| Minnesota's biggest airport has many
great viewing possibilities. The parking garages are in the middle
with runways on either side, and you can get a great view from the 7th
floor. There is an official Observation Lot located on Post Road
right beside runway 12R/30L. This runway is used most by the heavy
jets, because they park at gates along that side of the terminal.
The Observation Lot is at the bottom of the hill from Fort Snelling
National Cemetery. This hill is accessible only from inside the
cemetery and all the way at the back but gives a spectacular view.
There is also Taft Park, located just off Cedar Ave. This park is
under the approach path to 12R and you can get a good close up view of
landing traffic. Runway 4/22 is not used too often, but
Northwest's daily 747 flight to Tokyo uses this runway because it is
longer and the plane is usually heavy with fuel and payload for the long
trip. The return flight from Tokyo tends to land on 12R since it
is not as heavy after the trip. Traffic on 4/22 can be viewed from
the parking garage of the Humphrey Terminal (not shown on the map) which
is located just west of the Cemetery.
Minneapolis is the home of Northwest and most of
the traffic will be NWA or its regional affiliates Mesaba and Pinnacle but there are a wide
variety of aircraft - from A330s to turboprops.
Other airlines operate here as well - all of the major U.S. carriers -
and in addition MSP is the home base of charter airlines Champion Air
(Boeing 727s) and Sun Country (Boeing 737s). The Minnesota Air
National Guard has a base on this field so on any given day there may be
C-130s landing and departing. There is lots to do in the
Minneapolis area too - the largest mall in America (Mall of the
Americas) is less than a mile away.
The Mall of America has a 7 floor parking garage (see map) which very close to the
approach path to the new runway 35 - it is a superb spot for afternoon photography and
there's no charge to park. In fact, you can park here and take a light rail to the
airport and go to the parking garage there to watch planes. The cost of the light
rail is much less than parking at the airport. Another spot is on the north side,
what I like to call the "dog walking area" (see map). This is basically a
large grass lot on 28th Ave, accessible from highway 62, where some locals come to take
their dogs for a walk. In the morning you can get very nice photos of traffic
approaching 12R or departing 30L.
I highly recommend MSP as a place to view aircraft. Traffic is fairly constant throughout the day and in the late
afternoons it is not uncommon to see three or four
planes lined up for departure right in front of you at the observation
area. Definitely a great place for plane lovers and I highly
recommend a visit here.
Click here to see
photos from the Observation Area
Click here to see photos from the
parking garage
Click here
to see photos from the dog walking area
Click here to see photos from the
Mall of America
parking garage
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