Something Different: Opa Locka!

Back at the end of March I spent a few days in Miami/South Florida with some good friends chasing aviation mainly at Homestead AFRB, I’ll cover this later.

Not being sure what was planned for Homestead we decided to head north to Miami Executive at Opa Locka in the hope of catching some coastguard action, oh and some Piston Engined veterans of course. We weren’t disappointed. Parking initially to the east of the field the first arrival was a Coast Guard C-37 – Ok, a biz jet and I don’t really do that kind of stuff, but it’s an interesting Biz-jet!!

The airfield is pretty accessible, so we did a quick tour to try and see what was on the ground. Plenty of Biz-jets, general aviation and helicopters. The Coast Guard hangars aren’t really accessible so we’d have to rely on catching them in flight.

A Quick look on ADSB told us that a Convair CV-240 was on its way back, so we positioned to capture it. Some new warehouses just to the west of the field provided a decent spot for us to park up and wait. Before the Convair arrived we were almost caught out by a CG Herc, a C-130H from Clearwater. Once it had landed the rumble of pistons could be heard and Conquest Air’s CV-240 came into sight.

Knowing that a DC-3 was due in we decided we had time to head down to Publix for a Pub-Sub (southern fried Chicken of course), if you are ever in Florida then you have to try them, trust me – oh and a foot long usually lasts you for a couple of days! Having repositioned ourselves to just by the approach we caught the incoming DC-3 lumbering over the top of us.

The weather took a turn for the worse and we were treated to some interesting flashes in the sky north of us and a bit of a deluge (not far from the deluge we had at Iniochos this year!) It made for some interesting skies throughout the day. One thing you’d expect in Miami is heat haze and it’s pretty much there all the time.

So with steam rising from the pavements after the rain and HC-140 of the CG made it’s way out and held to the north of us.

It wasn’t up for too long, unfortunately we couldn’t get it on approach as it came in on the southern runway, so I had to be content to watch it appear between the warehouses on finals. Thankfully we were treated to some more Piston engined movement as the last of the DC-3’s was on finals from the Bahama’s.

If you are a General Aviation fan then it really is an interesting place to visit. Some exotic types and the occasional rare piston engined movement. The other guys had seen Antonov’s operating from the airport so it’s worth a visit. Lens wise, most were taken on the 100-400 but expect that heat haze to play some havoc with your shots.

More heat haze and rain to come…….