The I've Seen it From the Air thread
 

As a window watcher on my flights, I see many interesting things below me. Some are easy to identify or find out what they are. Others, however, are not so easy.

This thread is for people who have seen interesting things but want to know what they are. Please give a description of what you have seen, where, with as much detail as possible, and perhaps a flight number and date.


I will start with this - while flying over the corner of Denver/Wyoming/Nebraska (flight 2279 MSP-SJC on the 18th of Dec.) I noticed a bunch of bright lights spaced rather interestingly. They were much brighter, and looked to be much bigger, than the standard building lights you normally see, but then again this was way out there. They kind of flickered - I would say they were some kind of fires, but I think we would have been too high to see anything like that. Any ideas?

Christmas lights?

Chernobyl

Grand Canyon

A ski resort?

Grand Canyon and Las Vegas are easily recognized from the air, as are some of the world's tallest mountains.

I've also found it interesting to fly into/out of LA during wildfire season. You really get a better appreciation of how widespread they can be when seen from the air.

One thing I've always wanted to see, but never have, are 4th of July fireworks from the air. This year I flew on the 4th, but it was a daytime flight from DUB to ORD, so no fireworks in sight.

Atlas 5 rocket from the cape on a flight up from tampa.

It was a giant bright streak across the sky.

Flying DAL-MSY back in October, at night (9 PMish). As we got closer to New Orleans (but still at cruising altitude so we were actually nowhere near New Orleans), out of the right side of the plane (so facing south) there were a ton of yellowish/orange lights on the ground. It didn't appear to be a city, I don't think there were any major cities along the flight path. No idea what all those lights were from, but there were a ton of them. Does anyone have any clue as to what it could be? Oil refineries along the gulf was my best guess

Actually, I can do better than approximate date and time. Here's the flight: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/S...210Z/KDAL/KMSY

There's a fairly large windfarm up that way. I don't know if it's lit up at night, but it could've been that.

I usually see my office building (in downtown ATL) as we're coming down for landing. In my mind's eye, I can see the pile of work sitting on my desk, waiting for me to return to it. . . .

The most bizzare thing I saw, I was able to easily identify: Machine gun flare.

I was on a flight in 2004 coming into LAX at night. About 1500 above the ground, just before touchdown, I looked down into the streets and saw machine gun flare. Ahhh....LA. We love it!

On occasion, I can see the building where I live while approaching or taking off.

Same here. If landing on 33L I can spot my home from the left side of the plane.

On the seatback

http://gardyloo.us/photogallery/phot...7JS%20027a.jpg

Out the window

http://gardyloo.us/photogallery/phot...7JS%20029a.jpg

QF63, SYD-JNB, August 2005

Yeah, 9 times out of 10 I end up seeing my office building in downtown St. Louis on takeoff and landing. Since I don't fly for work and all of my travel is personal, the office is the last place I want to see. Especially when landing, that's a reminder that vacation is over and it's back to work the next day.

Whilst flying back to the UK from Rome a few years ago in wonderful clear skies above the clouds, I spotted a weird contrail coming from what I think was a turboprop plane which was ahead of us. It looked more like smoke as it was black and it had maintained a very well defined helix shape. Has anyone else seen something like this?

The most depressing thing I have seen from a plane - the desert that used to be the Aral Sea.

A number of years ago (mid 80's) I flew from Boston to Washington National (I no longer remember the airline or plane) but I was amused that I flew over an apartment building I used to live in in Quincy, the house I was currently living in in CT, and the house I grew up in in NJ. Interesting flight.

Cheers,
Pogopossum

I saw KIX at night while flying from NRT to BKK at 30,000+ ft.. :)

It's easily recognizable since it's an airport built on a man-made island. It also helped that the pilot pointed it out. :)

http://images.google.com/imgres?q=ka...1t:429,r:1,s:0

Could have been something to do with the oil business if you were near Wyoming and some parts of the front range. I know there are also small oil fields out in the plains states when I drive through them but not many refining facilities doing burn offs out there.

Well I don't have a photo but I do have a video...unfortunately it's about 8 minutes long and the part I'm wondering about the most is a bit after the 7 minute mark. I was flying on AA flight 264 from LAX to BOS and it was so cool to see all this stuff in western US...but I wasn't DEAD sure what any of it is. I studied google earth for a long time to try to get it right but I am aware that though I say what the locations are, I may not be 100% correct. Anyway, the one I am most interested in knowing is what I called the Glen Canyon or possibly Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, being such a crappy AA flight, they don't have any info about where you are at the moment so I had no idea.

SO here's the video...the sight is at 7:35 and the rest of the video is randomness from flying over Western US. Feel free to comment there (or here) and correct me on anything you see!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4-msADpy0k

On a flight from JFK to ATL, passing by the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was able to see the cabin resort on Skyline Drive that I had spent a night at during a driving vacation.

On a night flight from JFK I saw a fireworks display from a town along the south shore of Long Island. Since I was above it and so far away, it was interesting, but not impressive.

I always try for a window seat. I can only read or watch the inflight entertainment (if available) for so long.
I wish they would allow GPS use. then I would be able to know for sure where I was when I saw something interesting.

Regards,
Mych

On a flight YOW-YEG at night, the pilot pointed out the aurora borealis. It was pretty cool to see

I live on Chicago's lakefront, just south of the landing path that flights into ORD often take (straight down Addison, Irving Park or Lawrence), so it's rare when I don't see my home on the way home. I always joke that if I could parachute out I'd save myself about an hour's time in getting home.

Those lights actually were missle silos! Apparently there are a whole bunch of them up in that corner of the state. Kinda creepy now that I figured out what they are.

I love flying over the western states, there is so much interesting stuff to see. Yet, I have never been able to see the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, or Denver. Either wrong side of the plane or too cloudy. Did a lot of flying into Salt Lake this week, and with the really low cloud cover, watching the mountains rise out of the clouds like islands, with planes circling around like birds (or sharks), it was kinda spiritual. Reminded me why i love to fly.

Space shuttle launch (from way far off). I always love seeing Greenland. Due to winds, my SFO-AMS flight diverted south enough that I didn't see it this trip.

I flew over Three Mile Island and the pilot was kind enough to point it out. Those ubiquitous cooling towers which were plastered all over the news during the crisis were clearly visible from the air. I wish pilots would make more of an effort to advise pax of interesting sights. I remember them doing more of this when I was growing up but the practice seems to have waned.

Many of us wish they wouldn't! Stay off the PA and let us sleeeeep

Aliens.
Seriously, I don't know what they were, but am inclined to think that they were not fires. Light emitted by fire has very different appearance than electrically generated light due to their different spectra. Flickering and/or twinkling is caused by changes in refractive indext of the intervening medium, air in this case.

It looks depressing enough on Google Earth, but looking at it live from above would be an eerie feeling.

I photographed a shadow of the airplane on a cloud below us and the shadow had a rainbow around it. Found out later it's called a glory and not that unusual. Wikipedia has an article about it.

That sounds cool! Still have the photo? I'd love to see :D

Flew over Baghdad on Monday on EK DXB-LHR. Looked peaceful from flight level 340...

If the OP doesn't post one up by the time I get home tonight, I have one I can post but it lacks the shadow of the plane. Oddly, it does have the shadow of the contrail though. o.O

Saw the Las Vegas strip lit up at night when flying SLC to LAX, on LAX to TPE saw the expansive city of Tokyo, again at night. Even when viewed from thousands of feet in the air Tokyo is monstrous! A few months ago on SLC-PDX we flew right by Mt. Hood, with a bank of clouds covering the bottom half. I had a gorgeous picture in my cell phone but lost the phone :/.

Hey, post yours too, why not? lol

Sure thing:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5108/5...d9fbaabfa9.jpg
Somewhere over the Atlantic by chimphappyhour, on Flickr

Would love to see any of that but I never seem to fly the right routes at the right time. As close as I ever get is I do get to see thermal inversions quite a bit while climbing. (I'm usually on the mountain when the clouds are below me. Sounds great until you realize you have to climb down through that.)

November 14th 2008 on a flight DFW-MIA pilot announced that there is a space shuttle launch and we will be pretty close (well, as close as you can be). When the time came he did even the countdown and we coud see the spectacular sight. Propably all of the passengers moved to the left side of the plane.

Very next day I was flying LAX-LHR evening flight and could see the huge wildfires (which I think was the Montecito Tea Fire). That was also quite amazing.

Oh wow that is wicked cool!!! *Now I'll be looking for glories on all of my day flights LOL*

the Northern Lights

not my video, but this was similar to the route I had: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j36Erxd5rc

Thanks, I know in the northern hemisphere, it works best if you are on a W-E or E-W flight and sit on the north side of the aircraft on a cloudy day. I would assume in the southern hemisphere you would want to be on the south side of an aircraft traveling W-E or E-W. The clouds are the essential bit though.