BS: airplane window. baffled. please help

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:42 PM

On the way into Lhasa we flew through between the peaks of the Himalayas. Scary as all get out and magnificent.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:27 PM

I suppose it was many years ago, but I had an "aha" moment when I realized that clouds ALWAYS look white when viewed from above, or when viewed from a horizontal distance. Storm clouds only look black when you're underneath them.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:27 PM

The first flight to Anchorage Alaska was in the early morning. As the sun came up it spread a golden toasty sheen over the white topped mountains below us. Looked like oven-toasted meringue.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: bobad
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:04 PM

Not baffling but quite spectacular; on my first ever airplane flight, from Montreal to Miami, I got to see the space shuttle as it was ascending, great tongues of flame shooting from the boosters, just off our starboard side.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:03 PM

Like Katlaughing, seeing the circular rainbows that form on the clouds, with the eye of the sun in the centre... stunning!

My first flight was 27hrs in the air, London to Auckland, NZ, via Baltimore, L.A. and Tahiti. Didn't see much over the US because it was night and they made us keep the window blinds down so people could see the film. However, we chased the dawn across the skies coming in to Tahiti and landed on what can only be described as a pier. To land, we had to bank quite steeply around the island, which was nerve-wracking. One window full of big green mountain and the other full of bright blue sky... then we came into land and there was a sea horizon visible on each side!

My favourite ever sight though, seeing that golden orange rim around the world as the rest of the sky soars up into the deepest indigo and violet. No wonder man has always had a fascination with flight.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:53 PM

If the window was baffled, you would see nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:51 PM

While flying across the North Atlantic, en route from Minnesota to London, early in the morning, in the summer, I looked down and saw dozens of white flecks on the water. What were they? Icebergs? Fishing boats? Beluga whales? Whitecaps? They tended to be long and narrow, which favors whales or fishing boats. I imagine icebergs would be more irregular in shape. They were oriented every which way, not parallel to each other, as I would expect if they were whitecaps. Wouldn't whitecaps lie along the crest of a wave, and therefore run perpendicular to the prevailing wind? They seemed stable—they didn't form and disappear like clouds—and had no discernable motion. I couldn't judge how big they were—there was nothing to compare them to. I'm still wondering what they were.

Mountains tend to look flatter than I expect when viewed from above. Twice I have been fooled this way: Once when flying over the Appalachians, from Chicago to Newark, and once when flying over the Rockies from San Diego to Denver. Both times I looked down and thought, "These must be the foothills. I wonder when we'll come to the REAL mountains?" Then the land flattened out again, and I realized those must have BEEN the real mountains.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:24 PM

One of the first things I marveled about was the occasional dense and spiked plume that jutted well above the clouds that surrounded it. Oh, that and the feeling that the clouds are dense enough to cradle the airliner, if need be.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:19 PM

A round rainbow settled on top of the clouds which were below the plane. It was awesome!

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:12 PM

The first time I ever flew at night, I was a little perplexed about what all those brightly lit ovals all over the landscape were. Then it dawned on me that it was a Friday evening in October and that every high school in the US was playing football down there somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 05:41 PM

I usually do most of the explaining. I studied geology and geography and worked as a national park ranger in lots of areas around the U.S., and drove across many many times. Makes looking down at all of those familiar places pretty interesting. There have been some "aha!" moments for people who asked the questions, but I don't remember any particular stories at the moment.

The strangest thing I saw (but I knew what it was) was right out of one of the Narnia books (Magician's Nephew?). Flying over the Llano Estacado (Texas), west of Amarillo at night after heavy thunderstorms had passed. We were in a clear sky, full moon, and below were hundreds of depressions filled with water that were all reflecting that bright moon back up an us. It was a singular experience!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: Morticia
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 05:30 PM

I wonder why the blinds have to be up when you come in to land?

Subject: BS: airplane window. baffled. please help
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 05:23 PM

I am writing a piece about unusual things to be seen from an airplane window. I've been told to "ask my friends" to describe things they saw that baffled them, things that provoked an "aha!" when they were explained.

The things seen can vary in glamour from a volcano to a sanitation plant. (I did try to cast a little disfavor on the sanitation plant.)
Nonetheless, all ideas are welcome. They do need to be in the United States, though.

The prospect of telephoning all the people I know, many of whom live frenetic lives, was daunting. Then I thought, "The Mudcat!" the greatest aggregation of intelligent people anywhere.

So please submit any thoughts you may have. I would appreciate it so much.

Now to send e-mails to friends and family....