The arcane world of Plane Spotting

In April 2014, a New York Times reporter passing through Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport spotted a small plane sporting a tiny but unmistakable American flag on its tail. Because of sanctions limiting commercial interaction between the US and Iran, the stars and stripes were a jarring and mysterious detail, enough to warrant a dispatch in the paper headlined “Iran Gets an Unlikely Visitor, an American Plane, but No One Seems to Know Why.” Reports credited spotters, for whom the “tracking of planes has… (www.vqronline.org) Altro...