Suddenly...

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 10/16/2017 at 12:00 • Filed to: planelopnik, Photography

5

12

A wild Airbus A380 appears.

I was driving to Midland on Saturday and stopped for gas in Garden City, TX (a misnomer if ever there was one). I looked up and saw four chemtrails contrails in the sky, and grabbed the camera for a better look. I was pleasantly surprised (excited, actually, I’m such an airplane nerd) to see an immediately recognizable Qantas A380. Not a bad shot for something 39,000 feet up in the air and about 10 miles offset.

Here’s what FlightRadar24 had to say about it. When QF7 (VH-OQE) landed in Dallas 38 minutes after this snapshot, it completed a flight of 8,577 miles (13,804 kilometers), the third-longest flight in the world. It used to be the longest.

And here’s what an A380 might look like landing at DFW. This isn’t the same aircraft that I saw on Saturday. I took this photo of VH-OQI about two years ago.

If anybody is wondering, the top photo was taken with a Canon 50D with a Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 @ 200mm, 1/400, f/10, ISO 160 (Av).

HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 10/16/2017 at 12:09

0

That would be a miserably long flight

15 and a half hours. Yeesh

ttyymmnn > HammerheadFistpunch 10/16/2017 at 12:10

0

I think so.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 10/16/2017 at 12:12

1

Random aside here, but the symbols for takeoff and landing amuse me. I get that you need something quickly and easily recognizable and those are almost definitely the best choices... and if I were the one designing the symbols I’d probably (like 95%) come up with the same thing... but still. “Stalling” in SYD and “Crashing” in DFW :)

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 10/16/2017 at 12:14

2

I love pictographic information signs. First time I saw this I cracked up.

ttyymmnn > HammerheadFistpunch 10/16/2017 at 12:16

0

One-third the circumference of the Earth.

HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 10/16/2017 at 12:19

1

I mean, I am all about it, but yeah it would be long.

ttyymmnn > HammerheadFistpunch 10/16/2017 at 12:21

0

My flight from JFK to CDG years ago was bad enough. That was on a 767.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 10/16/2017 at 12:25

1

Second panel: OUCH

If white is solid why do you want people to run into walls? Conversely, why does a ghost need a doorway?

But again, there’s not really a better way...

HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 10/16/2017 at 12:27

1

My longest day of flying was trying to get to Norway from SLC. We got diverted from Chicago for weather and after an hour of circling landed in Spingfield IL, then an hour on the ground, then to Chicago where our connecting flight had already left so we got on a new flight to Hamburg where I was chosen to have the bomb squad go over my camera gear, then to Copenhagen, then to Oslo. We didn’t have our luggage for 4 days after. Helluva day.

For Sweden > HammerheadFistpunch 10/16/2017 at 13:16

0

It helps if you’re not a filthy poor and fly in first class.

HammerheadFistpunch > For Sweden 10/16/2017 at 13:26

0

I’ve been attempting to upgrade my status from filthy poor to just poor, no luck

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 10/16/2017 at 14:37

1

That airplane couldn’t have been a foot higher than 38,800 feet.