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Comment by tgtweak | Hacker News Reader

Advice for a wholesome activity with your daughter: Bring her to the closest road/parking lot/park at the inbound end of your closest international airport runway (Typically this changes based on wind direction). Park and watch the planes come in and land. She can use her "radar" to see which planes are coming in (we used flightradar24). My kids were FLOORED how close the planes get to the ground on approach - especially the bigger jetliners. Easily entertained for hours and had to bargain with them to leave because they wanted to see if the next plane was bigger/closer than the last.

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In the author's case, I think that will be London City Airport (LCY), which has an extremely steep approach.

> Only multi-engine, fixed-wing aircraft up to Airbus A318 size with special aircraft and aircrew certification to fly 5.5° approaches are allowed to conduct operations at London City Airport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZIDFgpT0-o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_City_Airport

Looks like you can get some interesting views from either end of the airport via either bridge, and with these steep approaches and takeoffs it looks like it makes for some great planespotting - mostly smaller E190/A220's though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh3lZAPluUM

And if you're in the D.C. area, Gravely Point is the place for this. Feels like you can count the rivets for planes on either departure or landing.

I recently found out you can do that on one of the roads to the entrance of the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy museum in Dulles. Nowhere near as Gravely Point, but it will do in a pinch.

For Logan airport in Boston, Revere Beach is one place with a pretty good view of airliners, and is short walk from the Blue Line.

You can also see a bunch of other places on a map that line up with runways: South Boston (including Castle Island), East Boston, and a bit further from Logan is the harborwalk around Long Wharf and the aquarium. (The aquarium might also be interesting to kids. There's some free viewing windows for a little of it, while walking past, to maybe gauge interest before paying admission. And there's various tourist things in that area, including various harbor boat rides.)

A camera/cameraphone with >1x lens will get them a closer look at planes. Or binoculars/monocular if you want to reduce screen time, or to encourage appreciating it in the moment rather than trying to capture it. (What kind of hearing protection works for kids?)

Going to Pearson airport in Toronto with my dad is one of my few early childhood memories. I don’t know exactly where we were but it was a popular enough spot that someone had set up a hotdog stand. In my mind it very clearly registers as a scene from the 80s. The aircraft everyone was hoping for was the 747. I still remember the roar of that thing coming in.

Rush fans will know this, but part of the HN crowd won’t and likely find it interesting: there’s a musical connection between Rush’s YYZ song and the Morse code identifier transmitted from a nav beacon at the Pearson Airport (IATA code YYZ)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/YYZ_(song)

Bring some earmuffs.

When I was in high school, there was a gravel lot just outside of the airport perimeter fencing at the end of one of the runways. When the wind was going the right direction so that the airplanes were taking off over that lot, it was the place to park and make out.

Not quite the same as your suggestion but SFO has a Sky Terrace pre-security that you can go and watch planes from.

That's a great shout, I'll see about getting the DLR near to London City this weekend!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh3lZAPluUM

Looks like smaller jets (E190's mostly) due to the very steep approach on both ends, but the views look pretty good and there's decent traffic there.

From experience there is a terrible kerosene smell, I wouldn't advise spending hours. Maybe in a car with closed windows

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