Having serendipitously dipped a toe into the avgeek waters, it doesn't seem so surprising to me. In a major metropolitan area, you can bank on people listening

Having serendipitously dipped a toe into the avgeek waters, it doesn't seem so surprising to me. In a major metropolitan area, you can bank on people listening to ATC traffic and camping out near airfields with good-enough cameras at almost any time. In the avgeek world, one can earn both personal satisfaction and kudos for novel aircraft, so they are especially desirable. Even a beginner is likely to have an imaging system that is plenty good, with a mechanical shutter. The atmospheric shimmer in the third image suggests that it was made with a longer lens; probably not a beginner. The President of the United States can't fly over Britain on a secret trip without getting photographed by a semi-retired IT manager: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/27/air-force-one-spotted-in-sheffield-how-uk-enthusiast-revealed-trumps-iraq-trip https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/27/air-force-on... It is really great to see distributed citizen-journalism happening.