Qatar A-350 landing at IAD
Observations from a recent spotting adventure. We were flying out of IAD and the wife left me have some spotting time. I noticed about 10 United 787s were scheduled to land in roughly a one hour period. As we left the hotel about 3 miles east of the airport the planes were landing on 1R so we decided to go to the Chantilly Costco. We got there and waited. Nothing. I checked FR 24 and noticed that in that short time frame from the hotel to Costco (15 minutes?) the operations switched so now the landings were happening on 19L. We doubled back and decided to go to parking garage 1 (Spot 3). The max daily rate is currently $10; also Level 5 was chained off so we had to settle for Level 4. We caught about two of the Dreamliners along with Qatar, KLM, and some biz jets on 19L. Most of the traffic was United Express jets. It seemed like all landings were on 19L up until 5 pm and then everything switched to 19C. Bummer. We couldn’t see any 19C landings from Garage 1.
I assume it’s a Covid effect but IAD was almost a ghost town; there are 2-3 very busy periods (such as 1500-1700) and then absolutely nothing. Our inbound flight landed at 1900 and Terminal B was totally shut down. The outbound flight was in around 1000 and very few things were open.
I took these photo in late October 2020.
Qatar A-350 landing at IAD
Observations from a recent spotting adventure. We were flying out of IAD and the wife left me have some spotting time. I noticed about 10 United 787s were scheduled to land in roughly a one hour period. As we left the hotel about 3 miles east of the airport the planes were landing on 1R so we decided to go to the Chantilly Costco. We got there and waited. Nothing. I checked FR 24 and noticed that in that short time frame from the hotel to Costco (15 minutes?) the operations switched so now the landings were happening on 19L. We doubled back and decided to go to parking garage 1 (Spot 3). The max daily rate is currently $10; also Level 5 was chained off so we had to settle for Level 4. We caught about two of the Dreamliners along with Qatar, KLM, and some biz jets on 19L. Most of the traffic was United Express jets. It seemed like all landings were on 19L up until 5 pm and then everything switched to 19C. Bummer. We couldn’t see any 19C landings from Garage 1.
I assume it’s a Covid effect but IAD was almost a ghost town; there are 2-3 very busy periods (such as 1500-1700) and then absolutely nothing. Our inbound flight landed at 1900 and Terminal B was totally shut down. The outbound flight was in around 1000 and very few things were open.
I took these photo in late October 2020.