Jason Daniel Shaw

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Plane Spotting a Friend's Arrival on the A380 at LAX

LAX | LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

I love that I live 10 minutes from LAX because that means that I can take a trip to the airport to just watch the planes come and go.  This really comes in handy when friends are coming and going on trips.  This was the case yesterday when a friend from coming back from Europe on Lufthansa, flying the Airbus A380.

FIGURING OUT WHICH RUNWAY AT LAX

About two hours before the scheduled arrival, I took a look at my Flight Radar 24 app and noticed that the flight was about 20 minutes ahead of time so I planned to be there a little early to start planning for a spot to get a great photo.  Here are my favorite LAX plane spotting locations.  I wasn't sure if the flight would be landing on the north complex (24R & 24L) or the south complex (25R & 25L) so as the flight was over the San Bernardino mountains, I started listening to my Live ATC app to see if I could hear them.  Once they were in the Los Angeles basin, I noticed that they were on final for the north complex which was where I was waiting.  Finally, monitoring the Live ATC app, I was able to hear them and confirm that they were, in fact, landing 24R.  The double-decker, Airbus A380, is absolutely huge and when it first comes over the trees just east of the 24R runway, looks so impressive.  It almost looks like it doesn't belong in the sky.

LUFTHANSA A380 | FRANKFURT TO LOS ANGELES

After almost 6,000 miles and 11.5 hours, Lufthansa flight 456 from Frankfurt to Los Angeles had landed so it was time to head over to Tom Bradley to pick up my friend Marco.  I would recommend to anyone that is picking up a friend at LAX, arrive a little early and get a shot of them flying in, especially if they are flying a more unique aircraft.  Leave a comment below or over on Instagram and let me know what you think.