Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Planes In Flight Mega-Post

Wednesday, 13th April 2005 by Alex

Please note that some or all of the objects mentioned in this post are no longer visible on Google Earth or Google Maps.

Well it’s my own fault really. Since I posted that I hadn’t seen any planes in flight, we have been absolutely inundated with submissions proving that I was completely wrong. Glad to hear it, ‘cos some of these are really cool.

  • Ryan (Cool shadow - look about 4 plane widths west)
  • nowak (Can you find the shadow? I think its all the way over here)
  • Arvo Huru (Anyone know what kind of plane that is?)
  • Eric Thelin
  • Brian Lalor
  • Miker
  • Chris (Pink plane. You sure its not parked though? I can’t see a shadow anywhere!)
  • Matt (From the comments - Three at once! Very cool but is it really three planes, or just one?)
  • Geoff Sulcer (Tiny little one)
  • Jason (This is the one in our first picture)
  • Colin (This one is huge! Or perhaps just very high up…)
  • Tobic (Another three planes?! One just off the top and another just off the bottom)
  • Kent (Kent says this is a U2 spyplane!)
  • josh k (Quite a few of the planes have this weird blue ‘ghost’ in addition to their shadows, perhaps its due to their speed…)
  • caknuck (…or perhaps its a reflection?)
  • Arvo Huru (Now that’s fast!)
  • Stilt (Apparently this is over Graceland)
  • Rod Levin (This is the one in our second picture)
  • Tom (This is cool, its a razor sharp image. Can’t find the shadow though.)
  • DDA (And finally… toy-town planes!)

Couple of extra plane related ones, first from punk floyd, who says that this is a SR-71 Blackbird Reconnaissance plane parked on Beale AFB, and also from Allen Ormond, who fittingly points us towards the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This is where the Wright Brothers made the first powered airplane flight.

Flying 1 Flying 2

Many thanks to everyone who submitted links but didn’t get a mention, there were just far too many of you!

130 Responses to 'Planes In Flight Mega-Post'

Pages: « 1 2 3 [4]

  1. 106. apom says:

    If you follow to this news story you will see the only flying lancaster bomber left in the UK in flight.
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/09/google_lancaster/

    the coolest plane and also the most unlikely plane to see..

    Fabulous.

  2. 107. Paul says:

    A Placemark: military earplane / Google Earth flying over Bakersfield, CA, casting a fuzzy blue shadow.

  3. 108. Jeff Olson says:

    Here is a plane (I don’t know what kind) flying over a residential area near the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis:
    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  4. 109. bluerave says:

    Here is one I found today, not sure if it’s been seen before. It’s over Stanley Draper Lake in Oklahoma.

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  5. 110. Lodewijk says:

    [quote]54. Ben Says:
    April 27th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
    Another nice one is Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, LA - B52s everywhere, plus some A-10s, and what looks like a group of US bombers of the past. [/quote]

    Check
    http://www.8afmuseum.net/
    for an overview of which bomber of the past is which. It seems a SR-71 has arrived as well (not on the maps yet though).

  6. 111. Alan says:

    Re the SR-21 at Burbank, go north over the hangar ant there on the apron is something with a massive wing and little else. What is it ?

  7. 112. Chuck says:

    I found the shadow for the “pink plane”. It’s near the zig zag building to the west and a tad north along Southfield Fwy. I didn’t read all the posts so I hope this wasn’t a repeat post. =)

  8. 113. Chetan says:

    B-737 on finals over Bangalore, India
    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  9. 114. abi hor says:

    i want a picture from HORABAD of iran

  10. 115. Otter says:

    A plane over San Diego - very clear:

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  11. 116. Michael Gilbrook says:

    I think the “blue shadow” phenomenon is an artifact of image processing. All the images I looked at with blue shadows appear to have been Color Infrared images. CIR is routinely flown by agencies that need to do vegetation surveys, since it is easier to tell different kinds of vegetation apart in CIR than in “true color” or “natural color.” In CIR images, vegetation shows as red. It looks like the CIR images have been processed to make them more natural, and that probably shifted the shadow into the blue.

    This leads me to a common misconception about Google Maps/Google Earth imagery. It is NOT all from satellites. The best imagery (i.e., the really high-resolution stuff, with 1 ft or even 6″ pixels) is shot by relatively low-level aircraft. Notice that the best imagery is typically over cities, out in the middle of nowhere the imagery is low-res. That’s where you’ll find either national 1 meter resloution photos done by high-altitude aircraft for the US Geological Survey, or actual satellite imagery from a variety of sources (e.g., Digitalglobe Quickbird, 0.6 m; Geoeye IKONOS, 1 m). When you use Google Earth to see places outside the US that have no equivalent to the USGS, the best available imagery might be Landsat (15 m) satellite imagery.

    So, when you see multiple versions of the same aircraft in Google Maps (e.g., 3 images of the same airplane on a runway), that’s because the aircraft (not satellite!) taking the photos was flying on a line roughly in the same direction as the plane taking off, ensuring that the plane lifting off was captured in several subsequent photos. When the photos are mosaiced together, the plane appears in several different places, giving the appearance of multiple planes on the same runway.

  12. 117. Mike Redrobe says:

    Lancaster bomber over England

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  13. 118. DK says:

    They should really come up with new planes and they should start to make jet packs

  14. 119. kayakman says:

    Here’s a new one in Madrid-Spain.

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  15. 120. Johnny Ackerman says:

    Heres a C-130 over the southeastern part of lake mead Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  16. 121. jimbo says:

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  17. 122. Curious George says:

    I was looking for my house and I found this plane with a loooong contrail at Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth in High Point, North Carolina. Just type Tangle Lane, High Point, NC and you can see it!
    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
    http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=

  18. 123. Mike Galusha says:

    Small aircraft above Parker CO. There is a civil airport about 3 miles NW of this location.

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  19. 124. raph says:

    ATR-72 plane approaching Quebec City Jean-Lesage Airport with that weird ghost in front of it.

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  20. 125. Jacco says:

    What about half a plane, does that count? (The shadow is complete). It’s landing at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam.

    Placemark: Google maps / Google Earth

  21. 126. Anonymous says:

    Awesome.

  22. 127. Sergey Shelukhin says:

    there’s also one near Ikea in Richmond BC, over the big intersection nearbye

  23. 128. Harold Crews says:

    I found a jet while looking over some hunting ground. It isn’t far from the house of an uncle and aunt.

    Link:

  24. 129. Harold Crews says:

    http://maps.google.com/maps?q=6635%20Baux%20Mountain%20Rd%2CGermanton%2C%20NC%2027019%20(Tony%20Crews%20–%20home)

    A jet flying over some family land I hunt on.

  25. 130. Harold Crews says:

    Sorry for being stupid and not figuring the out the first time. But the jet is about a 1/4 mile South Southeast east.

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