I happened to be near DC and went to catch the LH 748 and hoping 1R was in used to catch the evening departure. But I was quite disappointed as 19s were in use, and the heat haze was terrible. Finally to add insult to injury, their sent the LH 748 and KL 744 both to 19C. The only saving grace was an unexpected catch of Tu-154 from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. It parked among the much smaller corp. jets after landing.
I didn't want to give up and I went again when the 748 departed and shot from the walk way between Daily Garage 2 and the Terminal. At the end, I got what I wanted.
Based on this one-off experience, I'd say spotting at IAD is harder than JFK. At JFK, no matter which runway is in use, no matter what time of the day, there is always a location one can go to. For IAD, there is no way to shoot 19C/1C in the afternoon, unless the locals know some secret location.
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