Reader Dave Schubert identifies the plane as being in an engine test stand. According to Google Earth’s historical imagery feature this image was taken on the 27th of June 2010, which is interesting as Concorde was retired in 2003 – so it’s perhaps a little strange that they would be testing the engines.

Next, to Canada’s busiest airport, Toronto Pearson. However, we’re looking at a very American icon – the Blue Angels aerobatic team.

More formally known as the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, these planes were spotted by Kevin Hodgson. The six F/A-18 Hornets are seen parked near to a seventh plane, a two-seater F/A-18B that can be used as a backup plane if necessary. We can also see the C-130T Hercules nicknamed Fat Albert, which carries support personnel, spare parts and technical equipment.

You can read more about the Blue Angels at their official site, and at Wikipedia.

Given the recent situation in Libya, it may be a good thing that eight C-130 Hercules that were ordered by the Gaddafi regime are stuck in the southern US state of Georgia.

The desert-camouflaged planes were ordered and built at this Lockheed plant at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in the early 1970s. However before they could be delivered, the US imposed sanctions on Libya.

Because they are technically the property of the Libyan government, the planes cannot be moved, so they sit on flat tires, surrounded by weeds in the distant reaches of the base. Thanks to Cafe de Unie, SecretAgent Man and Jonathan Peterson for sending this one in.

Unused planes can be a problem for any airport, though at Hot Springs in Arkansas they park them a little more neatly and efficiently than they do at Manas Airport in Kyrgyzstan or Wilson Airport in Kenya. Thanks to ‘Me’, nga and Bryan Johnson for these.

Moving on to crashed planes (nervous flyers should probably stop reading at this point!), we start with a couple of real downed planes. This Curtis C-46F Commando crashed in November 1979, shortly after taking off from Churchill in northern Canada.

It was reported to us by Lindsay Marshall, and airliners.net has some good pictures. Apparently the inside has been setup with a picnic table, and is a local tourist attraction.

Just a few months ago, two people unfortunately lost their lives when their small plane crashed into Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin. New satellite imagery just happened to capture a crane recovering the wreckage. Thanks to milwhcky for reporting this one via Virtual Globetrotting.

Hollywood is fond of creating its own plane crashes, and the set from 2005′s War of the Worlds is now part of Universal Studio’s tour, as shown in this YouTube video. Thanks to Anthony Moore for the suggestion.

The studio spent $2million to bring an unused 747 to the lot, carefully broke it apart and then built the houses affected by the crash in the movie. Google’s 45-degree imagery allows us to see the set from different perspectives, including engines lying next to a house, seats in the ripped apart cabin, and the charred tail section.

Another apparently horrific plane crash was spotted by Bryan Johnson at the former Alameda Naval Air Station near San Francisco.

Some of the 45-degree imagery was apparently taken on a different day, and reveals crowds of people and emergency vehicles.

However, we can also see lots of technical equipment, including a camera crane, so it’s clear that this isn’t a real crash, and Geek.com reveals that it is, in fact, a set for the TV show Trauma.

We had previously featured Alameda for its role in a Matrix film, though personally I’m hoping that someday we’ll see images of the Mythbusters team who film regularly at this location.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this post. Please use the suggestion form if you know if interesting locations that you think we should feature.

Locations: Arkansas, California, England, Georgia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Manitoba, Ontario / Categories: Abandoned, Aircraft, Movie Locations, Shadows

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5. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

Starting out at number 5, we find ourselves in the never-ending sun of Los Angeles, California. Between January and May 2011, the Los Angeles International Airport served an astonishing 24,230,832 passengers, all while competing with four other airports in the Los Angeles area. LAX is designed so that each terminal’s arrival gate feeds directly to the exit, and its eastbound approach over the Pacific Ocean is known for terrifying new flyers!

4. O’Hare International Airport (ORD)

Nestled west of downtown Chicago we find the fourth busiest airport in the world, O’Hare International Airport. ORD is perhaps the most intriguing airport on our list to look at from above, due to its centralised design being surrounded by six intersecting runways. From January to May of 2011, O’Hare handled 25,986,415 passengers in its busy and sometimes frantic terminals. The weather around Chicago has been known to leave its mark on O’Hare as well – in 2010 1 out of every 5 flights (21.5%) into O’Hare was delayed by more than 15 minutes.²

Like most busy airports around the world, O’Hare is expanding through its own modernisation plan. Evidence can be seen from above in the form of a new east-west runway being built at the south end of the airport.

3. London Heathrow Airport (LHR)

Ranking number three in our list, we find the busiest airport in the EU and the airport that handles more international passengers than anywhere else, London’s Heathrow Airport. In the first half of 2011, Heathrow saw 26,733,585 passengers, which is logistically impressive when you consider LHR only has 2 runways, and it’s also competing with London’s four other airports! In what is becoming a common theme, the airport’s terminals are centrally located in this mess between the runways, with the exception of an international terminal on the south end of the airfield.

What would the world’s largest international airport be without the world’s largest passenger airplane? Here’s one of the massive Airbus A380s, which we found heading out towards the runway. This plane can be configured to hold up to an amazing 853 people, but sources indicate this particular bird has somewhere between 550-650 seats onboard.

2. Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK)

The Asian market is well represented on our countdown in the form of China’s Beijing Capital International Airport, ranking number two in passenger traffic with 31,080,482 flyers in the first 5 months of this year. That’s nearly 5 million more than Heathrow in the same time period! It looks like the day this satellite photo was taken however things are kind of slow, as there isn’t much traffic sitting at the gate.

We did however happen to spot this Boeing 777 mid-takeoff! Or is landing? Hmm…

1. Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)

Surprised? Well you shouldn’t be! Year after year, the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta continues to dominate the various statistical categories and easily claim the title of “The World’s Busiest Airport”. It’s had the highest number of annual passengers every year since 1998, the most air traffic in 1999, 2000 and from 2005 through to today, and it even set a world record in 2007 when the airport had a mind boggling 994,346 takeoffs and landings in one year! That’s an average of nearly one takeoff and one landing every minute of every day for a solid year! In an effort to handle this unbelievable amount of traffic, the airport expanded and added a fifth runway in 2006 that literally crosses over Interstate 85 Interstate 285.

ATL has 195 gates spread across six terminals, all accessible by an underground train system. Some of these gates are squeezed extremely tightly together. Delta Airlines (which appropriately happens to be the world’s largest airline) uses Hartsfield–Jackson as its main hub airport, flying over 59% of all flights here. To avoid radio confusion the FAA officially renamed taxiway D (normally pronounced Delta everywhere else) to Taxiway Dixie.

Atlanta had 36,548,629 passengers between January and May of 2011, which is 5.5 million more than Beijing, and they’re still expanding! Google imagery shows us construction of the new terminal F, due to be opened in Spring 2012, and also the airport’s control tower, which happens to be the tallest in the United States as well!

Honourable Mentions

Amongst aviation geeks you will hear the grumblings that an airport isn’t the busiest unless it has the most planes, or the most cargo, or the most international passengers, or whatever! So to be well-rounded in our not so scientific list, here are a few honourable mentions that don’t quite have the passenger counts to make the top 5, but make up for it in other areas.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) – Ranks number 4 in traffic movement.

Denver International Airport (DEN) – Ranks number 5 in traffic movement.

Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) – Ranks number 1 in cargo traffic.

Memphis International Airport (MEM) – Ranks number 2 in cargo traffic.

Locations: Arkansas, California, China, Colorado, Georgia, Hong Kong, Illinois, Texas, United Kingdom / Categories: Aircraft, Buildings, Structures

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10. Smackover, Arkansas: Claims to have the only “center of the road” traffic light in Arkansas!

9. French Lick, Indiana: Former home of Pluto Water, a laxative with the slogan “When Nature Won’t, PLUTO Will”!

8. Tightwad, Missouri: Supposedly named by a postman following an incident involving a watermelon and an extra fifty cents!

7. Climax, Minnesota: The actual town motto is “Climax – More than just a feeling”!

6. Gayville, South Dakota: Conveniently located in Yankton County!

5. Cumming, Georgia: Nicknamed the “Gateway to Leisure Living”!

4. Horneytown, North Carolina: Be sure to get the t-shirt!

3. Big Bone Lick State Park, Kentucky: Accessable by taking a ride on Beaver Road!

2. Hooker, Oklahoma: Home to the Horny Toads baseball team!

1. Cooter, Missouri: No, not because of the Dukes of Hazzard character!

Honorable mentions by popular request – Hell, Michigan and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico!

For similar GSS stories, be sure to check out Top 10 Rudest Place Names in Britain, Top 10 des noms de villes grossiers en France, Top 10 Unanständigste Ortsamen in Deutschland, Top Ten Confusing Place Names, and Longest Place Names.

Locations: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, U.S. States / Categories: Weirdness

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A group of birds are technically flocking even when they’re not flying. Here on Lewis and Clark Lake, Missouri, we can see a huge flock of geese just resting on the water.

While flocks of birds in themselves aren’t a rarity on Google Earth (just find any fishing boat), in the nearly 4 years since we last featured a “flock of birds in flight”, we haven’t seen that many other sightings of migratory birds travelling in their trademark “V” formations.

They are still occasionally seen however, as here in the Netherlands, and to be honest I feel there’s very little else quite so strikingly simple and pleasing to be seen anywhere on Google Earth.

Here’s another smaller flock flying near Toulouse, France.

Known as “echelons”, these amazing “V” formations are actually better described as “J” formations, because they’re much more likely to be unevenly balanced – as demonstrated in this absolutely stunning image captured over the fields of Arkansas.

These transitory sightings don’t hang around very long (they often disappear during in Google’s image updates), however the geese we posted in 2005 are still visible today, as is the incredible Feeding Frenzy off the coast of South Africa that we posted about in 2007.

Thanks to Eric Alberts and VGT.

Locations: Arkansas, France, Missouri, Netherlands / Categories: Animals

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Fire-fighters are perched on top of one of the engines, and look to be spraying water at the other side of the house from where the flames are, so it could be that they are trying to save another building from catching fire – perhaps this unfinished house just behind it?

The Street View car looks to have gone to a lot of effort to capture the fire – despite being stopped in its tracks by various roadblocks, it still manages to cover most of the roads – even when a fire engine blocks its path!

From the way the pictures were taken, it looks like the car has had to continually manoeuvre to avoid getting in the way of the emergency services, or driving on the fire hose that stretches all the way down the street.

Unfortunately I could find no reference to the fire on the web, but sincerely hope that nobody was harmed by it.

Thanks: Flashmojo (who claims he can actually be seen looking at the fire over a nearby fence!)

Locations: Arkansas / Categories: Buildings, Crowds, Other Vehicles, Street Views

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• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Austin, Texas
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Fairbanks, Alaska
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Rockford, Illinois
• Richmond, Virginia
• Spokane, Washington
• St. Petersburg, Florida
• Tampa, Florida

Finally, Google have also added imagery for the few roads that run through Yosemite National Park, California, which enables us to see some pretty stunning scenery.

Here’s El Capitan, a 910 metre vertical rock formation that’s a popular challenge for rock climbers, and some spectacular Giant Redwoods living up to their name!

Read the full story at the Google Lat Long Blog, read more about El Capitan and Giant Redwoods at Wikipedia.

Locations: Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Street Views

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This is the X-Coaster at Magic Spring and Crystal Falls theme park in Arkansas, where a dozen riders spent half an hour hanging upside down on Sunday — 150 feet above the ground.

Apparently a power cut shut down the attraction, and once the city Fire Department had rescued the stranded thrill-seekers, one person was treated for, rather unsurprisingly, a sore neck.

Thanks to the Metro.

Locations: Arkansas / Categories: Theme Parks

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This couldn’t be anything other than some crazy genius driving a four-wheeled rocket along the interstate, as it quite clearly has massive flames shooting out the back.

Thanks to Julian.

Locations: Arkansas / Categories: Other Vehicles, Spacecraft

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While looking for an answer on the difference between all the names I, of course, visited Wikipedia’s page on what they like to call “Semi-trailer trucks“. It was here that I found this excellent picture of something I never even realised was possible: A truck pulling another truck, pulling another truck!

I was then even more surprised to learn that this is such a common occurrence someone has managed to find a three-way truck piggy back in Google Earth!

Of course, me being far from a trucking expert, my next question is this: is there a world record for number of piggy-backed trucks?

Thanks: SpiderX22

Locations: Arkansas / Categories: Other Vehicles

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Update: As a couple of people noted in the comments the north end zone normally reads “Arkansas”. The photo was probably taken as the text was being repainted.

Thanks: Weyrleader Zor

Locations: Arkansas / Categories: Large Type, Stadiums and Sport

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