Aurora borealis on polar routes
Sun dogs above the plane
Sun glories below the plane
Space shuttle launch
Fourth of July Fireworks on a flight across the Midwest
Tracer rounds in Africa
Great wall of China
Grand Canyon in NW Arizona
Canyon De Chelly in NE Arizona
Oil tankers at sea in the Pacific
Other aircraft above and below our flight level
Full moon above the clouds
Mexican pyramids near Mexico City

I look forward to the 787, which has even larger windows for gawping out of.

Used to fly ATL - LAX frequently and on certain occasions the route would go over Lake Havasu City and the London Bridge was clearly visible.

1) On a flight from SFO to SEA, the pilot diverted to the east so that we could see the crater formed on Mt St Helens.

2) On flights from S Calif to SFO, the "Big Sur" arrival comes over Santa Cruz and just to the east of our house. If I sit on the left side of the aircraft, I can often see the house. If you fly this route and let me know you are coming, I will listen to my scanner and come out and wave!

Flying out of Boston in the Wintter, you often head out over the water. I have notices that sometimes there are white things down in the water - never been able to identify them. Do icebergs get this far south? I now they occasionally make it close enough to shore in Maine to see them there.

During the summer months I love the evening flights to LA, as you often pass by large thunderstorms over the plane. The combination of lightning in the clouds and the dusk sky is beautiful.

I found my pictures of the glory and they are not exactly the way I remembered. There is actually no shadow of my airplane anywhere. There is, however, another airplane at a low altitude that just happened by pure luck to be near the glory when I took it, and the shadow of that plane appears below it. So that's probably why I had gotten it a little mixed up in my mind.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0/_MG_5607.jpg

The arrow points at the other plane which I show expanded here:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-K...G_5607crop.jpg

Try this app to help locate your position
 

There is a pretty good app called window seat that can help you track your flight in almost real time. You set it right before take off and it uses the flight plan on file to help you identify your position in flight without a gps. It is pretty good and accurate if you start it at the right time and the captain doesn't stray off flight plan too much. It's also fun because it is basically like a flight map similar to the ones on international flights.

It could definitely help you narrow down your location when you see things of interest.

I have it for iPhone and iPad, not sure what other PDAs support it.

I bow to you!! This is awesome!

I was treated to seeing the Aurora Borealis on a PHX-ATL flight back in October (on my birthday no less!). The Captain came on the P/A to inform us in his entire career he'd never seen it so far south.

I've flown out of SEA probably 50 times. Once, on a UA 777 a few years back, we flew so close to the summit of Mt. Rainier that it almost felt like you could reach out and touch it. The pilot announced it in advance and I happened to have the perfect window seat for it that day. If there had been climbers on the summit, I imagine they would have been freaked out by our presence.

I've flown that direction on takeoff quite a few other times and always look - in fact, after that I always made sure I had an "A" seat out of Seattle. But we never got that close again... Seeing Rainier from a distance on either approach or departure isn't that odd: it was just that one flight that one day that was unusual.

Others:
- Grand Canyon a bunch of times
- Giza pyramids
- Lots of other airplanes in holding patterns seemingly right on top of us - common at LHR
- A few times, a plane cruising the opposite direction as us - always fun to see
- Hurricane Dennis from a few years back...we were flying in perfectly clear weather but you could see the storm in the distance, perhaps 40 or 50 miles away
- Lots of big thunderstorms in the summer in the Midwest. Always fun to see, as long as there's a way to get around them.
- Vegas at night. Can't miss it...
- A few nighttime baseball/football games. Obviously this isn't too rare out of LGA, but I've also seen a night game at Wrigley from the air before.

Alot of times flying into my home airport we see the most beautiful site, the Swiss and French Alps.

Grand Canyon
Greenland
Wind farm in the waters off Britain

I think the prettiest flight was SOF-LHR. We flew over mountain ranges in the Balkans, then got a clear view of Venice, and then flew over the alps. It was one of those flights where looking out the window was interesting the entire flight.

I have a question. Flying MAD-JFK a few times, I've always noticed, shortly after leaving Madrid, that we fly over an area with a huge crucifix below. Does anyone know what that might be?

Flying into Santiago (SCL) is awesome as you end up flying into the airport surrounded by the Andes!

My two biggest airborne out-the-window memories: The Aurora Borealis during a particularly active period on a flight between ANC-SEA, coming in over the Great Wall of China on daytime approach to Beijing (most of my previous arrivals there had been in the dark). Totally awesome experiences.

Valley of the Fallen near Escorial would be my guess.

An eerie and impressive memorial built by Franco.

Just did an image search and yes, that's it! Thanks so much. :)

makes since, there is one of those that you can visit , actually two, one in AZ one in SD

I've been to both, as a visitor to the US the most interesting places to visit (outside of big cities of course) are the Great Plains

A lot of people have seen it, but I love flying over Europe, seeing the patachwork of farms and small, but clearly defined, villages, connected by fragile-looking roads. And the deep green of the forests....:)
Also, the Himalayas, as of yesterday

Mt. Fuji

KIX

North Pole

I saw the fireworks this time on July 4 - all over the US , flying from DEN to ATL - they look amazing from the top - it is the perspective we usually never get ,unless you are in the air.

Flew over the amazing city of Paris on the flight CDG - BKK - was incredible to check out the layout of the city - and identify the major streets and monuments - it just might be one of the most beautiful cities to look at, from the air.

I'm about to take my first polar flight (CO99) and am really excited about what I might see. Is there a good likelihood of seeing Auroras? The north pole is in a state of perpetual darkness currently right so I doubt I'll see anything on the ground.

1992, watching parts of Los Angeles burn on a night landing as we approached from the north on a flight into San Diego. Horrible seeing the fires from the rioting.
Pitiful. Not a "I seen it from the air" memory that I cherish.

In alphabetical order:
A
Airports
Alps, The

To be continued in a later post.

I loved what I saw when departing from Jiuzhaigou.

Flying at the same level with the mountains was amazing.

1) Mountains at Jiuzhai
2) Lighting strikes.
3) Sunsets and Sunrise

I hope I will have the luck to see the auroras in a plane too. ^

1. An incredible number of ships at anchor just out of SIN

2. Someone shining a laser at the aircraft high above LPL

Flying over the Alps, not very extraordinary but it remains one of my favourites.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...6/99e5233f.jpg

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...6/c48de306.jpg

Wow, that's gorgeous!! ^^

sometimes, flights between ABQ and LAX would pass right over the meteor crater in arizona (as well as the grand canyon).

on a flight into LAX on new years' eve several years ago, i passed over at least a dozen fireworks displays.

eight years ago, on a flight from yogyakarta to bali, i was on a plane that passed only a few dozen kilometers from a smoking volcano. i so regret not taking a picture.

I remember flying from EWR to YYZ a few years back and thinking "wow it looks like there's one little cloud just outside Buffalo". Turned out I was looking at Niagara Falls and the steam coming off it. That was amazing.