Random planespotting (no pic sorry)..

[HighBypass]

Saturday night I was playing taxi, taking my wife and son to Manchester to meet wife's younger sister at the train station. They were going to watch an allegedly popular musical group known as STEPS who were performing a concert at the Manchester Arena . My Dad came along to keep me company for the 3 hours or so killing time.

We decided to nip down to EGCC, specifically the Airport Hotel - the well known pub next to the threshold of 23R. The pub's beer garden adjoins EGCC's perimeter fence. Ideal for the spectacle of heavy & not so heavy metal taking off in close proximity if the winds are favourable (they were!).

Arrived in the pub car park just as an Etihad 777 was lining up - sweet! There's notice boards in the pub entrance and door to the beer garden showing the arrival and departure times of the A380 - definitely catering for the spotters even if it's because that's the biggest thing at Manchester (scheduled flights anyway). Yes the beer garden's open at night, partly so smokers can light up.

I had to have a pint of Robinson's Aviator beer. Well, I just had to LOL! The pub also does tea, coffee and hot chocolate too.

It all made for a random, pleasant evening with my Dad. There were assorted EasyJet 737s, flybe turboprops (Dash 8s??), an Oman Air A330, Qatar 777. Even two Ryanair crews were flying..  . The drizzly low cloud didn't make for the best spotting, but it did show off the landing lights rather well. The best "atmospheric" display went to a Jet2 757: spectacular chemtrail  vortices generated from the wings lasted for ages.

The final show before we had to head back into Manchester was that huge biffer A380 departure (Emirates), surprisingly quieter than the two T7's seen earlier on, although it appeared to be over Knustford before it climbed into the murk LOL.