God that music...
Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
51–60 of 124 posts
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#52I was watching the eclipse in Corvallis and, about 10 minutes before totality, a plane jetted around at high altitude and left a contrail[1]. The new cloud, in the otherwise perfectly clear sky, began to drift toward the sun and I thought, "There could be few better symbols of the attitude that some of %0.0001 have to the rest of us than this." Fortunately, even though the contrail did drift over the sun during totality[1], it was very thin (and dark) and did not distract and the event in the least.
I'm glad Alaska Air did this flight over the Pacific and not where they would distract hundreds of thousands of people with their flight. Anyone know how to find out what flight (or private jet) was the one I saw was? Would be an interesting fact to add to my memory of the event.
Please forgive the many artifacts from this smartphone camera.
[1] Before totality (https://njarboe.com/eclipse/beforeTotality.jpg)
[2] During totality (https://njarboe.com/eclipse/totality.jpg). This photo was right at the beginning of totality and in no way captures what I saw, but does show where the contrail ended up. I was more interested in experiencing the eclipse than trying to get a photo.
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#53This is nothing new from Alaska Air. I congratulate them for this! In fact this happened near Hawaii https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/news/eclipse-flig... in 2015.
Alaska is a great airline. I fly about 70k miles per year on them and am very rarely disappointed.
Sat in the back on an Alaska flight to Hawaii and they ran out of food a couple rows before me. Felt like a bad MBA optimization - save $20 on food by under buying at the cost of periodically making a few passenger unhappy for a 5 hour flight.
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alaska is a great airline. I fly about 70k miles per year on them and am very rarely disappointed.
Sat in the back on an Alaska flight to Hawaii and they ran out of food a couple rows before me. Felt like a bad MBA optimization - save $20 on food by under buying at the cost of periodically making a few passenger unhappy for a 5 hour flight.
Or could have just been a simple human error.
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#55>Great American Eclipse That is rather egocentric to be honest. It is just a solar eclipse that happened to be visible in the U.S. this time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_eclipses_in_the_...
I disagree. Calling it the 'Great American Eclipse' is fair because it crossed over the entire country coast to coast making it accessible to just about every major population center by car. It was also only visible in America. That's pretty neat.
The title really rankles me -it was a brilliant eclipse and it was an eclipse only viewable in America, I understand this completely but it still rankles possibly irrationally.
I am not opposed to calling things American when, like I am not opposed to calling the 20th Century the American Century but there is something deeply annoying in claiming an astronomical thing as one's country.
It's like a form of possession and maybe its the Sun but for some reason it really really annoys me to give the event an American adjective.
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alaska is a great airline. I fly about 70k miles per year on them and am very rarely disappointed.
I've been disappointed once with them. Bought 2 tickets (one for me, one for GF). She was assigned a seat, I was told they don't allot all seats for any given flight and that I would get that seat at the gate. Couldn't change through Alaska Airlines phone/web portal. At the gate they gave me a seat in the very back of the plane since all the other seats had been assigned. It's crazy to me that I couldn't choose seats…
That's just not factually true, as well - I fly on Alaska all the time and pick a seat each flight. Usually you get your choice from a restricted list on purchase and then can pick from a more open list on check-in.
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#57I was watching the eclipse in Corvallis and, about 10 minutes before totality, a plane jetted around at high altitude and left a contrail[1]. The new cloud, in the otherwise perfectly clear sky, began to drift toward the sun and I thought, "There could be few better symbols of the attitude that some of %0.0001 have to the rest of us than this." Fortunately, even though the contrail did drift over the sun during total…
Fascinating that you have no idea what flight it was, but you immediately chalked it up to another example of "the 0.0001%" harming you.
That's pretty ridiculous. For all you know, it was on some kind of humanitarian mission. Statistically, of course, it was probably just a routine commercial jet full of average people.
What's crazy to me is someone on the ground in a small town thinking that the global ATC system should route around them (and apparently all small towns and random gatherings of people) so that they won't miss seeing an eclipse.
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#58I was watching the eclipse in Corvallis and, about 10 minutes before totality, a plane jetted around at high altitude and left a contrail[1]. The new cloud, in the otherwise perfectly clear sky, began to drift toward the sun and I thought, "There could be few better symbols of the attitude that some of %0.0001 have to the rest of us than this." Fortunately, even though the contrail did drift over the sun during total…
I was also near Corvallis.
More shots of the contrail https://instagram.com/p/BYEJY9_nhCZ/ https://instagram.com/p/BYEHhpfnYRn/ https://instagram.com/p/BYEGj1GH2JS/
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#59Here is a picture I took after messing with the aperture and having quite a long lense https://i.stack.imgur.com/YvyJB.jpg from Robinsville NC. I swear you can see stars in there but could be wrong.
Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
#60Does anyone have pointers on where I could get an estimate on average maintenence costs / flight hour & fuel costs for a Boeing 737-900ER? Interested in working up a rough number for how much this cost to make happen. Can't imagine it was profitable. And very cool! Edit: Per Boeing [1], they quote $151 / flight hour in actual service on a 737-800. Random site [2] gives fuel on a 737-900ER as 0.17 km per litre / 0.40…
A small sized business jet charters for about $1,000 an hour. I'd guess a long 737 would go for between $10,000 and $25,000 an hour. Edit: Here are some charter prices: http://www.aircharterguide.com/Aircraft/Manufacturer/BOEING
With charter, you skip the TSA. It can even make financial sense, of you're a group and were going to fly first class.
Also, a buddy who has a plane time share is handy.
Given where I live, I know a bunch of pilots. The time share plane was new to me. That's kinda need and not that expensive.