Airbus A300F4-600 (N721FD)

We went to the airport early this morning to take some photos of a particular airplane. Well needless to say, the plane did not land on the usual runway and we missed it. Can somebody tell me what they use to determine on which runway a certain airplane will land on. I guess an airport scanner would be an idea, but which one?

The first factor in determining the active runway is the direction and speed of the wind. After that it will depend on the airport, i.e. how many runways it has and what their procedures are for departures and arrivals, etc. You can certainly get a radio scanner that covers the aviation frequencies, but you could also just pull up a specific airport on FA and see which way the flights are coming in and which way they are headed out. Just keep in mind that if the wind changes significantly the active runway might change, too. If you're at the airport try to check the wind sock. That will give you a pretty good clue. Good luck, Tony!

Thank you for the information Greg,

I was actually able to confirm on Flight Radar 24 that the plane landed on the other runway.. This runway can't be seen from the other rumway we were at.

No problem, Tony!

Larger airports usually have 2 active runways (sometimes even 3). For example, at FAOR the 2 parallel runways are either 03L/21R or 03R/21L, depending on the prevailing wind. Assuming that the actives are 03 Left & 03 Right, departures are usually on the left, with arrivals on the right (this is for FAOR). So if you are wanting to catch an aircraft landing, you'd position yourself on the 03R runway. Whilst this is "usually" the case at FAOR, it is certainly not ALWAYS the case, and occasionally a plane would land on 03 Left. Mostly, if you miss an inbound because they received clearance for 03L instead of 03R, that is just down to bad luck. ATC would only give clearance for left very near to approach.