You have been sent this message from psa188@juno.com as a courtesy of the W= ashington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com=20 =20 =20 =20 To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/art= icles/A33768-2002Jul6.html =20 Big Bird Watching =20 By Paul Glader Sunil Gupta and his buddies were on top of a parking garag= e at Dulles International Airport one recent Saturday morning, practicing o= ne of the more dubious hobbies of the new terrorist-wary age: plane spottin= g. =20 Chatting in the sun while checking flight schedules on laptops and listen= ing to hand-held scanners tuned to air traffic control signals, the carefre= e guys, all computer specialists, looked as if they were throwing a Dilbert= -theme tailgate party. =20 Someone heard a far-off engine and spotted a streak in the breezy sky. Ba= nter ceased. The smokers dropped their cigarettes and grabbed cameras, bino= culars and notepads for the approach of an airliner they thought would be a= special-edition jet from Ethiopia. =20 "That's not Ethiopian," said one man, gazing skyward and totally engrosse= d. "I think it's a JetBlue." =20 "No, it's a Delta," said another, hoisting binoculars into position. But = as it neared, they recognized it as the Ethiopian Airlines plane they were = waiting for. Its red, green and yellow tail colors were a dead giveaway. =20 With heightened security since Sept. 11 at airports worldwide, this nerdy= , yet innocent hobby has had its setbacks, and spotters have found themselv= es in a tense relationship with security officers. =20 Police at an airport in Bangkok, for example, detained Gupta last October= while he was plane spotting on a business trip. He said they confiscated h= is film and asked whether he knew Osama bin Laden. =20 Gupta, a Gaithersburg resident, said he was released after he explained h= is peculiar hobby. The next day, he was featured in Bangkok's media because= of the security scare. =20 The hobbyists rattle off airplane trivia, scribble down registration numb= ers found on the tail of aircraft, take photos that they collect and trade,= examine their plane data on spreadsheets and generally enjoy d=E9j=E0 vu w= hen a jet they saw years ago arrives. =20 "It is pretty much a phenomenon around the country where people position = themselves and watch the planes land," said Arlene Salac, a spokeswoman for= the Federal Aviation Administration's eastern region. =20 Except these are not leisurely enthusiasts. Dozens of hard-core spotters = spend as much as 20 hours a week at Dulles, Reagan National and Baltimore-W= ashington International airports and take vacations to other cities for who= le weekends spent watching aircraft. They pore through aviation guidebooks,= get excited about interesting color schemes on planes and share sightings = on group e-mail lists. =20 The FAA say plane spotting and photography are legal, but boundary enforc= ement is up to local airports. Spotters say some police officers at Dulles = are rude and condescending toward them and their hobby, even when they purs= ue it lawfully. =20 "Anywhere that is public is open to plane spotting," said Marty Clarke, a= duty operations chief at Dulles. "If there is something we don't particula= rly like, we will investigate." =20 Area spotters said they are approached by airport police regularly and of= ten ordered to leave. =20 "Sometimes, I think they overstep their bounds," Gupta said. =20 Tara Hamilton, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Autho= rity, which operates Dulles and National, said spotters should expect to be= questioned. =20 "Our police have to use their best judgment," she said. =20 In April, a group of 14 plane spotters from the United Kingdom and the Ne= therlands were arrested at an air show in Greece and convicted of spying. B= ritish officials intervened, and the men were eventually freed. =20 Two spotters said an officer at Dulles threatened to arrest them a week a= go on a hill near the airport and told them they needed a permit to be ther= e. Hamilton said no permit is needed. =20 At Dulles, Hamilton said, locations such as fence lines and an observatio= n deck once open to spotters are now off-limits. She suggested that spotter= s use parking lots or public parks such as Gravelly Point near National but= not approach fence lines. =20 "Walking around airport property might arouse concerns, and I hope they u= nderstand that," she said. "In this day and age, that could lead to some su= spicion on the part of any law enforcement official." =20 Spotters said BWI and National are much more spotter-friendly than Dulles= , mostly because of their designs, which feature designated areas where peo= ple can watch planes. Officers at BWI will question spotters near fence lin= es, and a spokesman said they want people to use a picnic area and bike tra= ils near the airport. =20 "We certainly try to humanize the airport to the people who have to live = with the daily operations," said John White, a BWI spokesman. "We see it as= positive thing for the community." =20 Spotters said that they understand the need for tighter security and that= they cannot visit spots they used to, but the attitude of some airport sec= urity officers frustrates them. =20 "They tolerate us," Gupta said. "But there is always the cop who just doe= sn't understand and doesn't want to understand." =20 Hamilton said the spotters might consider staying away from Dulles and fo= cusing their hobby at National. Spotters said they can find certain planes = only at Dulles and some like a challenge. =20 Plane spotting has been around since aviation began, but it really develo= ped after World War II, when civilians recorded enemy plane movements. Spot= ters now practice their hobby and network with thousands of others around t= he world. And some say enthusiasts are multiplying, as evidenced by heavy t= raffic on Internet sites such as www.airliners.net. =20 There are at least 100 Web sites and Internet use-net groups devoted to p= lane spotting and nearly 60 members of an online spotting group devoted to = the Washington area. Gupta is Web master of the WashBaltSpotters group on Y= ahoo, which contains discussions about spotting and field reports with numb= ers and names of aircraft. =20 "It's like anybody who collects something," said Blendi Qatipi of the Dis= trict. "It eventually collects you. It's like it gets into your inner child= or something." =20 Some men bring their children along to spot planes. Some have tried, with= little success, to bring their wives or girlfriends. Most spotters are men= . =20 Many spotters are involved in technical careers such as computers or engi= neering. They appreciate the patterns, numbers and precision required in av= iation. =20 "Technologically, the airplane sort of symbolizes what is achieved right = now. With computers, metals and physics, airplanes represent what the world= has achieved in everything," Qatipi said. "Watching a landing is somehow m= ajestic." =20 =20 =20