Since I don't follow politics as closely as I used to, I filled my time with photographing airplanes. Really nerdy, right? I don't care. I love airplanes. I always wanted to be a commercial airline pilot. But this is as close as I got.
Back in 1987 when I was in the 10th grade, we had a lesson in career planning. I investigated being an airline pilot. There were 2 paths to becoming an airline pilot - join the military and learn to fly there with either the Air Force, the Navy, the Marines, or the Army (did you know that the Army has more pilots than the Navy???), or pay for your own pilot's license, which in 1987 was over $10,000. Granted, that was about 2 years worth of tuition at the time, but the career path was difficult. Entry-level pilots were paid like $19,000. I could make more than that at Burger King, and no one's life was in my hands. So I want to college and got a degree in Business and Finance. Now I have a camera and photograph those planes.
Fortunately, the airlines got smart as there has been a dearth in military pilots, and suddenly after Covid subsided, though only moderately, there is now a pilot shortage. So airlines have created their own airlines schools.
BWI (Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport) is dominated by Southwest Airlines. Southwest doesn't use a "Hub-and-Spoke" system like Delta, United, and American, but Southwest's domination at BWI makes it a fortress. That's a real airline term.
Since I have LOTS of photos and opportunities to photograph Southwest planes, I have made it my objective to photograph EVERY Southwest plane. I'm up to 580 unique planes. Southwest, according to planespotters.net, has 707 active planes, with 37 parked, for a total of 744 planes. So, good math would indicate that I have about 160 to go. However, I have photographed multiple planes that have been retired or sold, so I probably have closer to 170-180 planes to photograph.
Here are 4 of them.
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