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Tower Frequency:
118.30

ATIS Frequency:
119.15

There is one "official" spotting location, and a few other "accepted" locations.

The "Official" location is the "Holes," named for the holes cut in the fence just south of the arrival end of runway 12. The parking can be sketchy as there are "No Parking" signs, although I have never seen them enforced. From here you can get arrivals and departures on runways 26L/R and 12. In the afternoons the heat haze can be a bear. There are no facilities nearby. The closest convenience store to buy water, chips, sodas, is either on Curtiss Parkway and NW 36 ST, or on NW 74 AVE and NW 36 ST.

An "Accepted" Location is at El Dorado Furniture. This works out to NW 72 AVE and about 13 Street. The furniture showroom keeps their lot chained off, but access to it can be gained by using the first entrance. You can use ladders here, so long as you do not leave them propped up. There is also a large rock that will let you get a shot of departing traffic on runway 09 without getting the fence in it. A drawback is sometimes the Florida East Coast Railroad will leave rail cars parked on the tracks obscuring the view.

I have seen Florida Highway Patrol cars there, so they probably don't mind. Sometimes I have had the Miami-Dade Police ask for ID, and that was that. Facilities can be found a block to the south at the gas station. It has a convenience store and rest rooms.

The other "Accepted" location is the parking lot of the 94th Aero Squadron. This is more of a spotting location than photography, as the distance from the fence means the fence will be a part of your picture. Lots of families come here to watch the comings and goings of commercial traffic. If you happen to dine in the restaurant, they have large picture windows to watch the action and even headphones tuned to the tower. The food is good, but it isn't inexpensive.

Feel free to add your comments.

For the non-residents who travel to MIA for spotting, I can recommend the Miami Airport Hilton. Make sure to get a room with balcony and airport view, as the windows in the standard rooms cannot be opened.

From the balcony, you get an excellent view on runway 30 approaches, and a workable view on 27 landings and departures.

These shots were taken from there:

Taxiing for takeoff from 27.

Landing on 27.

Approaching 30.

MIA is my favorite spotting airport. I met miamiair there on 11/08 at El Dorado Furniture and took a few shots. Note: My camera was a cheapy. You guys with your super cameras would have much better results.

Here is a few I took that day:







-Delta767-300ER

At the Hilton ask for 1020-1022. There are other options with balconies as well, but you can't beat the view from those rooms for 27&30 ops.

There's also a bench along the bay on the northeast side of the hotel. You'll be able to get 30 arrivals after 11am or so and 27 arrivals just about all day. There is a fee for parking at the Hilton.

CO777ER wrote:At the Hilton ask for 1020-1022. There are other options with balconies as well, but you can't beat the view from those rooms for 27&30 ops.

But do the windows open? When I stayed at the Hilton in 2010, they gave me a room with a perfect view first, but it was pretty useless as the window couldn't be fully opened.

After 2 more attempts that did not make me happy, they finally gave up and put me in a suite with a balcony.

1021 and 1022 have balconies. Another website said 1020 and 1120 have balconies. For reference the rooms that are on the northernmost part of the hotel are xx19 and xx20. Continuing on the right side of the hotel toward the south is xx21 and xx22... The numbering is continuous on one side of the hallway (its not even on one side odd on the other).

Here's a map:


Note that 1122 & 1121 do not have balconies. All the corner rooms look to have balconies.

Had a quick overnight layover and can report that the Hilton now has mesh screens probably to keep the bugs and birds out of the rooms on all balcony rooms. Photography is no longer possible