Eye in the sky

Organized plane-spotting is a relatively new phenomenon in India and has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In February, the Delhi Police arrested two British nationals, Stephen Hampston and Steve Martin, who were here to plane-spot. They had a room in Radisson hotel with a clear view of the runway and they had crammed it with equipment—powerful binoculars and high-tech recorders to capture conversations between the pilots and air traffic control. Not surprisingly, the hotel staff reported to the police that the duo was indulging in “suspicious activities”. Plane-spotters around the world were outraged, but concede that the limited awareness about their hobby is part of the appeal—it is an exclusive club of the extremely obsessed.
Though all spotters start with “reggers”—registration numbers of planes—they have individual obsessions. For some, it is spotting all the planes of a particular fleet; for others, it is spotting as many different kinds of aircraft as possible. But ask any spotter when he began this hobby and you will get the same answer—as a child, when I ran out of home to look at the sky on hearing the sound of a plane overhead.
If the spotter was once an isolated geek with a notebook and a camera, today the Internet has brought his ilk together, and to an extent pulled the group into some kind of mainstream existence. Websites such as www.airliners.net and www.jetphotos.net are where spotters from around the world congregate. They share information on planes, spotting locations and equipment and are the sources for any kind of aircraft information you need. These sites have also taken the spotters’ notebooks to a global audience, so registration numbers and plane data can be uploaded and shared with other enthusiasts.
The resources for spotters featured on these sites range from the obvious to the ridiculous. Not only can you find the details of the ideal hotels for spotting in cities across the world, you can even find out the specific room numbers that give you the best view of the runway. A website dedicated to listing ideal hotel rooms for the hobby, www.plane-spotting-hotels.com , recommends rooms 415-428 at Orchid Hotel in Mumbai. Hampston and Martin had insisted on room 464 in the Radisson on the recommendation of a fellow spotter, who was previously a guest at the hotel.
Though most spotters are men, some women are now getting initiated.
Collecting miniatures is another branch of spotter obsessions. The only models that mean anything are exact replicas of aircraft built to a scale of 1:400.
09/04/10 Veena Venugopal/Live Mint

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2010