Aviation, in writing — aircraft types, spotting and where to watch
omyplane.com spent years as a place to find aircraft video: airliners, general aviation, helicopters, military jets and live airport streams. The video archive is gone, and rebuilding it around other people's embeds would only rot again. So this is the same subject matter written down — how to tell aircraft apart, how to watch them safely and legally, and which live feeds are actually worth your time.
Telling aircraft apart
Narrowbodies, widebodies, regional jets and light aircraft — what to look at first.
Plane spotting
Where to stand, what gear helps, and the etiquette and legality of it.
Watch live
Live ATC audio, airport cameras and flight tracking — the reputable sources.
Helicopters
The civil types you'll actually see overhead, and how to recognise them.
Start with the engines
Most airliner identification comes down to a handful of details, and the engine nacelle is the fastest one. A Boeing 737's nacelle is visibly flattened at the bottom — the "hamster pouch" — because the airframe sits low and the engine had to be fitted around that. An Airbus A320's nacelle is round. After that, look at the nose profile, the tail fin shape and the wingtips: sharklets, blended winglets, split scimitars and plain raked tips all belong to different families and generations.
See telling aircraft apart for the rest, including how to separate the regional jets — which are the ones most people give up on.