Sydney Airport (code YSSY, aka SYD) is located in Mascot, one of the southern suburbs of Sydney, as will be seen from the first map in this gallery. It started life around 1911 (albeit informally; the first commercial flight from what would become the airport didn't occur until 1919), having previously been a paddock for livestock. Back then, there were no obstructions on any of the 4 sides of the land. Things are a bit different to that now.

In 1921, the Commonwealth government purchased some land around Mascot to create a public airfield, and acquired the previous informal airfield's land 2 years later. Commercial operation as we now know it (well, sort of) began in 1924. In 1936, it was renamed Kingsford Smith Airport in honour of pioneer aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who had died in an aviation accident the previous year.

The first paved runway was the (sort of) east to west one, 07/25. Later on, a north-south runway (which is now 16R/34L) was built to handle larger jets which started arriving in the 1960s. In 1989, development began on a parallel north-south runway (now 16L/34R). These 3 runways can be seen in the second map in the gallery.

In 2002, the Commonwealth government sold the airport to a private company. Prices rose, services fell, the competition regulator released a report in 2010 which was critical of price gouging (like the short term parking price increasing from $28 to $50 for 4 hours in a single year), and nobody could possibly have seen this coming when you put a previous government monopoly into private hands. Yes, that's sarcasm. However it won't be a complete monopoly for long, since a second airport is due to open in Sydney's west in late 2026. At the current rate, that might be the next time that I get back home.

Airports in general are a Mecca for plane spotters, and this airport is no exception. To its credit airport management has provided some observation sites, although inexplicably it closed the observation deck at the international terminal sometime in the last few years.

One place that it did develop is a patch of land that was previously informally used by plane spotters, including the founder of the YSSY online bulletin board (many, many years ago) Bruce Shepherd. He died from cancer in 2005, and from then on (and possibly even before), the place was named Shep's Mound. As can be seen on the 2nd map, it provides a view over the centre of the main north-south runway, some degree of visibility over the east-west runway (but not much), as well as taxiways Bravo and Charlie. There is pretty much no visibility to the 3rd runway. In 2017, the airport created two raised mounds at the location, as well as building an undercover shelter for the right-hand side one.

The mound sits just underneath the photogenic air traffic control tower for the airport; officially, Sydney Control Tower Number 5. More on that, later.

I was there because a friend and I were SUPPOSED to do a helicopter flight over Sydney that day, which had already been postponed by a week due to weather. Unfortunately... the engine on the helicopter wouldn't start, so all I'm left with are these shots from Shep's Mound.