln Bridge are mainly summer evening locations for photography on the north complex. Imperial Hill is the location of choice in the winter as the light is good all day from this location. This location is a city park of El Segundo and gives a great 180 degree view of the south complex. The south complex holds runways 25R/L and is also home to United/Delta/American, all the cargo operations as well as most of the international traffic. So this location never gets boring for spotters. The park has a few benches where people can sit and watch the aircraft land/takeoff. This is a popular spot amongst locals who come here during their lunch breaks or morning jogs and catches some action before they go back to their busy lives.
LAX has a set pattern of traffic on a daily basis. LAX uses westward arrivals (25/24 runways) and departure on a daily basis for noise abatement. But on rare cases when the winds are from the east and are strong enough, the traffic pattern changes to use the 06/07 runways. Out of the 7 days I was there, I witnessed the reverse pattern once but didn’t get a chance to spot all day as the rain came down hard from noon to sunset.
The aircraft traffic follows certain schedules every day. The early AM rush is from Australia where depending on the day of the week, there will be 2-380’s 3-747’s and 1-330 arriving between 6-7am. This is also the time when two, daily Virgin Australia 773’s come in. All these jets unload their passengers and then wait the entire day in remote parking before heading back to Australia in the late night. The daily AM traffic includes Asiana/ANA/JAL/Cathay/China-Eastern/Korean heavies coming in from Asia and one Emirates 773 around 9-11am. These airlines all depart around noon in one giant rush just as they came in one-after another. Once this traffic leaves, there is a slow trickle of European heavies (that use the south side) which include Lufthansa/China-Airlines/Aeroflot/Iberia/Swiss/China-Southern/Singapore. Air New Zealand can be captured most of the time landing on 25R. Along with these, Virgin/AirFrance/KLM/Air-China can also be seen at a distance landing/departing on the north complex. During the winter, these are the only jets that you can catch in daylight hours. There are a few more late night arrivers that can be used for night shots.
LAX also holds some exotic aircraft such as Air Tahiti Nui and Air Pacific. Air Tahiti sends around 2-3 aircraft by LAX on a daily basis which continue their journey on to Paris CDG and then back the next day. Air Pacific has one daily 747 that comes in at noon and then leaves at night.
Like I mentioned earlier, the southern complex is also home to all the cargo ops. You are bound to see some cargo traffic all day like China-Cargo/Cathay/Polar/Atlas-Air/Fedex/UPS etc. During my stay, I was also lucky enough to catch Singapore Cargo, Air China Cargo, World Airways, Yangtse River Express, Asiana Cargo to name a few.
One of my biggest wishes for this trip was to catch some Skyteam/One-World/Star-Alliance jets. As luck would have it, I got a lot more than I had ever imagined. During my stay I was fortunate enough to see Air France, China Eastern, China Southern and Delta jets in their Skyteam colors. I also saw the One-World Cathay jet. Star Alliance didn’t disappoint either as I saw the United 777 and 757 and Star Alliance colors. Along with these, I also got to see the 3 American flagship jets and the “Komen Breast Cancer” 777. I have included some of these shots with this report.
LAX currently only has 2 A380 compatible gates. The daily traffic for these include 2 Qantas, 1 Korean and 1 Singapore. The problem of spotting on the south complex is that the Korean and Singapore 380 always use the one 380 gate in the north side. Singapore usually arrives just as the Korean is departing. On the South side you are guaranteed to see one Qantas 380 arrival every day. Although it is extremely rare, sometimes scheduling conflicts can push either the Korean on Singapore 380 to use the south complex. During my stay, I got to see the Korean and Singapore 380 once on the south side and the locals were quick to point out that this was the first such occurrence in months.
I have edited a small batch of the shots from my trip showing the variety of traffic at LAX. In most of the shots, you will see a large construction project in the works. This is the TBIT (Tom Bradley International Terminal) expansion. This will replace the current international gates. It’s scheduled to open at the end or 2012 or early 2013. Be sure to take a trip down there when that day arrives
Wow Jason some great shots and you were very lucky to get reverse pattern as well A380 is a great show and love the dark clouds.
Thanks Damon, Patel got lucky that week while spotting.