This is Barra Airport, located on the hebridean island of Barra.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, it’s something along the lines of “No, you idiot, that’s a beach!“.

You’re exactly right: Barra airport is the beach. In fact, it’s the only airport in the world where scheduled flights land on a beach.

Of course, that schedule has to change regularly, as the airport’s three runways all become completely unusable during high-tide.

The beach is open to the public, and supposedly good for cockle picking, all you have to do is check at the control tower to see if the airport is currently operational.

More info and ground level pictures here and on Wikipedia

Thanks: Adam Rus & nikitakou

North Dumpling Island is a small piece of land just off the coast of Connecticut and the private residence of Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Personal Transporter.

Like any good inventor it seems Kamen is a wee bit eccentric, having declared the island to be an independent state with its own currency (in increments of Pi) and its own navy, consisting solely of the amphibious vehicle we can see parked beside the north-east building.

Although his independence isn’t officially recognised Kamen even signed a non-aggression pact with then-president George H.W. Bush.

Kamen has also erected a replica of Stonehenge to one corner of his island, where I’m guessing he might drive a Segway around the stones, naked and chanting.

Wikipedia Links: North Dumpling Island & Dean Kamen

Thanks: Pat Trainor

At this air base in Jordan we find six C101 jets on the runway, and although they’re not yet flying, they are in formation! These jets are actually Spanish-designed CASA C-101 Aviojets, which are currently in use by the air forces of Jordan, Chile, Honduras, and of course Spain.

C-101s are actually also used by the Spanish aerobatic display team, Patrulla Águila which is based here at the Spanish Air Force Academy, San Javier.

So are these planes part of the display team? Difficult to say, but there’s a lot of them here, so it’s more likely these are just air force pilot training planes.¹

More on the Royal Jordanian Air Force, aerobatics and the CASA C-101 jet at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Ramez Yaghnam and acalorado.

Everything “geo” is so trendy right now that you can’t turn around twice with someone geocoding this or placemarking that.

In fact it’s so trendy that even Hollywood actresses are getting in on the act with Angelina Jolie’s latest tattoo featuring 4 latitude and longitude cordinates¹.

Plugging the coordinates into Google Earth, the first leads us to Cambodia. This is supposedly where her first son, Maddox, was born.

Specifically, the lat/long leads us to a pond just outside the airport but I guess she was just aiming for the general area.

Following the next coordinate we are led to Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Abeba, where the eldest daughter Zahara was born.

For her third coordinate Angelina has gone a bit more specific, pointing to the Namibian beach resort of Swakopmund. This is where she gave birth to Brad Pitt’s baby Shiloh.

And lastly on our tour Angelina takes us to Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in Vietnam, where latest addition Pax Thien was born.

Of course, if she wanted to be really up-to-the-minute she should have had a KML file tattooed down her arm instead

Thanks: AndrewAnorak

Check out this fantastic capture of a plane towing a banner message past a packed beach in Italy.

Here’s another plane towing a message off the coast of South Carolina (where there’s also a great shot of someone parasailing too).

I don’t know what messages these planes were flying, but at North Perry Airport in Florida someone’s left one of these plane-banners lying out, and you can clearly read the message “CAT I LOVE, YO!“…

Thanks to mlc1us, nicolor and Mark Ralston.