Amazing Day At LGA 7/24

Saturday was a beautiful day and I felt I absolutely had to do something outdoors. I hadn't been spotting in several months, so I called the LGA ATIS...
Strong winds from the north + 13/31 closed = 4 being used for arrivals AND departures!

My little bro and I bolted to Planeview/Landing Lights where we hung out for a couple hours. He's 15 and he'd never been there before so it was probably even cooler for him.

I really just wanted to spot and get some sun, but I figured I'd bring a camera along for the hell of it. I'm sorta "between" cameras right now (I sold my PowerShot and plan on getting a DSLR asap), so I borrowed my dad's tiny new 7 megapixel Elph. The baby Canon looks real sexy and it takes fine shots of still subjects, but unfortunately its autofocus is just too slow to catch up to a jet passing at 150mph. Hence, I only grabbed a couple of decent pics and an ok video clip of a DL 762 taking off. The light at Planeview is also a problem in the afternoon, so I took some shots from Landing Lights Park, which landed me my two best shots of the afternoon...except the second one (a UA 757) didn't save to the memory card because the battery died as I was shooting it (even though the preview image DID display on the screen).

Despite the lack of good shots, it was a great time. I remember reading 13/31 is going to be closed for repaving on Saturdays for awhile. Anyone know when that is over? Another couple days like this before the summer is over would be awesome.

http://www.cheesebus.com/coppermine/...pics/nwa01.jpg
My shot of the day, shot from the northwest corner of Landing Lights Park

http://www.cheesebus.com/coppermine/...rpics/dl03.jpg

http://www.cheesebus.com/coppermine/...rpics/dl02.jpg
Phil has a two nice shots of this one on A.net: Here and here.

http://www.cheesebus.com/coppermine/...rpics/us03.jpg
Dash 8 has to go around because...

http://www.cheesebus.com/coppermine/...ics/song03.jpg
...this Song bird has been cleared for takeoff. (New Song arrival. Most recent A.net photo, taken March 23rd, has it in Delta livery)

Click here to see the Delta 762 last in line in the above photo finally taking off [14.6 MB, wmv format] (audio was all wind noise so I removed it to make the file smaller).

Great stuff, Matt. That NW 757 came out nice.

The video was great to see as well. That 762 took up a lot of runway.

Thanks for the plug, too! I have quite a history with that DL733. :)

so you all know there were a few interesting visitors yesterdays in the evening hours. new colors UA 733 and A320. AC brought an A321 and the Spirit of DL 762. i wish i had a camera on me but was quite busy with my operations.

*note to self, buy a little digital cam to hide in pocket!

Yeah, LGA offers some nice shots when landing runway 04. That's always my favorite spot lol. Almost like St. Maarten, just smaller sized aircraft, they come more frequent, and it's in New York!

But seriously, I think it's great 04 will be be used a lot during Saturday because I want to get a good shot of the Delta B732 that arrives at 08:52. Might be out there this Saturday, maybe next.