aviation

February 18, 2022

Clearing things up

Back in 2009 I shot the picture above from a plane flight on approach to SFO. On Flickr (at that link) the photo has had 16,524 views and has been faved 420 times as of now. Here’s the caption: These are salt evaporation ponds on the shores of San Francisco Bay, filled with slowly evaporating… Continue reading

Friends, infrastructure, Photography, Science

“salt ponds”, aerial photography, aviation, color, flying, Photography, window seat
January 3, 2015

FlightAware’s Amazing MiseryMap

That’s FlightAware‘s MiseryMap. Go there now, click on the blue “play” button and watch what happens. If you’re close to now (8:56pm EST), you’ll see what weather does directly to major airports in Chicago, New York and Atlanta, and indirectly (by delayed flights due to unavailable airplanes, mostly) to Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, etc.… Continue reading

Aviation, infrastructure, weather

air travel, airlines, aviation, data, data journalism, data visualization, flightaware, infrastructure, maps, MiseryMap
November 12, 2009

Colors of salt

Before the salt in evaporating sea water turns white, it goes through stages of color that range from jade green to brick red, with variations of orange, yellow and other colors. From above the salt ponds around San Francisco Bay look like giant panes of stained glass. The shot above is from my latest set,… Continue reading

Photography, Places, Travel

“salt ponds”, “San Francisco Bay”, “United Airlines”, aerial, aviation, bos-sfo, flight, salt, salt pond, sfo, ual, windowseat, windowshot
September 15, 2009

Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge fly-by

The shot above, made on Sunday out the window of a plane on approach to Las Vegas, comes three and a half years after this shot, which I took from the ground at Hoover Dam. Here’s a whole set of the fly-by. Not much of the dam shows. The Colorado River gorge is easier to… Continue reading

Past, Photography, Places, Travel

aerial, Arizona Geology, aviation, Colrado River, Geology, Hoover Dam Bypass, Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge
June 4, 2009

A perfect storm in midair

They might have split up or they might have capsized They may have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names Of the wives and the sons and the daughters. — Gordon Lightfoot, from “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” A storm on Lake Superior drowned the Edmund… Continue reading

Geology, infrastructure, Life

Air France, airbus, Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean, aviation, Flight 447, mid-atlantic, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, mountains, perfect storm, Travel
February 23, 2009

Window blobs

Form the inside of a de-iced plane, it looks like they poured clear syrup all over it. Or so I was reminded when waiting to take off from O’Hare on Saturday night after a snowstorm. What I found, when I tried to shoot pictures through this rippled ooze, was some fun photographic effects. The shot… Continue reading

Art, Life, Places, Science, Travel

2009_02_21, atl-ord-bos, aviation, de-icing, Photography
January 15, 2009

USA1549 down but not out

That’s almost as far as it got. From Twitter search: Trending topics: Hudson River, Charlotte, Shorty Awards Finals, A US Airways, New York’s Hudson, LaGuardia, USAirways, Plane, MSNBC, Manhattan From FlightAware: FLIGHTAWARE BREAKING NEWS US Airways flight #1549 (an Airbus A320) from New York, NY (LGA) to Charlotte, NC (CLT) crashed into the Hudson River… Continue reading

News

aviation, Chesley Sullenberger, crash, dead stick, dead stick landing, flight, flightaware, geese, hudson, hudsonriver, plane, plane crash, planecrash, Sullenbergerger, Sully, usa1549
January 4, 2009

Flying smarter

The more I fly, the more useful, or at least interesting, the NOAA‘s AviationWeather.gov service becomes. At any given moment it has dozens of different reports on weather at altitude, across North America. The one above is among the many that show potential or reported turbulence. I also just discovered TurbulenceForecast.com, with the TurbulenceForecast Blog.… Continue reading

Business, Gear, Life, Places, problems, Science, Travel

aviation, aviationweather.gov, bos, Boston, faa, flighttrack, flying, iad, noaa, severe turbulence, sfo, turbulence, turbulenceforecast, washington
December 19, 2008

Picture These

So I’m here in the Bolt Bus from Boston to New York. There’s wi-fi on board, and power outlets in the backs of most seats. But the wi-fi is slow, so I’m on a Sprint EvDO card. Getting about 1Mb down and .6Mb up. Not bad. Anyway, I’ve recently uploaded a pile of photo sets… Continue reading

Art, Photography, Places, Travel

“Santa Barbara”, aerial, alps, aviation, Boston, desert west, flying, france, germany, jura, las vegas, los angeles, mountains, Photography, san francisco, sky, spring, switzerland, winter