Missile attack on Utah
I awoke this morning to find my email inbox bursting with messages along the lines of “OMFG! On Digg there’s a Google Map showing a CRUISE MISSILE in flight!!!!!!!!!one”.
And it was true! While I was asleep over 2500 people Dugg what, at first glance, does look like a cruise missile over Utah. But look closer and you’ll see it’s nothing more than an aeroplane with black wings. Oh well…
Thanks: Rob Monroe, Jonathan Seidman, Trevor, Marco Olivo, Paul B (on fark.com), Zach Penland & Martyn Cox
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It is awesome though. For those fleeting moments that I thought it was one, I was excited as fook.
Other hints that it wasn’t a missile:
1. The size. The map’s scale suggested it was roughly 80-90 feet long. “It looks larger because it’s up in the air” doesn’t get us all the way there, because simple geometry tells us that for something to appear 4x larger than it would on the ground, it would have to be at an altitude 3/4 between the ground and the camera. (”Still could be possible if the picture was taken from an airplane instead of a satellite” begs the question: “What are we doing shooting missiles in the direction civilian aircraft are flying?”)
2. It has a pair of contrails, indicating it has two engines at some distance from each other.
Not a missile.It’s plane with black wings!!!!
hehe, it even was posted in a swiss newspaper this morning
and even they thought it was missile, i love that story!
The folks at airliners.net say it’s a CRJ-900 (with green wings) operated by Mesa Airlines.
Yeh, and a quick contrast change make it slightly easier to see:
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2659/picture2jk0.png
It’s a McDonnell Douglas MD-90
http://googlified.com/2007missile-on-google-maps-flying-over-utah/
Which airline paints the wings of its aircraft black?
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
It’s obviously neither of those planes since the engines on the object in question are at the root of the wings and not situated aft of the wings.
“8. gesh Says: March 6th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Which airline paints the wings of its aircraft black?”
Possibly Delta, http://www.delta-air.co.jp/1151.jpg
This object is closer in size to the CRJ-900 than the MD-80.
CRJ-900
Length=118′10″
Wingspan=81′6″
MD-80
Length=147′8″
Wingspan=107′8″
It’s difficult to get the exact dimensions of the object pictured but the MD-80 is quite a bit larger.
MD-90 dimensions are almost same as MD-80.
that’s not a missile it’s a plane sent out by NASA.!.!.!.!