What have you seen from "up there"

T

t-cart

Active Member
What is the craziest/weirdest/ugly/beautiful thing you have ever seen from your cockpit? I hear some of you jet guys telling about the beautiful things you see such as Thunderstorms,lightning,The Grand Canyon,and it all sounds so intrigueing.Here is what i saw. One day i was working on some cotton on the edge of town. I had seen her several times before when i would spray this particular field. There she was,In her light blue bikini.Right out there beside her house.Her man owned a rock hauling truck&trailer and parked it out beside the house.This particular day,of course ,i looked down in the yard and couldnt find her.Then i looked in the trailer and there she was,,,,NEKKID,,,, She didnt budge.I made a few more turns over her with that ol 600P&W hollerin. Finally after a couple more turns over her she waved at me:) I couldnt leave the other pilots out of the fun so i called them on the radio and just a couple minutes later we were all(4 of us) in a holding pattern right over that rock trailer.That happened around 1980 and i ran into her several times down through the years.She never said anything about it and i didnt either.We would just smile at each other.I cant look at a rock truck without thinking about how much i love flying! FLY SAFE T.C.
 
Three-way tie between St. Elmo's Fire (not the movie), watching a full moon rise over the N. Atlantic and a visual approach into GRR when the leaves were at peak color.
 
Up late!

I tend to keep "Vampire Hours" when I'm off for a few weeks.

Nice 'n quiet, most of America is asleep, internet's faster, early mornings rule.
 
Doug Taylor said:
Up late!

I tend to keep "Vampire Hours" when I'm off for a few weeks.

Nice 'n quiet, most of America is asleep, internet's faster, early mornings rule.
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A perk of my job as well. Unfortunately, it can get lonely at times.

To answer the original question:

I saw a flight of 104 helicopters in formation returning from an air assault mission in Iraq. You can't imagine the noise they made.

I saw this:

large_Hands%20of%20Victory%20Monument%20-%20APR2007.jpg


at low level flying over Baghdad.

I saw A10s, C130 gunships and Apaches pummeling a ridge line covering my butt while inserting troops in Afghanistan.

In my current job I see the NYC skyline at sunrise every morning. And while the season lasts, I get to see the bright New England foliage every morning too.
 
I've flown into Oshkosh and Sun 'n Fun. It's amazing to see hundreds of airplanes jockeying for position to land three and four at a time on the same runway.
 
In my short time of 121 flying: few approachs sceneries standout. :)

Express Visual for LGA - circling around Shea Stadium.

Or DC area while shooting Mt. Vernon Visual approach
 
My first trip across the Rockies was memorable. (TUL-SLC) I remember flying around Florida after the 3 bad hurricanes hit a few years ago. It was amazing to see the destruction path, especially on the west coast. I saw a Mylar balloon once around 28,000, which scared the crap out of me. It was reflecting the sunset and seemed like a floating fireball, and then it zoomed past us.
 
* Kids playing on the runway while I am on short final - there shirts looked like trash bags being blown around until I got close

* A deer looking at me @ the 500' mark on final - they blend right into faded runways. The little guy sat there until I had to go around and the sound of those garrets powering up made him realize he might want to move.

* Two F22's doing a mock strafing run on me - I see a black spec out of the corner of my eye at 9 o’clock, turn my head and duck (as if that would help) "oh ####" loud enough the pax in back heard as the 2 ship flies over top of me. "Norfolk approach, 988jr, do you have two f22s on your scope? Ah, nope. Well....."
 
African flying probably has presented some of the wierdest observations....but I'd have to go with the either the Northern Lights or the vastness of Canada/Alaska.
 
I'll agree with B767Driver on the Northern Lights. I saw them one night going up to Quebec. At first I thought, "what the %#$ is that." OHHHH that's what they look like! Spectacular.

I saw a military transport in GA one evening right at sunset firing flares (shaff or whatever they call it).

"Moon rises" are always cool.

I saw a Blue Angel demo one afternoon while on approach in CLE.

The lights that NYC puts up from Ground Zero on the anniversary of 911 every year give me chills when I'm heading into EWR.
 
Northern lights and some crazy St. Elmo's Fire for me so far. The radome was actually glowing blue since we had so much static building! Also some really crazy lightning storms and moon/cloud reflections. No shortage of good scenery up there.

Also one night, Elvis and Tupac were riding on a magic carpet next to us for about 20 miles. Oh wait, I think I had too much coffee then :)
 
bike21 said:
Also one night, Elvis and Tupac were riding on a magic carpet next to us for about 20 miles. Oh wait, I think I had too much coffee then :)
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We must have been flying that same night ;)

Some many amazing sites since flying the lear.
Get to see the sunrise going into Boston every morning.
Seeing the whole plane glow purple in the middle of a thunderstorm.
 
I've had some really cool St. Elmo's Fire. We've been in rain so heavy that the entire nose glowed blue. It was pretty awesome. Couldn't heard a damn thing on the radios, though.

The coolest sight I've ever seen, though was flying from IAD to CLE. We had been delayed about 7 hours due to weather and had gate returned twice. We finally got in the air and got a huge reroute over weather. We were deviating around this storm. We see this "archway" between these two cells. There are these two giant thunderstorms, with this small little bridge between them and underneath it's clear, with the sunset coming through. The captain told me to head straight for that. We did. It was smooth as glass. Just knowing the power of the two cells on either side of us was amazing. We made it through the hole, though. Probably the coolest thing I've seen in an airplane.

As far as ugly, well, that'd be most of our FAs. :D
 
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