2024 was certainly a fun year of spotting, lots of fun trips, and spotting with a lot of awesome friends. Looking forward to what 2025 has in store!
Gear
Canon 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600C
Canon R5, Canon 100-500, Canon 200-800
My first trip of the year brought me to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and the Coupeville OLF. Pictured here is the old VAQ-140 “Patriots” cag jet.
2024 brought me to Meiringen for the third year in a row. I will never get tired of this place.
The highlight of the year was definitely my trip to Poland to hunt down the extremely endangered Sukhoi Su-22s. Certainly an awesome trip, Poland was great, and I can’t wait to go back.
While the Pacific Air Show was a bust, sitting out at Los Alamitos for show recoveries certainly didn’t disappoint. The VFA-125 “Rough Raiders” went out for a sunset photo shoot and returned in perfect light, making for one of my favorite shots of the year.
One can’t forget the elusive Voodoo One, can they? This spooky jet has been on my bucket list for the last six years, and this year I finally got to check that box.
2024 was also a nice year for Lockheed, where we got to see Belgium and Poland F-35s flying for the first time, along with several new US squadrons. Certainly is a nice break from the Hill and Lakenheath jets that never seem to stop coming off the line!
Finally to wrap off the military section, I also caught “Death’s Ace”, an F-15C flying for the 159th Fighter Wing. Death and all his friends dropped in to Fort Worth on their way back to New Orleans from their attempted Pacific Air Show appearance.
Despite me not being super into commercial spotting anymore, my trip to Poland also inevitably led me to a day of spotting at Warsaw. Warsaw quickly became one of my favorite airports to spot at, and this spot was a great range test for my new camera. This particular shot was taken from half a mile away.
There’s no particular reason to include this shot, other than the fact that I’m in love with the Global 7500, and I didn’t even realize it was a moonshot until I imported the photos. This particular jet is a brand new jet owned by Walmart. At the time of this photo, the jet had amassed barely 40 hours of flight time after it’s certificate was issued on December 4th.
Another 727 I was able to check off the list this year was one of USAJet’s 2 Boeing 727s. After being able to shoot at night now since I have an actual camera now, this night shot is the one I am most proud of thus far.
Thanks for checking out this topic. Special shoutout to @AndrewWu and @Kamryn for the good times we had this year. Bring on 2025!