ripping through the atmosphere at 800 kmph

That’s the speed the Boeing 737 was displaying on the monitor during the times it wasn’t making its weak attempt of entertaining its passengers with other flickering images that included among other things vague unheard of Hollywood movies.

Sometimes its fun to convert kmph into meters/sec – and 800 kmph means 222 ms/sec. Its kind of incredible to imagine that I’m sitting inside the plane with dim lighting, maybe hearing some music or watching a movie and eating something. And every second, I’m 222 ms away from where I was the previous second!

Its been quite a while since I myself flew anywhere, but since I went through some old pictures last week, ended up writing and putting together some memories…

For those who’ve never travelled by flight: If you’re been adequately warned about how lousy the whole experience can be, and about the cramped the economy class is, how horrible the food is and how indifferent the staff can be – it isn’t adequate enough!

Hmm… its not that always that bad actually …it can be even worse! 😉

But it hasn’t really prevented me from more or less having a good time looking out of the window.

So the good news is that the whole world is outside your window – (you can arrange for a window seat while booking the flight or at the time of check in). There are a lot of things you can watch out for. One unusual phenomenon is the shift in day and night, this never ceases to amaze me – half of the hemisphere is daytime and half is nightime, as can be seen in the photo.

I’ve had some better views when the wing didn’t block the view 😈 (Make sure you take a seat near either end of the plane). Not so vivid in this particular picture, the contrast is amazing – the stars and city lights can be seen on one end of the horizon, and broad daylight at the other!

The following was a writeup about flight, when I didn’t have a camera. Anyway I doubt that with all the new levels of security (or should we say insecurity?), taking pictures from flights may end up getting restricted.

4-Aug-2003:

Have missed the superzoom camera which I never had several times, but never
as much as today. The views from the window of the plane after take off from
Amsterdam were truly spectacular.

Particularly at one point when land met the sea and when we then flew into
open ocean.

The sky was clear and cloudless and the water was exactly the
same shade of blue as the sky. It seemed like we were flying in a blue
space… with blue above and below, seperated only by the distant whitish
line at the horizon. There was a white ship in the ocean, and in the blue
background, it looked almost exactly like an aircraft in the sky. Funny
somebody in the ship looking at the plane would be seeing almost exactly the
same thing.

My earlier flights mostly had been through the night, this was the first
time I was flying througout the day, and the weather across most places was
cloudless clear skies. Its easy to simply take the view from the plane for
granted. As for me, no matter how many times I fly, I think I will never
cease to be amazed at the wonders of our planet when witnessed from the sky.
It requires a certain amount of patience to keep a watch on the typical flat
bland scenes till suddenly something spectacular turns up like a massive
mountain range or a dark river winding through a plain. The sand dunes of a
desert look like the intricate veins on a leaf. What a work of art our
planet is!

A mountain peak…

Bird’s eye view of a bird’s eye view…

Where rain comes from…

(btw pictures are from different flights from as far back as 2000)

Actually, the distance one is travelling per second while sitting in a 737 is nothing considering the distance one is travelling simply sitting on the ground, right now, while reading this! Its hardly noticeable that the Earth we live on is hurtling through space!

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A major conceptual barrier to accepting the rotation and revolution of the Earth is that the speeds required are enormous.

Speed of the Earth’s Rotation at the Equator:

Circumference of the Earth at the Equator = 40,000 kilometers
Time to complete one Rotation = 24 hours

Speed of Rotation = Distance/Time = 40,000 km / 24 hr = 1670 km/hr

The speed of revolution around the Sun is even larger:

Speed of the Earth’s Revolution around the Sun:

Radius of the Earth’s Orbit = 1 AU = 150,000,000 kilometers
Circumference of the Earth’s Orbit = 2*pi*R = 942,000,000 kilometers
Time to complete one Orbit = 365.2422 days = 8766 hr

Speed of Revolution = Distance/Time = 942,000,000 km / 8766 hr = 107,000 km/hr = 30 km/sec

In the typical time it takes to read this sentence (about 15 seconds), the Earth will have moved through space by about 450 km, or about the width of the state of Ohio.

Consider that the fastest things people had experienced prior to the invention of steam power moved at speeds of only a few 10s of km/hr (horses, fast ships). Even the fastest winds are only 150 km/hr.

source: Prof. Richard Pogge: The Rotation & Revolution of the Earth

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The rotational speed of the Earth depends on where you are. At the equator, the speed is about 1670 km/hr, or 1070 mi/hr. To find the rotational speed where you live, take the cosine of your latitude, and multiply it by the speed at the equator. For example, the speed at a latitude of 60 degrees, the speed would be cos(60)x1670=835km/hr.

source: Quickie Questions – Extraordinary Earth – Movement of the Earth

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See also: the pale blue dot