Over the past few years, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has hosted a special gathering of some of the local AvGeeks who love sharing their passion for aviation online. We all meet at the airport, recap our day, go through security, then board a few vans and head to the airfield, escorted by airport operations personnel. That part alone is quite enjoyable and entertaining, but it gets better from there.
bonus: Photos from SEA AvGeeks Airfield Day 2003
We ended up spending just over 4 hours between runways 16L/34R and 16C/34C, which was amazing. I just brought my iPhone to share some photos on social media and luckily our own Francis Zera was there too. That person takes much better photos than me. Being so close to the aircraft as it taxis, takes off and lands is a completely different experience.
As they taxied past, I felt like I could reach out and touch the wings of their wide bodies (I didn’t try). We received some pretty confused looks from the flight attendants, followed by lots of smiles and waves. Of course, the running joke throughout the day (which was funny, at least to me) was to yell at the Alaska Boeing 737 or Embraer E-175 as it took off. There were so many of those!
Of all the airplanes I saw that day, the one that excited me the most was the FedEx MD-11. Such a classic. What a beauty! The second was an Alaska Air E-175 (I’ll finish…) with special Horizon Air livery. It brought back memories of flying Horizon’s Dash-8-100s, Metroliners, Fokker F27s and Fokker F28s as a kid in the 80’s.
This year certainly did not disappoint. Check out all the additional photos below!
Edelweiss flew to Seattle and got soaked!
Preview of JFK’s new Terminal 6
