What's the most amazing thing you've seen from a plane
May 18, 2015, 2:20 pm
#108
Join Date: May 2013
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Wheels down on my destination runway.
But also:
Flying up the Hudson over (through) Manhattan in a private plane at night at Christmastime when the WTC was still there.
The desert southwest coming into Las Vegas from the east
Taking off from Colorado Springs in a fog bank and breaking out of it into morning sun(the first we had seen in a week) at several thousand feet above the runway.
The front range rising out of the plains in Colorado.
But also:
Flying up the Hudson over (through) Manhattan in a private plane at night at Christmastime when the WTC was still there.
The desert southwest coming into Las Vegas from the east
Taking off from Colorado Springs in a fog bank and breaking out of it into morning sun(the first we had seen in a week) at several thousand feet above the runway.
The front range rising out of the plains in Colorado.
May 19, 2015, 4:54 am
#110
Join Date: Nov 2007
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Comet Hale-Bopp on my way back from Hawaii to LHR... I was an impoverished grad student and didn't have the means to get a nice seat on my many flights, but this put a huge smile on my face!
May 19, 2015, 9:18 am
#112
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Comet Hale-Bopp on my way back from Hawaii to LHR... I was an impoverished grad student and didn't have the means to get a nice seat on my many flights, but this put a huge smile on my face!
as I recall, there were about 100 on board; everyone with a right-side window seat (~20) remained in their seat, and those in the adjacent middle seats who were ok with sharing the windows (~15) did also ... four or five took turns at the little window in the mid-galley door just forward of the wing; the remaining 50-60 cycled thru the cockpit four or five at a time for a minute or so
at the time I was working at Boeing Flight Test, and had a "Non-Routine Flight Crew Authorization" card (technically only usable on Boeing operated test flights, but the pilots and flight engineer let me kneel against the wall ahead of the FE panel and behind the first officer's seat anyway) ... I got about a dozen really good photos thru the first officer's window
May 19, 2015, 11:29 am
#113
Join Date: Nov 2007
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wow, that just reminded me ... 26 Feb 1979 the Pacific Northwest chapter of AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics) chartered an Alaska Airlines 727-100 to fly along the track of a total solar eclipse
May 19, 2015, 3:31 pm
#114
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maybe 5 minutes of totality; the flight was only about 2 hrs, so we saw ~40 min of the partial phases both before and after
if you click on the track link you can mouse over the path and see the key event times (start transit, start totality, peak, end totality, end transit) along the track ... totality at any given point on the ground was just over 2 min in the Pacific Northwest, and about 2+50 at the point of greatest eclipse by the Manitoba/Ontario border
at nominal scale you can pick two points ~20 miles apart along the red line, and find the event times separated by ~16 sec ... that means the moon's shadow is traversing the earth at 1.25 miles per second
600 mph ground speed (pretty typical for a 727 at 37000 feet) is 10 miles per minute, or 1 mile in 6 seconds
if you click on the track link you can mouse over the path and see the key event times (start transit, start totality, peak, end totality, end transit) along the track ... totality at any given point on the ground was just over 2 min in the Pacific Northwest, and about 2+50 at the point of greatest eclipse by the Manitoba/Ontario border
at nominal scale you can pick two points ~20 miles apart along the red line, and find the event times separated by ~16 sec ... that means the moon's shadow is traversing the earth at 1.25 miles per second
600 mph ground speed (pretty typical for a 727 at 37000 feet) is 10 miles per minute, or 1 mile in 6 seconds
May 19, 2015, 5:58 pm
#115
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: HNL
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Maybe the speed at which a 727 flies at doesn't match the speed at which the moon's shadow travels along the surface of the Earth. Or maybe there's something far more obvious that I'm missing right now, due to being somewhat oxygen deprived, observing with the telescopes up on Mauna Kea...
May 19, 2015, 8:55 pm
#116
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 25
I was flying into Dubai UAE on the 5th of November one year, and it was a perfectly crystal-clear night. As we crossed the city from east to west, we could see dozens of firework shows below us across the whole area—it was quite amazing to watch.
May 19, 2015, 9:07 pm
#117
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,860
1) Flying to SLC on a AE E175 last Sunday, and a AA 737/MD80 flew right at us from a slightly different angle. I swear I could have waved to people on the plane almost. The other plane was above us slightly, but we seemed closer than we needed to be.
2) Flying into ORD from the east coast, as we enter ORD airspace and descend into the city, I swear we flew right by a pair of green and red floating balloons (like what a kid might own)
3) High winds over the plains kicking up/taking dust with it
4) Tons of oil wells over Texas is kind of cool.....
5) Flying over electrical storms is pretty interesting...
2) Flying into ORD from the east coast, as we enter ORD airspace and descend into the city, I swear we flew right by a pair of green and red floating balloons (like what a kid might own)
3) High winds over the plains kicking up/taking dust with it
4) Tons of oil wells over Texas is kind of cool.....
5) Flying over electrical storms is pretty interesting...
May 29, 2015, 1:00 pm
#118
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This goes back over 30 years, but the most amazing sight from a plane, for me, was the open-hearth steel furnaces at the old US Steel Chicago South Works. Seeing all that molten metal from the black night sky, the glowing iridescent red-orange of it, was awe-inspiring.
No more open hearths these days, a good thing economically but a bit of a shame esthetically.
No more open hearths these days, a good thing economically but a bit of a shame esthetically.
May 29, 2015, 8:06 pm
#119
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This goes back over 30 years, but the most amazing sight from a plane, for me, was the open-hearth steel furnaces at the old US Steel Chicago South Works. Seeing all that molten metal from the black night sky, the glowing iridescent red-orange of it, was awe-inspiring.
No more open hearths these days, a good thing economically but a bit of a shame esthetically.
No more open hearths these days, a good thing economically but a bit of a shame esthetically.
Aug 15, 2015, 8:41 am
#120
In Memoriam, FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Double Rainbow from a RDU-CVG flight after a thunderstorm:
