Things You've Seen Overhead on Airline Flights

[PhilDernerJr]

What are some of the cool places or scenes you have seen while flying overhead on a flight?

For me, I there are two that stick out in my head, both during work-related flights.

One took place when our plane was re-routed much further north over the Atlantic than expected one night. I looked out the window to the north, and saw this giant, strange blue-glowing thing on the ocean. Turns out it was a glacier of some sort, and it was realyl beautiful, the way that the moonlight was bouncing off of it like that. I then realized how alone we were in that part of the globe.

The other for me was flying over Baghdad a couple times. Always at night, I'd look down and see the city. It's wild to be safe at home in New York City one day, and then looking down on a city at war literally hours later. Looking down and just knowing that we have Americans that fight and die there everyday, and that I'm at 36,000ft looking down from a plane with a big American flag on my tail...a wild experience in itself.

What about you folks?

[Alex T]

Nothing like your's Phil...

But some nice scenery for me was seeing Lake Mead on approach to LAS.

Seeing the skyline of NYC taking off from LGA for the first time.

Also, grand canyon flying over the west.

Alex

[eric8669]

1.LGA-YYZ Seeing Niagara Falls from the Air.
2.JFK-HKG The Sun never setting.
3.JFK-LAX Flying over Chicago and Las Vegas.
4.SEA-LAS Mt. St Helen's peaking above the cloud line.
5.Flying over Manhattan at night.
6.BOS-JFK Over Flying Jones Beach During Holiday Lights

[Matt Molnar]

The first glimpse of coastline after hours over the ocean.

Lightning from above the clouds, at night

Everything from Colorado west to the Pacific and south to Mexico.

[cancidas]

i always loved flying over the european country side when going to poland as a kid.

st. elmo's fire around the tips of rotor blades when flying on instrument training flights in real IMC.

flying the nyc city tour, at night.

flying endless figure 8's over the AZ/mexico border at night staring at nothing but a FLIR screen.


but the best by far has got to be waking up at sunrise on a crystal clear and perfectly silent morning in the mohave desert.

[MarkLawrence]

My first trans-continental in the USA - ATL-LAX on Delta - seeing the Grand Canyon for the first and only (so far) time.

[Iberia A340-600]

1. Flying to and from South America during the night and watching the lightning from thunderstorms nearby.
2. Flying CDG-JFK on an Air France 747-400 and having the pleasure of watching a 7.5 hour sunset.
3. Flying LHR-EWR on a Virgin Atlantic 747-400 and seeing a shooting star for the first time.
4. Flying JFK-ZRH and overflying Paris during the dawn hours.

[G-BOAD]

Landing in small, undeveloped airports, like Montevideo and Managua.
Seeing lightning as we were landing in Buenos Aires.
SAS CPH-EWR: Flying over Greenland, i place i want to visit, and seeing EK 201 +contrail
Landing in MIA with a AA300 landing simultaneously on the other runway.
Manhattan on downwind to LGA 22
Flying over rural scenery on approach to WAW
And of course, seeing the tip of Long Island after a long flight from Europe.

[Lezam]

Mt. St Helen's peaking above the cloud line.

Same here.
When flying to the middle east, I love seeing italy and greece from above. The landscape is beautiful.

[stuart schechter]

The Northern Lights landing in Gainsville Alaska. When we stepped out of the C172 and me, my brother, and my father just stood silently looking at the sky. It just felt so serene.

[T-Bird76]

The thing that amazes me each and every time I fly across the country to the west is the vast open space. It intrigues me that for miles and miles there's nothing and then you see this town. I often wonder what it must be like to live in a towns like that, where you're miles away from any large city.

[stuart schechter]

Tommy, those are the places where you can just walk out your back door and there is nothing. No noise, no other houses, nothing. It's really a good place to do a lot of thinking. It's what I did last summer.

[heeshung]

Persistent Sunsets: NWA's JFK-NRT, DTW-KIX
Fireworks/Las Vegas: America West LAS-EWR
Forest Fires: DAL JFK-SEA
Lightning: Bunch of times, can only remember SLC-JFK
KIAD from the air: EWR-MCO
Weird engine glow in pitch darkness: NRT-TPE
Fishing boats that use large lights to attract fish: NRT-TPE
Northern Canada/Barren Land: JFK-NRT
Mt. Rainier/KHIF AFB: SEA-SLC
George Washington Bridge: LGA-Somewhere
Entire NYC at night: SLC-JFK
Grand Canyon: EWR-LAS

Really not from the air but, Daisuke Matsuzaka: NRT

[mirrodie]

-Ayers Rock from the cockpit


-clouds lit by lightning.


-Paris at dawn


-more solemn than cool: Oct 2002, The WTC footprints lit up at night, after a go-around from LGA. They were simply two glowing white squares of void in a city of busy.

[kc2aqg]

I've seen lightning storms from above - extremely cool. You can see multiple strikes happening miles apart, but since you can see for many miles from above, it just looks like a bunch of flashes happening so close together. I actually took some pictures successfully of a lightning storm at night from above on a DL MD-88 using the ISO-sensitivity mode on my P&S (didn't have my DSLR). I'll see if I can post some later...

I'll also never forget being younger and flying over lower manhattan on approach to LGA looking straight down at the Twin Towers. Unreal...