Big Jet TV

Any links? - asking for a friend....

There appears to be bad blood in the plane spotting community. BigJetTV's twitter account is recounting tales of sabotage of Jerry's van when he was at Manchester. It all looks a bit nasty actually.

I like Jerry, I dip into his channel from time to time, last Friday must have been the best day of his life!

I'm a music festival geek, our group WhatsApp was buzzing with people raving about him on Friday, none of who are aviation geeks and would otherwise have had no idea who he is and whether his channel even existed. He certainly hit the zeitgeist, if only for a day.

I too am not a total 'spotter' but like to watch it occasionally, as does our 7yo. Amusingly he was saying on Friday "THIS ONE IS DEFINITELY GOING TO CRASH!" as they came in to have a go at Heathrow, his young age not quite appreciating the significance that a Dreamliner crashing on landing in the wind might have. He then gave massive cheers when the pilots touched down safely - great entertainment for a kid on an INSET day!

I like his man of the people approach and slightly Alan Patridge-esque expressions, it's entertainment. I gather there are a few more staid members of the aircraft spotting community who refer to him as an 'ambulance chaser' and want to highlight various minor infractions he may or may not have made, probably run by people with about 37 followers.

Seems to be a strange community. I brought recently my 14 y.o. son who wanted to take some pictures at Malpensa Airport and witnessed how a group of spotters tried to prevent another group to get into a certain position to take pictures. We weren't touched by this, but my son was a bit "WTF?"

Can't really understand what's the point

Lets not beat about the bush here, people who spot are often a bit special and might we say weird, so it is no shock that some guy who comes along maybe does not have the knowledge they have sweated years for have and starts making a packet simply because of his personality, which they probably do not possess.

Let's also face it that he is doing what a lot of people do, enjoying a hobby and trying the best he can to catch stuff that goes on, why not try and sell it to news companies, amateur photographers do it all the time, if these nerds miss it or "would never do that" they have scruples fair enough, but they are missing out. Or maybe they have never thought to do so, if Jerry is aware of this and how to do it, fair play to him.

Is there anything really wrong with showing a tail strike or a hard landing or go arounds, not really.

I follow a lot of motorsport, and amateur snappers can be very self righteous and snappy, I very rarely make any effort to get out of their way as if you do this you are endlessly stepping away, moving about, I have as much right as you to be there, I have probably paid, you may not have, so sod off. I have ever seen amateur snappers moaning at pros for "being in the way", when you tell them they are there to do a job they scoff and move on.

So Jerry has earned his right to the best spots, the best locations as he has gained a following, maybe if some of these other people made more effort they might too!!

Talking about plane spotters. . .

I remember landing in Rhodes many years ago and after exiting the runway and taxiing slowly towards the apron I noticed two local kids on bikes frantically pedalling along beside us, on a road just outside the perimeter fence, waving a cheery Greek greeting to our aircraft and passengers.

It reminded me fondly of all the times I’d spent at airports as a kid watching planes land and waving to the pilots.

I made a quick announcement so our passengers (on the right hand side) could look out and also enjoy this special moment happening out side.

Then the little buggers gave up chasing us and started sticking their fingers up and making some other offensive greek gestures just as my announcement was ending and I’d drawn everyone’s attention to them.

I will just leave this here. I like BigJet because he is entertaining.

https://www.facebook.com/BigJetTV/videos/359414006...

There are many tales of spotters getting into a "spot" of bother abroad. In many countries, the relatively innocent pursuit of looking at aeroplanes over the boundary fence is not recognised as being "innocent" at all.

Spotters and enthusiasts have got into difficulties in Spain, Greece, the former Yugoslavia etc. I even know of a group of Irish spotters who were detained for 24 hours by the UK authorities back in the 70s.

I think it was Greece yes, I knew a mate who did this endlessly, was always going to Heathrow, Gatwick, Northholt for VIP stuff, he did a trip to the US and did pretty much that all the way. And amazingly he took his missus who had zero interest in any of it, fair play to him and her!!

I know for sure that you get your butts kicked quite quickly if you try to stop around Aviano AFB... (more so if you happen to hold a camera)