On a recent trip to Frankfurt for a bit of LH business and to attend the FlyerTalk / Vielfliegertreff  ‘Advent-DO’, I made sure to block out several hours in my calendar for spotting.    Fortunately, ‘FRA’ is very ‘Spotter friendly’ and provides 3 dedicated areas designed to maximize quality spotting opportunities.     The three include the observation deck in Terminal 2 (currently closed as part of a renovation to the food court area) and 2 spotting venues located at strategic points just outside the Airport’s fence.

One of these venues is located on the east side of the airport next to the Berlin Airlift Memorial which gives visitors a great vantage point for arrivals coming from the east.   The other venue,  ‘Affenfelsen’ (Monkey’s Rock?), is a spotting platform that puts you next to the North/South runway that is dedicated only for departing flights.   Another advantage of the Affenfelsen site is its proximity to the East/West runways which allows you to capture flights arriving from the west.

For the 2 days that I had time for spotting, I chose the Affenfelsen site since it is easy to access from the airport and provides 2 runways worth of activity.    To reach this spot, you simply take the Holiday Parking shuttle from Terminal 1 or 2 to the Holiday Parking Lot located near Affenfelsen.   You’ll need to take a 15 minute walk from the parking lot, but its worth that minor effort.

Due to the amount of photos, I’ll publish a few posts to cover the 2 days.   Weather on day 1 was overcast with low ceilings and mist that made it a bit challenging, however day 2 made up for it with clear and crisp skies.   All of the photos that you’ll see are taken with a Nikon D800 attached to Sigma’s new 150-600mm Super Telephoto lens (click for lens review post).   This was the first time I put this lens to use and it performed brilliantly.   Even at 600mm and free hand, images were still sharp and ‘usable’!  Enjoy!

 

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