Tampa International Airport (TPA)

Click the map to go to Google Maps satellite view of this airport

The Tampa International Airport in Florida is another excellent location for planespotting.  This airport is laid out with the parking garages in the middle and the concourses radiating out from both sides, and north-south runways on both sides.  This makes for a perfect layout for photography in either morning or afternoon.  The two main garages between the terminals are short term and long term and airport officials are highly tolerant of planespotters and photographers up there.  Looking at the map above, the empty ramp on the northwest corner of the garages is used for UPS cargo aircraft parking and loading.  There is a roadway that goes under the taxiway to the north where trucks take the cargo from the planes to a sort center on the other side just off the east side of runway 19R.  Amazon 767s also use this ramp.  There is another parking garage, economy parking, located further south near the entrance to the airport (see map).  I did not try photographing here but it looks like you would get a good view of the south end of the runways.

A few off-airport spots include the airport service road on the southeast side.  This road goes from Westhorse Dr. where the FBOs are around the south end of the runway where it can be accessed off of Boy Scout Blvd.  From this spot you can photograph traffic landing on runway 1R as well as aircraft turning onto the runway either through or above the fence.  Photography here would only be good in the morning.  On the west side there is Cypress Point Park just south of the airport.  The highway interchange can make getting here a little difficult though.  But in this park you’d want to go over to the beach area and turn to face east, and then you’d get a good view of aircraft approaching runway 1L.  On the northwest side of the airport directly off of W. Hillsborough Blvd. there is Southern Comfort Dr., which leads to a few businesses at the corner of Hillsborough and highway 589.  Right where Southern Comfort comes off of Hillsborough is a place where you can pull over and get a good view of traffic coming in to land on 19R.  I did not get a chance to explore these spots during my time here because the parking garage was non-stop aircraft action!  I’ve included a gallery of photos taken from the short and long term garages below.