Aviation geeks (more punchily known as avgeeks) are of course folks who are obsessed with aircraft – commercial, military, and otherwise – and who can to a greater or lesser extent quote you chapter and verse on many aspects of mechanical flight, especially when it comes to commercial airlines.

And then there there’s a subset of avgeeks who not only follow the industry avidly but who also spend as much of their free time as possible “on the hunt,” hunkered down for hours around airports watching and usually photographing commercial airliners taking off and landing; in fact, not a few planespotters have been known to plan their own travel to include visits to airports away from home. They tend to make themselves experts on distinguishing characteristics such as fuselage liveries (paint schemes, designs, and logos) as well as aircraft names and registration numbers; many can even discern types of aircraft according to the sounds of their engines.

Read more about this singular tribe in my post here.