One of the most hidden treasures of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is a place called Founder’s Plaza.
Located on the northwest side of the airfield, this spot is a great place for watching planes land. So naturally with a day off, I spent an hour eating lunch at the plaza watching planes take off and land.
The plaza has a few covered benches, telescopes to help you zoom in on the action and historical information about the area and airport.
But the best part of the plaza is the proximity to the two west runways.
When planes are landing from the north (which is almost every day since our winds predominately come from the south), planes will land on runway 18R, which right just over 1,600 feet from the plaza.
That means you get amazing views of planes coming in for a landing. And since it’s an international airport, you can see a lot of really interesting airplanes and liveries.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as exciting as the last time I was there with a Quantas A380 landing on the runway, but it was still a pretty good catch. There were a lot of American Airlines planes, which is typical since the airlines is headquartered here.
I got a Frontier plane landing while a Delta plane was taking off. And I was able to get a United plane landing on Runway 17C over on the east side of the field.
The only disappointing thing about this short trip is that as I got in my car to head back home, an Air France plane landed and I wasn’t able get a photo.
Maybe next time.
