LANCE Broad of Springfield Lakes is a mild mannered shop manager of a major supermarket chain five days a week.
It’s only when he is not running a busy store that Lance gives in to his passion and becomes a super sleuth.
His targets are the jets that fly through the skies and his weapon to catch them is a sophisticated SLR camera coupled with a high powered telephoto lens.
Lance is a self-confessed aviation fanatic, and he has a library of 30,000 shots of different planes to show for it.
He first fell in love with the roar of the jet engines when he went to Brisbane Airport to wave goodbye to his mate’s dad as he headed off to Los Angeles aboard a sleek new Boeing 747.
He was 25 at the time and since that day 15 years ago he has been chasing planes around all over the world.
Living in the Ipswich district gives him an ideal access to Amberley, Australia’s biggest Air Force Base, and on most Mondays, you may catch him on the nearby back roads with camera at the ready.
“Some years ago, I hooked up with two fellow aviation fanatics in Brock Little and Emil Cooper and together we run the website “The Aviation Studio”,” Lance said.
“We write stories and post our latest photos and I get great satisfaction from the growing popularity of the site.”
Lance’s partner Sarah supports his passion and together they have travelled the globe to park outside airports and air force bases to wait for the winning shots.
“Amberley recently had five visiting American B2 Stealth Bombers and it took me days to get the photos, but I captured a shot of each of them.
“It’s an amazing aircraft valued at $2billion and it was worth the long wait to see it here in Australian
skies.”
Lance admits that some people look at him weirdly when he tells them what he spends the majority of his spare time doing.
“It’s only when they see our amazing photos on our website that they start to understand our fascination for planes.
“Everyone has a hobby, it maybe fishing or stamp collecting, mine just happens to be photographing and chasing planes.”
With their winning shots, Lance together with Brock and Emil, put together detailed stories and videos surrounding the project they are covering.
They recently went to the aircraft graveyard in the desert just outside of Alice Springs and captured the shots of hundreds of passenger jets sitting locked and parked together in the middle of nowhere.
Emil also covered the major air force exercise Pitch Black in the Top End which involved numerous countries including USA, Germany, England and Australia.
Travelling is no issue for Lance as he looks for his next winning shot, after all you need to catch a plane to go to most of these places.
