Post by deanoitfc on Sept 18, 2023 19:00:18 GMT
Dear all,
I went on a non-spotting holiday to Dalaman in Turkey from 05 – 12 September.
We flew from Jet2 from our local Stansted Airport. The check in is brilliant at Stansted as they have their own area with lots of staff to welcome you and help the check in process. Our flight to Dalaman was on G-JZHO and arrived in the dark but still got a few bizjets. The cabin crew were so friendly. They absolutely murder TUI on customer service and friendliness.
We stayed at the Dalaman Hilton which is a 15-minute transfer from the airport and has good views of airborne movements. You cannot see the airport itself.
We had a riverside room which could see both inbounds and outbounds and had room 2463. Rooms 2473 – 2483 would have been better as you had to be quick to see take offs.
Not that we spent much time in the room and spent most of the time by one of the pools. From here you can see the end of one runway which was inbounds until 930 ish each day and then outbounds. FR24 was pretty good for timings but only about 50% of bizjets showed the reg. ADSB was pretty useless. Unfortunately, my small compact camera broke the week before and a camera would be very useful as lots of helicopters and light aircraft came quite close to the pool. My SBS puck picked up most so kept that running from the room.
So what could be seen?
Lots of domestic flights with 18 flights a day from Istanbul alone.
The trouble for me is Pegasus and Anadolujet come to Stansted every day in large numbers so hardly needed any. I went needing 5 THY and only made two. I still need 3 A319’s and they sent in TC-JLU every time which I do not need. I did scrape TC-JPZ which miscodes and comes up as TC-HSA.
There is a military base at Dalaman especially for the NAVY and saw 4 ATR 72’s and 2 Casa 235’s. Quite a few helicopters came ott me but needed a camera as just could not read them off.
Firefighting was happening with a lovely AN-32 UR-UZH going out most days some MIL 8 helis with buckets underneath. I saw 3 different ones ( a white, yellow and red one) one of which I read as OM-AVU but cannot find this anywhere so might have been AVD as same colours.
There were two air tractors going out with them I guess as fire spotters and I read them off as CC-ADB and EC-HCT but cannot find them anywhere. Everytime they came in low I was in the pool. Just my luck.
The Russians send a superjet or two every day from Sochi and a 737 from Aeroflot and Pobeda. We used to get Pobedas at Stansted pre-Covid so was good to frame two of them. It was strange to see RA-‘s again. Azur Air sent in some 767’s. Quite a few Russian bizjets as well. There were some Russians staying in the hotel but they definitely kept a low profile.
Saw a few light aircraft over the hotel including 3 Soneca’s TC-UUF/UUL and UUM. A few civilian helicopters inc 4X-BHT an S-76 and OR-3126 Bell 429 Turkish Forestry.
Each evening has a large influx of UK Charters especially Jet2.
You get some overflights which were quite easy to see but mainly standard European fare but a few flydubai going to the Balkans.
I have a few light aircraft I cannot tie up yet a Cessna TC-CAT and what looked like TC-TEB and TC-RRJ plus a heli TC-HME and a big heli that kept using hexcode 123467 which sounds a bit iffy.
So made about 10 every day but all quality rather than quantity.
The hotel itself is excellent. Lots of room and good quality food in the buffet area plus 6 speciality restaurants. We really like it here and will go back. So if you want a nice holiday with your partner and see some nice planes it works very well. I do not think I could cope with a similar holiday in Antalya as would never get any rest. Every day it was 35 degrees or more so need a nice swimming pool to refresh when of course something decent always came over.
It was back home on G-DRTN and another excellent flight and smiles all round. Highly recommend Jet2.
If anyone needs any more information or any logs happy to help just please ask and if anyone can help tie up any light aircraft would be much appreciated.
Best Regards
Dean
I went on a non-spotting holiday to Dalaman in Turkey from 05 – 12 September.
We flew from Jet2 from our local Stansted Airport. The check in is brilliant at Stansted as they have their own area with lots of staff to welcome you and help the check in process. Our flight to Dalaman was on G-JZHO and arrived in the dark but still got a few bizjets. The cabin crew were so friendly. They absolutely murder TUI on customer service and friendliness.
We stayed at the Dalaman Hilton which is a 15-minute transfer from the airport and has good views of airborne movements. You cannot see the airport itself.
We had a riverside room which could see both inbounds and outbounds and had room 2463. Rooms 2473 – 2483 would have been better as you had to be quick to see take offs.
Not that we spent much time in the room and spent most of the time by one of the pools. From here you can see the end of one runway which was inbounds until 930 ish each day and then outbounds. FR24 was pretty good for timings but only about 50% of bizjets showed the reg. ADSB was pretty useless. Unfortunately, my small compact camera broke the week before and a camera would be very useful as lots of helicopters and light aircraft came quite close to the pool. My SBS puck picked up most so kept that running from the room.
So what could be seen?
Lots of domestic flights with 18 flights a day from Istanbul alone.
The trouble for me is Pegasus and Anadolujet come to Stansted every day in large numbers so hardly needed any. I went needing 5 THY and only made two. I still need 3 A319’s and they sent in TC-JLU every time which I do not need. I did scrape TC-JPZ which miscodes and comes up as TC-HSA.
There is a military base at Dalaman especially for the NAVY and saw 4 ATR 72’s and 2 Casa 235’s. Quite a few helicopters came ott me but needed a camera as just could not read them off.
Firefighting was happening with a lovely AN-32 UR-UZH going out most days some MIL 8 helis with buckets underneath. I saw 3 different ones ( a white, yellow and red one) one of which I read as OM-AVU but cannot find this anywhere so might have been AVD as same colours.
There were two air tractors going out with them I guess as fire spotters and I read them off as CC-ADB and EC-HCT but cannot find them anywhere. Everytime they came in low I was in the pool. Just my luck.
The Russians send a superjet or two every day from Sochi and a 737 from Aeroflot and Pobeda. We used to get Pobedas at Stansted pre-Covid so was good to frame two of them. It was strange to see RA-‘s again. Azur Air sent in some 767’s. Quite a few Russian bizjets as well. There were some Russians staying in the hotel but they definitely kept a low profile.
Saw a few light aircraft over the hotel including 3 Soneca’s TC-UUF/UUL and UUM. A few civilian helicopters inc 4X-BHT an S-76 and OR-3126 Bell 429 Turkish Forestry.
Each evening has a large influx of UK Charters especially Jet2.
You get some overflights which were quite easy to see but mainly standard European fare but a few flydubai going to the Balkans.
I have a few light aircraft I cannot tie up yet a Cessna TC-CAT and what looked like TC-TEB and TC-RRJ plus a heli TC-HME and a big heli that kept using hexcode 123467 which sounds a bit iffy.
So made about 10 every day but all quality rather than quantity.
The hotel itself is excellent. Lots of room and good quality food in the buffet area plus 6 speciality restaurants. We really like it here and will go back. So if you want a nice holiday with your partner and see some nice planes it works very well. I do not think I could cope with a similar holiday in Antalya as would never get any rest. Every day it was 35 degrees or more so need a nice swimming pool to refresh when of course something decent always came over.
It was back home on G-DRTN and another excellent flight and smiles all round. Highly recommend Jet2.
If anyone needs any more information or any logs happy to help just please ask and if anyone can help tie up any light aircraft would be much appreciated.
Best Regards
Dean
