What is a spotter?
According to Cambridge Advanced Learner's
Dictionary, a spotter is:
-spotter
describes a person whose job or interest is to
notice people or things of the type mentioned:
a talent-spotter
a train-spotter
or a
aircraft-spotter.Military/Civilian
Many believes that the idea of
aircraftrecognition first were set to system by
the brittish, during WW2 and the Battle of
Brittain. Both AAA (Trible A: Anti Aircraft
Artillery) and the pilots had to distinguish
between friend and foe.
Today there has been a vast development of
advanced radars and coded systems, but mistakes
still takes place, and aircraft identification
mistakes have been made by all militaries,
though "IFF" capability (an electronic signal to
"Identify Friend or Foe") has decreased the
number of incidents of accidental shoot downs
due to "Friendly Fire".
Read more about some of these mistakes on our
page about:
"Why aircraftrecognition".
We distinguish between aircraftrecognition and
spotting. We consider aircraftrecognition as a
primarily military task, and spotting, with itīs
many facets, as a civilian hobby. If you've been
to a airshow or driven by a crowd of people
collected dense at a airport , you certainly
encountered a crowd "armed" with notebooks ,
cameraes , radioes and latters.
|
 |
 |
Spotters at Ostend (OST) on
31.03.2002.
Notice the latters.
|
Equipment
When you set out to spot, there are some things that you
canīt do without, depending on what your purpose is.
Here is a list of some of the things we find essential:
- Camera, and a big objective.
- Lots of film. Today many uses digital cameraes, and
then you need storage.
- A latter, just look at the pictures on this page to
see why.
- A Radioscanner.
- Notebook.
- Miscellaneous handbooks with aircraftdata and
designations.
- Something to sit on.
 |
No matter the weather....
Spotters at Salzburg 11.01.2003.
Once again, notice the indispensable latters.
|
All pictures are from
http://nuespotter.free.fr by Mathias Henig and Thomas
E.
|
