When it comes to the final of this presitgious event huge numbers of fans travel to support their team and it was expected that 50,000 would visit so from our point we wanted an exit by the English teams before the final and after some close calls we got our wish with two Italian teams making the final thus guaranteeing plently of foreign charters and making it worth going to Manchester for a few days.

In January 2003 I phoned around enquirying about Hotel accomodation for myself and a friend and after some initial difficulty in tracking down a room I eventually booked one for 3 nights at the Premier Lodge just 3 or 4 miles from the Airport at a cost of GBP£55 per night.

The European Cup Final was to take place on Wednesday 28th of May so we decided to travel down very early on the Monday and stay until Thursday evening driving back up the Motorway to arrive home about 10pm or so and that was the plan we stuck to.

On Monday 26th May we set off at 3-30am so as to avoid the heavy Motorway traffic and to get there nice and early as the light conditions are best in the morning when you have sun behind on the South side of the Airport where the best views for photos are.

Manchester Airport is know by photographers as one of the best in Europe for viewing whether it is lineup or action shots you are after they can easily be found here with the fantastic facilities laid on for the photographer, in fact it has more of a feel like a Dutch or German Airport with the effort that the Airport authorities have put into providing superb viewing spots in particular on the South side where there is a very long earth bank that let's you shoot over the fence without it getting in your photos.

I'm just glad that this is one Airport that the British Airport Authority haven't got their hands on because no doubt the usual hardline B.A.A. policies would be applied like their other Airports to discourage photographers, spotters and families who just like to come and watch the planes by shutting off the good spots for viewing.

I always take my small flat top steps if possible when I go somewhere to Stand on for that extra little bit of elevation and have had them here at Manchester twice before, anyway they double up as something to sit on if the grass is wet since there is nothing worse than a full day standing about.

I would recommend taking steps here to use at the 24L spot as with the larger aircraft you get the bottom of the perimeter fence in shot and that's my pet hate so I stand on them when shooting here.

We arrived just after 7am and parked along from the Moathouse Hotel on the South side where there is a path that leads to the raised bank giving very close views of the action so with reasonable weather the camera came out and was put into action at 7-20am when I took my first shots (two of them below).

OK-YGU 737 CSA (Manchester 26-5-03).

G-OZBG A321 Monarch Airlines (Manchester 26-5-03).

Departing movements were mainly the regular stuff except for a Hapag Lloyd Express 737, CSA 737 (not the logojet unfortunately) and a PIA 747 arriving on the far runway.

This spot is ideal for close lineup photos if the departing runway in use is 24L which it was on all days that we were there but since buying my Canon D60 Digital camera I prefer to go for action shots so after an hour here I decided to move to where you can take liftoff shots and at 8-35am I made the long walk back down the path, crossed the main road and up the bank on the other side following the trail to eventually stop at the ideal spot for the kind of shots I was after, a 20 minute walk all in.

The tricky bit here is to judge where best to stand for shots as obviously the heavies take a lot more runway to get airbourne than small ones like Embraer 145's so I figured out a routine of where to stand depending on aircraft type and even then there were some big variations on the liftoff points but you get a good idea after a little while on your best angle for photos.

I took my first shot here at 9-05am and stayed at this place until 12pm when the runway closes for 3 hours due to a noise agreement with the locals before the runway was built.

The grass bank here is easily over the height of the fence and in hindsight I probably should have went a little down it to eliminate some of the grass and make it a more level looking shot so that's something I will try on my next visit.

Later in the morning heavy clouds started to build up and you can see what I mean in the My Travel DC10 shot with a dark background so when 12pm came and the new runway closed I made the 20 minute walk back to the lineup spot for 24L where you get a good view of takeoff's (requires a 300mm lense) on the far runway 24R in front of you due to the two runways being offset.

G-MONR A300 Monarch Airlines (Manchester 26-5-03).

G-FCLC 757 Thomas Cook Airlines (Manchester 26-5-03).

N76040 767-400 Continental Airlines (Manchester 26-5-03).

9V-SVM 777 Singapore Airlines (Manchester 26-5-03).

N394DL 767 Delta Airlines (Manchester 26-5-03).

HB-JAO EMB145 Crossair (Manchester 26-5-03).

G-DPSP DC10 My Travel (Manchester 26-5-03).

I use a stabilised 75-300mm lense on my D60 so with the cameras cropping factor of 1.6x it is equivalent to 480mm on a normal SLR and comes in handy for those far runway liftoff shots although at midday onwards if the weather is sunny you are getting the sun rather overhead.

LIght conditions by 2-30pm were very poor and not worth taking any more shots so we headed off to the Premier Lodge Hotel to check in and get a bite to eat just up the road a little where there are some takeaway food shops, it looked a little brighter in early evening so we went back again to a viewing spot between the two runways but the bright bit was short lived so that was us finished for the day and time to head back to the Hotel to download the C/F cards and recharge up our camera batteries for the following day.

G-OBYB 767 Corsair (Manchester 26-5-03).

A6-EKR A330 Emirates (Manchester 26-5-03).

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Page 2 (Tuesday 27th May 2003 (4 photos).
Page 3 (Wednesday 28th May 2003 (26 photos).
Page 4 (Thursday 29th May 2003 (11 photos).
Page 5 (Manchester Viewing Map) (12 photos).

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