This is a nice high res shot of a plane over autumnal suburbia in Illinois. I can’t seem to find the shadow of this one on the ground, but is must be pretty high to appear so big.

Sarah says:

This is a great pic of an airplane, cruising approximately above our house in Palatine, IL.

I’m guessing that you went looking for your house and found this great big plane over the top of it

Thanks: Sarah Lopez

The Cardington Airship Hangers were originally built to house the R101 airship which was intended to be used to ferry cargo and passengers from the UK to India in the 1930s. These airships, as you can tell from the size of the hangers were huge, over 700ft long. Unfortunately on its maiden voyage the airship crashed into a hillside near Beauvais, north of Paris. The crash ignited the hydrogen gas bag and fire quickly engulfed the entire airship. This spelled the end of the British attempt to create lighter-than-air aircraft and the R101’s competitor, the R100, was scrapped despite a safe trans-atlantic trial flight.

The South hanger is now owned by Airship Technologies, who are trying to revive the airship business. The North hanger is used as a super big sound stage for films. Most of the outdoor Gotham Cty scenes for Batman Begins were filmed inside the hanger, aswell as several recent James Bond films.

Thanks: Loz

On a bit of field in St Louis, we see the shadow of a Lockheed C-130 gunship. Click through and have a look for the plane, but come back here once you’re done…

You couldn’t find it, huh? That’s because this isn’t a shadow, it’s a bit of art. The detailed life size plane shadow was painted in 2002 for an art festival held in the urban wasteland of North St. Louis City in Missouri. Apparently some of the towers and whatnot around the area were also done as part of the same festival.

Thanks: Sam Ley

This is a cracking shot of a B-1 bomber on the runway at Hills Air Force Base in Utah. The B-1 long range strategic bomber was first built in 1984 and has seen combat in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a big beast of an aircraft with a crew of four and that cool “Swing-Wing” thing. This allows it to take advantage of the aerodynamics of swept back wings at high speeds (top speed of Mach 1.2) while avoiding the drawbacks of such a configuration at lower speeds. It can carry a frightening 34,000kg in ordnance in three internal bays.

The B-1R is a proposed replacement for the aging B-1 fleet and would have air-to-air missile capabilities and the engines of an F-22, allowing it a much improved top speed of Mach 2.2.

Thanks Jack Guritza

A good couple of hundred metres inland of the South African coast, a ship appears to have crashed right into the middle of Durban Seaworld. Sadly, like the previously posted Whampoa in Hong Kong, this is just a fake ship built to house various bars and restaurants.

As a consolation, I’m pretty sure this is a real helicopter just to the East, flying over a real container ship.

Thanks: woowoowoo & Nijk