We live near the airport, and so it's quite normal to be able to look skyward any time of day or night and see several planes lined up to land.
They usually all come from the same direction at regular intervals; and when a plane deviates from this pattern, it's always faintly alarming...
So the other night I stepped out of the house, heard a plane, and then another, looked up and saw one plane looming low on the regular flight path and then another plane, distant and tiny, so far away it looked almost like a star, on a lesser-used flight path at a much higher altitude.
Beyond that tiny plane, I saw another tiny point of light moving in the distance, then another, then another, all moving towards the airport. I tried counting, but a thin skimming of cloud made this difficult; I estimated there were about 15 planes.
What could possibly be happening at the airport that they woud have that many planes in a holding pattern at that high of an altitude? I racked my I-Am-A-Bear-Of-Very-Little brains, and tried to discern whether they were flying in any sort of formation; but they kept disappearing behind that thin skim of clouds.
And I was on the verge of stepping inside the house and saying to my boyfriend, turn on the news so we can find out whats going on, there's fifteen planes in a holding pattern above the house, and there's no formation to them that I can see, oh, except that formation which is flying in the shape of the constellation of Orion {hand~to~forehead~smack} D'OH!
Very deceiving, that thin skim of clouds...
Posted by edgar at February 22, 2006 10:45 AM