A phenomenal day for plane-spotting!

Today was just amazing! There was so much air traffic, and I got the golden shot, of a plane I never expected.... So, first of all. There was a whole lot of military air traffic today. I didn't get to photo anything, unfortunately. 

Two army planes were way too high up, at 25,000 feet. There were also two Blackhawks, but one was flying too far West and the other too far East. I could hear them but not see them. 

Later on, at night, a third Blackhawk passed right by the house and it was fantastic to see. The only problem? Well... It was night. So there was no way that was gonna come out on camera. Sigh.... 

Alright, well here's the crazy news. There is an extra-rare cargo plane from a Ukrainian airline, called Antonov Airlines. Only 55 planes were ever made, with only 26 of those actually being in service. In the world! So, I happened to open FlightRadar and see that one is passing directly beside my house at just 3,000 feet up. 

I ran outside SO FAST, heart pounding, and I did it... I got the golden photo of the rare plane. At the moment I took it, it was the #2 tracked plane worldwide on FlightRadar. There are also no photos of this specific plane on the Jetphotos database. And - there is ONE other photo of another plane from the airline, but it's only the nose of the plane, and it's on the ground in Poland. 

So here I have a gorgeous in-flight photo of the full plane in all its glory, in California. I made a Jetphotos account just to submit that, and I really have a good feeling that it'll get accepted. I am so proud of that photo. It's gotta be my best one yet. 

Anyways, aside from all of that excitement, I also got great photos of other planes I'd been wanting to catch, such as a Livery plane (which paints animals on the tails of the planes - I got a black-footed ferret!), a helicopter, and a Cessna from the flight school close to mine. 

There was supposed to be a rocket from SpaceX launching tonight, but they aborted it just 5 seconds before launch. I was pretty bummed out, but they said they'd try again tomorrow.