On a recent Thursday morning, the sun clears the skies as two brothers run through their checklist, minutes before animatedly translating the day’s flight schedule at SFO for the amusement of viewers around the world. 

Peter and Joshua Solorzano are LA Flights, a beloved YouTube channel dedicated to planespotting. “People watch us like they are listening to the radio,” Peter mentions as he refreshes the screen on an iPad. “Seven hundred people are already tuned in — that’s double what we get at LAX,” he says. “Everybody’s waiting.”

Their rig features a fluffy microphone with a windscreen, a Sony camcorder and a 4K video camera that’s trained on the runways, with another camera directed back at Peter. He’s the lead voice for the production while his younger brother operates the cameras, smoothly panning back and forth between runways so as not to nauseate viewers. Each stream consists of up to eight hours of nonstop planespotting. 

Akin to trainspotting, aviation spotting is a hobby wherein a person plants down to admire flights. SFO is a popular location for the activity and features several lookout points for spotters.

LA Flights has won over these aviation fans with the brothers’ delightful demeanor. They’re full of catchphrases — “Drag race on the one! It’s a two-for-one special,” Peter enthuses with the rattling cadence of an auctioneer — while challenging the mundane, routine reality of everyday flying.

“It’s so special,” Peter tells SFGATE of watching planes take off and land. “The magic of flight! We want to bring back the excitement of your first flight.”

Finishing their setup, the brothers move hastily but in a coordinated rhythm. Although Los Angeles is part of their YouTube name, this is the third time they’ve streamed from Bayfront Park, serving up SFO’s flights for their fans. They’ve started referring to the airport as their second hub. 

“You can’t get this close to a takeoff,” Peter says of LAX versus SFO. “And the amount of sounds is unmatched. LAX is close, but there’s car pollution. We like planes and birds chirping.”

Joshua begins rehearsing zooming in and out of the dual runways that run parallel to the park, supporting a unique view of two planes arriving or departing simultaneously. “That’s why we keep coming back,” he says. “SFO has everything.”

A group of men mosey by, beaming as they pass the clump of cameras. “Way to go, LA Flights!” one of them yells. “No wonder you’re not live yet; you’re still setting up.” 

The brothers smile, thank them and return to their gear. An average livestream can grab anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 viewers, and they’ve amassed 243,000 subscribers — up 43,000 since August, when they celebrated the channel’s two-year anniversary with a meet-and-greet. One subscriber even brought the brothers a cake. 

Peter, 28, and Joshua, 19, launched the channel in 2021, after a childhood steeped in aviation geekery. Joshua was in high school when LA Flights took off (it’s the only job he’s ever had); pre-pandemic, Peter worked at a car dealership. The financial support of their fans allows the brothers to live independently, in their own apartments, in LA.

“Some days, it’s $5, and others, it can be hundreds of dollars,” Peter says, adding that they receive very little from YouTube advertising revenue. 

Their father, Pedro, introduced the brothers to planespotting when the family lived in Las Vegas. “Dad would come home after his second or third shift and wake me up to take us to McCarran International,” Peter said, referencing what is now Harry Reid International Airport. “He’d say, ‘You’re going to be so close to the planes that you can touch them.’”

They’d pick up burgers from a Jack in the Box on Las Vegas Boulevard (near the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign) and then head to the airport next door to spot flights coming and going. Joshua said these are some of his earliest memories. “It was Dad’s way to direct me toward something prosperous,” Peter says. 

The older brother started on a path to becoming a pilot, enrolling in a magnet high school that offered an aviation program. He absorbed each lesson in aviation physics while learning Federal Aviation Administration regulations. But by his senior year, Peter said the cost to continue studying aviation, upward of $100,000, prevented him from continuing.  

Pedro moved the family to Los Angeles with the promise they would be closer to LAX — one of the busiest airports in the world. At first, the brothers recorded flights using an iPhone, purely for keepsaking. After posting a few of these videos online, however, the Solorzanos noticed they weren’t alone in their fascination with flight. 

In August, they camped out at LAX to capture the airport during Tropical Storm Hilary. “It was the wildest day at LAX,” Peter said. “The water! The wind! And the risk that our equipment could get water damage. The viewers heard our excitement — we had 12,000 people watching.”

The comment section on the brothers’ YouTube livestream moves at the pace of a Tetris game, with viewers chiming in with supportive feedback or to share what the channel has meant to them. Some people have worked past their fear of flying after listening to the brothers, while others have found a tribe who loves watching planes as much as they do. 

As the brothers near the start of their latest SFO episode, a man in a blue shirt seated on a nearby park bench rises and walks toward them. Marty Farmer from Concord genially approaches LA Flights and introduces himself.

Earlier this year, Farmer was recovering from brain surgery when he stumbled across the channel. Their streams aided in his recovery, he says, and he wanted to thank them in person. He shakes their hands. “The same weird thing that I’m into, they’re into,” Farmer tells SFGATE. “Watching planes seems silly, but it’s amazing.”

It’s go time, and Joshua gives his brother the look. “Ready?” he says. Peter nods, and they count down from three, two …