NYCAviation.com is an

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

enthusiast and

plane spotting Aircraft spotting, or plane spotting is a hobby of tracking the movement of aircraft, which is often accomplished by photography. Besides monitoring aircraft, plane spotting enthusiasts (who are usually called plane spotters) also record informa ...

community and resource website, founded by Phil Derner Jr. on August 31, 2003. It sprung from an email newsletter started by Derner in July 2002 called Aireola Aviation, sent to a group of local friends to give them a heads-up on upcoming unique aircraft visitors and happenings from the previous week. Just over a year after the newsletter was launched, Derner transitioned the operation to a static website format. Though the website was founded and is based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, it now serves airports and enthusiasts far beyond the New York City limits. NYCAviation's (often referred to colloquially as "NYCA") message boards allow its members to discuss their love of flying machines and to share their experiences and

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

from

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

visits around the globe.

History

Format

2004 redesign

On July 6, 2004, the site experienced its first redesign where it took on a more organized look that included a listing of news and plane spotting guides for New York-area airports.

2009 redesign

The site's growth brought about their second redesign, which debuted on June 26, 2009. It now features expansive news pages, regular articles and plane spotting guides serving airports far beyond the New York City limits. Derner recruited Matt Molnar as the site's Editor, leading the redesign's construction and managing through the site's news content. Recent popularity has been gained for the site through its "On This Day In Aviation" daily postings, and by keeping its followers in-the-know with regular updates on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

2012 redesign

The site's third redesign launched on February 20, 2012. With a more modern look, it expanded on growing article categories for visibility, incorporated a blog for the two site owners, added a Job Listings feature and made deeper parts of the site more accessible and faster loading. The announcement also hinted at more features in the future which have not been announced at this time.

2013 staff changes

In late January 2013, NYCAviation's Editor-in-Chief Matt Molnar, died at the age of 33, creating both personal and professional challenges among the small, close-knit team. Matt's loss led to a dramatic downturn in published content over the coming months, also impacted by the resignation of Jeremy, their Project Manager. This led to operational restructuring by Founder Phil Derner in expanding the team to 9, including new positions in the form of a team of Editors, a Producer, Event Planner, Project Manager, Marketing Strategist and the hiring of a publicist, all in preparation of adding several new features and services to the business in 2014.

Features

Spotting guides

NYCAviation spotting guides offer enthusiasts many resources for practicing their hobby at airports around the world. Adding a new airport guide on average of about one per week, they contain four tabbed pages that are complete with airfield statistics, radio frequencies, approach plates, and spotting maps. The spotting map pages show various locations for aviation photography throughout the airport, and also share a detailed description of directions to the various locations, photo tips and examples of the kind of photographic views one can achieve.

Airline news

Coverage includes news pertaining to the

airline industry An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...

, event coverage, and a look back at aviation's past, often with a humorous twist. A news calendar on the site also informs people of coming and past dates of changes in airline routes or aircraft types and upcoming events. The site has broken a number of stories that would later be picked up by major news organizations and grow into international headlines, including the news of the treasured

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

aircraft's damage in Brooklyn,US leaves Concorde gift from UK to rot in airfield
''Telegraph.co.uk,'' July 9, 2008'' and the unlikely closure of a

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

JFK International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the New ...

due to an invasion of diamondback terrapin

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

Editorials

Articles are posted offering commentary on current aviation news, educational pieces on the airline industry, and entertaining stories from the experiences of longtime

pilots An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

, industry insiders and frequent business travelers.

Community

Forums

NYCAviation's message boards allow its members to share plane spotting tips and photographs, discuss aviation industry news and events, and broader topics such as

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and

humor Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

Members

Through their extensive internet interactions, NYCAviation members have created a vibrant offline community as well. It is common for members to arrange plane spotting outings, special aircraft arrival gatherings and seasonal events. The recent addition of active

and

presences has also helped the community grow.

Security and First Amendment issues

The NYCA community is at the forefront of the debate between the requirements of

counterterrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that Government, governments, law enforcement, business, and Intelligence agency, intellig ...

efforts and the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

rights of plane spotters in the wake of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. The Spotter Blotter section of the site's message board encourages plane spotters to share their experiences with law enforcement, good and bad, when they are approached or questioned in the course of enjoying their hobby.

Media

Aviation news publisher Flightglobal's annual Webbie Awards awarded NYCAviation "Best Enthusiast Site of 2009" and ranked the site 3rd in "Best Use of Social Media for 2009", losing out only to

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

and

Manchester Airport Manchester Airport is an international airport in Ringway, Manchester, England, south-west of Manchester city centre. In 2019, it was the third busiest airport in the United Kingdom in terms of passenger numbers and the busiest of those n ...

It was the first year NYCAviation was nominated for the awards, both of which were in new awards categories. NYCAviation was featured in a segment about plane spotting with Al Roker and Ann Curry on

NBC's The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

''Today''. NYCAviation is cited as an authority on the hobby of plane spotting in the HarperCollins title ''Get A Hobby! (2007).'' NYCAviation and the growing plane spotting community that it has helped foster have been profiled by

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

and

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

Concorde

In July 2008, a treasured

British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a populati ...

, on display at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn during the restoration of its permanent home at the

Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum The ''Intrepid'' Sea, Air & Space Museum is an American military and maritime history museum in New York City with a collection of museum ships. It is located at Pier 86 at 46th Street, along the Hudson River, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhoo ...

, was damaged by a passing delivery truck. Photos appeared on NYCAviation.com within hours, and the site received recognition from local, national and international media, covering the aircraft's damage and repair. Volunteers from NYCA arranged to anonymously inspect the state of the aircraft regularly until its return to the old aircraft carrier, reporting back their findings to the Intrepid organization.

References

*{{Cite book , last=Barseghian , first=Tina , author-link=Tina Barseghian , title=Get a hobby!: 101 all-consuming diversions for any lifestyle , year=2007 , publisher=Collins , location=New York , isbn=978-0-06-121527-8 , ref=Bar07

External links

NYCAviation Homepage
Aviation websites Aviation Internet forums