High Flight

I am still a bit under the weather with jet lag, so I wanted some exercise, but didn't feel up to a bike ride which is always full on exercise.  So instead I decided to do my three-mile walk down to the old power plant.  I carried my camera, of course, and I cannot believe how many photographs I found along the way!  You will be seeing them eventually.  Near the end of my walk I noticed this contrail in the distance, in the southwest. I always wondered where these airplanes are going. So here's the cool thing - there is now an app for my iPhone called "FlightRadar 24."  You open it and it shows all the aircraft in the air near me.  And that is a lot of airplanes, given  I am so close to JFK and LaGuardia.  Anyhow I look to see what airplane is right overhead, and there it is.  This  aircraft is SAS Flight 926, which left Washington Dulles International, enroute to Copenhagen.  It is at 37,000 feet and it is an Airbus 330-343 and it has 6 hours and 55 minutes to go!  How cool is that.  When I see aircraft like this and use the app to check on them, and see where some of these are going, I get a feeling of wanderlust.

This is a maximum enlargement of the original photograph.  I shot the original image with my zoom lens at 105mm which is not a long telephoto.  But when I enlarged the image to maximum size I was surprised that I could see the airplane in detail!  And it is 7 miles above me! Please click on this to see it larger.