Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

blog.alaskaair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 124 posts

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#91

Post by DigitalJack »

waynecochran wrote: post #88
tzs wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I was watching (the "day tripper" area at Solartown in Madras, Oregon) there was one bright point source reasonably near the Sun which I assume was Mercury [1]. Overall the sky was brighter than I expected, and if there were stars visible there were not many of them. There was also some idiot's drone buzzing above us, with red lights on two of its opposite arms and green lights on the other two arms. [1] or rat…

That was Venus. not Mercury.

I sit corrected :)

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#92

Post by ajmurmann »

wdr1 wrote: post #68
kyleblarson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alaska is a great airline. I fly about 70k miles per year on them and am very rarely disappointed.

I'm guessing you have status with them? Almost every airline is great once you have status. Personally, I hate Alaska. I fly ~2/month & avoid Alaska if I can. My wife's family is from Seattle, so sadly, they're unavoidable around the holidays. Some grievances: * Ridiculous fees. Before we were married my wife booked two flights for after we were married. She changed her name & realized that would cause a problem with…

Yeah most of their planes are disgusting and I can't stand their branding. It's such a shame that they acquired Virgin America. I loved that airline. I wish we lived in a world where that acquisition had been the other way around.

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#93

Post by sokoloff »

ethbro wrote: post #79
sokoloff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conklin and de Decker are a respected (though not perfect) source for variable operating costs for various airframes. They list the various BBJs (which are based on 737s) at $5360-$5749 per hour. https://www.conklindd.com/ReportTemp/ACEWebReports/_%20BBJ_%... BBJ3 is based on the 737-900ER

Thanks! So that looks like ~$26,125 for a 4.75 hr flight in pure costs (fuel, plane and engine maintainence) exclusive of crew pay. If the numbers are totalling the line items above. So call it around $50k all included. Depreciation doesn't look like it's in that number either, but I'd say that's probably ignorable when you're as heavily utilized as a major carrier plane is. That seems like a good ballpark number for…

The CdD figures usually do include crew costs, so they attempt to be "all-in" numbers, minus cost of financing.

The reason they're $0 on the report you're looking at is they're trying to sell you the report with the actual figures, not that those costs haven't been included.

Crew rates for majors are published. Here's Alaska's: http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/alaska_ai...

Call the flight crew $300/hr, and the cabin crew probably another $150/hr.

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#94

Post by deadc0de »

praneshp wrote: post #38
dforrestwilson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you like about them?

At least in SJC, they are the only airline that consistently loads from both ends of the plane. I like them for that.

Really? I fly about two times a year to HI - never happened. But anyways, my favorite airline, the companion ticket thing rocks (especially to HI)!

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#95

Post by praneshp »

deadc0de wrote: post #94
praneshp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in SJC, they are the only airline that consistently loads from both ends of the plane. I like them for that.

Really? I fly about two times a year to HI - never happened. But anyways, my favorite airline, the companion ticket thing rocks (especially to HI)!

Ha for the companion ticket I prefer Southwest (though it's a slight chore to get the companion pass). They don't fly to HI though.

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#96

Post by ethbro »

sokoloff wrote: post #93
ethbro wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! So that looks like ~$26,125 for a 4.75 hr flight in pure costs (fuel, plane and engine maintainence) exclusive of crew pay. If the numbers are totalling the line items above. So call it around $50k all included. Depreciation doesn't look like it's in that number either, but I'd say that's probably ignorable when you're as heavily utilized as a major carrier plane is. That seems like a good ballpark number for…

The CdD figures usually do include crew costs, so they attempt to be "all-in" numbers, minus cost of financing. The reason they're $0 on the report you're looking at is they're trying to sell you the report with the actual figures, not that those costs haven't been included. Crew rates for majors are published. Here's Alaska's: http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/alaska_ai... Call the flight crew $300/…

Ah, was confused as they lined them up below the total line, so was assuming they might break them out.

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#97

Post by johnpowell »

njarboe wrote: post #52

I 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…

My mom drove me up from Eugene. We planned to go all the way to Corvallis but we saw a lot of people out so we stopped short and parked in a field.

And I did see that plane and the contrail.

If anyone is curious what it looked like when recording with a iPhone6 propped against a Snapple bottle on the roof of my mom's car. Here you go.

https://stfudamnit.com/ryan/eclipse.mp4

edit.. It looks like you can see the contrail on the right in the video.

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#99

Post by njarboe »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #57
njarboe wrote: post #52

I 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 sh…

Earlier in the day, before the eclipse, there were a dozen or more private jets flying over my sister's place into the local airport when the previous days there were none. Some even had to circle (to wait for others to land?). This probably primed my mind about private jets. Then this jet was not just flying straight through but came from the south, turned to the east, and then headed south. Could have been NASA? That is why I was querying about how one would find out about it? My thought about it was more of how perfect the symbolism would be if the jet was say Ellison's than a knee jerk reaction against the 0.0001%. The efforts and accomplishments of many 0.0001% er's have brightened my life over the years and I wish most of them the best of luck.

Re: Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet

#100

Post by dingaling »

njarboe wrote: post #99
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sh…

Earlier in the day, before the eclipse, there were a dozen or more private jets flying over my sister's place into the local airport when the previous days there were none. Some even had to circle (to wait for others to land?). This probably primed my mind about private jets. Then this jet was not just flying straight through but came from the south, turned to the east, and then headed south. Could have been NASA? Th…

Did you do a replay on one of the ADS-B sites?

Try fr24.com, you can go back one month without an account I think. Convert your local date and time to UTC.

Here you go, jiggle the time slider around a bit. This is for 17:00 UTC, 09:00 PDT, on 21 August 2017:

https://www.flightradar24.com/2017-08-21/17:00/12x/44.61,-12...

You can pause and click on an aircraft icon for more information. Some will have their registrations blocked on request but usually have their type indicated ( so you can determine bizjet or airliner ).

Post reply on HN