How plane spotters' passion for aviation took off at Vancouver's airports

Kenneth Swartz vividly remembers the first time a Boeing 747 plane landed at Vancouver International Airport in 1971. 

Thirteen years old and drenched from head to toe, Swartz had trekked over five kilometres to watch the nearly 20 metre-tall jumbo jet rumble down the runway. 

It was a moment he said forever marked him as a plane spotter. 

"There are certain people who look up whenever they see or hear something in the sky," said Swartz, 64, who is now an aviation journalist. 

"If you looked up when you were young, chances are you're still looking up when you're a senior. It's just the fascination of flight."

Plane spotters are hobbyists who enjoy watching and recording aircraft, with communities around the world posting photos and videos online of planes and their unique features.

Some, like Swartz, have turned their hobby into a career.

Swartz says B.C.'s Lower Mainland has a dedicated crowd who flock to YVR and the Harbour Flight Centre in Vancouver's Coal Harbour to see commercial jetliners, seaplanes, helicopters and more.

The Facebook group "YVR Spotters" boasts over 5,000 members of all ages, who share vintage and recent photos of aircraft and airports to marvel at details or discuss changes and hot topics. 

Evolution of a hobby

Plane spotting in British Columbia started in the Second World War, when the military created the Aircraft Detection Corps to watch for enemy aircraft above Canadian shores. 

Civilian volunteers along the West Coast were trained to be the first plane spotters, recording flight patterns and tail numbers for the military.  

"There was big concern of a potential Japanese attack. So, some of the old timers I met … were teenagers trained to identify different kinds of aircraft," said Swartz.

Plane spotting went from recording data to photography as aviation became commercialized in the decades after the war.

It's an evolution that Vancouver-born Henry Tenby, 58, has followed his whole life. 

In 1999, he took the leap to make a career out of his hobby, starting an auction site for vintage photo slides. He then created flight DVDs of planes landing and taking off, and now hosts a popular weekly livestream near YVR's South Terminal. 

"My auction website and streaming services, they're the evolutions of my plane spotting hobby," he said.

Vancouver's appeal

Plane spotting has taken Tenby around the world, to places as inaccessible as North Korea — where he joined an aviation tour group for his 50th birthday to see planes from the 1950s and 1960s that are still in use in the reclusive country.

But he thinks Vancouver's airports have their own special appeal. 

"You get to see airplanes with beautiful mountains in the background, you get float planes — [Vancouver has] a great mix," he said. 

Two of his favourite spotting locations are at YVR: a viewing platform by the South Terminal opened in 2011, and the Larry Berg Flight Path Park near the end of the south runway, which opened in 2013. 

Christopher Richards, marketing manager with the Vancouver Airport Authority, says the areas were created for convenient, safe spotting. 

"It's been a great success and sets us apart from other airports in North America, who maybe don't have dedicated plane spotting platforms," said Richards, who added the airport is eager to grow its relationship with the plane-spotting community.

"[Plane spotters] promote aviation in an organic and genuine way ... that's reflective of their energy and positivity around the industry," he said.

"It's just this really accessible, fun, wholesome, way to experience the magic of flight." 

New generation

For Tim Chang, 19, plane spotting is an art form that allows him to observe details he wouldn't normally see.

Visually impaired since birth, Chang can only perceive a blur of light with his left eye. He sometimes relies on other senses to spot incoming planes. 

"I'll just pick up the colours, maybe just the white colour of the airplane, and I'll use my hearing and just get my ears to the direction where the airplane is," he said.

Chang discovered the hobby during the pandemic and it's inspired him to pursue a career in the aviation industry, despite the challenges of his visual impairment. 

He's set to start the aviation management and operations program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology next fall.

Anyone interested in the hobby is recommended to first check when flights are coming in through sites like Flightradar24.

Chang said to come prepared for the weather and to wait. 

"If I'm with plane spotting friends, then [we'll stay for] five or six hours. If it's just on my own, then probably two to three hours."

Richards said the airport's website and social media provide additional resources, such as a list of the best plane spotting locations.