I was having a Google Map browse around the Tottenham area (just curious!) and came across this ...
tinyurl.com/44doozu
I was very surprised! Has anyone else come across anything similarly unusual?
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Obviously a Vampire - no shadow.
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I do not know if anyone could have got it into Google but that area is not on the approach or departure to/from LHR and that aircraft is not a type that operates from the City Airport. Even if it could have been there it looks way too low. SFAIK the survey aircraft operate at about 6000 ft and this is below it.
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Aircraft do approach lhr in about that direction when in bound from the NE and landing from the East.
see webtrak.bksv.com/lhr at about 07.10 on 3/8/11 for an example.
They would be at around 6000ft so you need to be looking for a shadow about 1 mile to the West. But I could not find it!
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>> a shadow about 1 mile to the West. But I could not find it!
Chances are the area where the shadow would be was photographed at a different time to the area containing the 'plane.
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>> that area is not on the approach or departure to/from LHR
>> SFAIK the survey aircraft operate at about 6000 ft and this is below it
I just had a quick look at www.flightradar24.com/ which obviously changes continuously. If you click on an individual aircraft symbol, a trail of the route it has taken is overlaid on the map. As it would happen, right now there's a 747 travelling at 188mph at 4475ft in the Tottenham vicinity, apparently en route from Brussels to LHR (EVA6705), having come in from Chelmsford direction before being held in a stack over NE London. It would fit with the image of the plane on Google.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Sun 7 Aug 11 at 16:33
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>>As it would happen, right now there's a 747 travelling at 188mph at 4475ft <<<
webtrack does not display in real time - there is a minimum delay of 24?hrs.
If you look at the bottomlhs you can set the start time and date for when you wish to display.
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Dave
Ignore my comments!!!! I misread flightradar as webtrack!!!!!
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Before they refreshed the shots of Heathrow you could see one aircraft four times on its final approach.
There are lots of surprises to be found.
Roads not aligned from frame to frame.
Some of the odd ones I am aware of are in upstate Maine where some of the many lakes were half white and the other half blue. The matching country side was brown for the white half and green for the blue half.
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A while since I used these charts. The stack North of London is at Denham and to the South is a little East of Ockham. There is also a hold/stack at Lamborne near Chigwell
nycaviation.com/spotting-guides/LHR/LHR-approach-charts/?pid=214
While I accept, obviously, that aircraft may fly over Tottenham I don't think that they would do so at the height that that one appears to be at.
In general aircraft approaching LHR from the East fly in from Canary Wharf area and along the line of the Thames and from the West they come from Maidenhead, past Windsor Castle and on to LHR
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>>In general aircraft approaching LHR from the East fly in from Canary Wharf area and along the line of the Thames <<<
Not if you look at webtrack - the aircraft coming from the east regularly join the final approach ('along the Thames') from the north/ north west . It may depend on time of day and how much traffic there is arriving from the south / west.
Last edited by: pmh on Sun 7 Aug 11 at 17:20
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I see most a/c joining the centre line around Lambeth, but as you say, what happens may be down to many unknowns. All we can see is what happens but not why.
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>> While I accept, obviously, that aircraft may fly over Tottenham I don't think that they
>> would do so at the height that that one appears to be at.
>>
What height do you think it is at?
The plane appears large is because it is at a high altitude, i.e. much closer to the Google camera.
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Here is a picture of an aircraft on the approach to LHR runway 26, at 5 miles range which would make it about 1200 feet when photographed.
maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Heathrow+Airport&hl=en&ll=51.477588,-0.337787&spn=0.002282,0.005681&sll=51.47716,-0.339546&sspn=0.009128,0.022724&geocode=FQdgEQMd0BT5_yFnQfZDVVPnjw&mra=mr&t=h&z=18
I don't think this proves anything except that, if the photography was done from the same height as the Tottenham one it proves what suppose says about the Tottenham one being nearer to the camera = higher. I am guessing we are seeing the side of the fin of the Tottenham one as it was turning right when photographed.
I am still a bit puzzled as to the apparent lack of 1000' separation between two aircraft
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>> Here is a picture of an aircraft on the approach to LHR runway 26, at
>> 5 miles range which would make it about 1200 feet when photographed.
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The one in front is just crossing the A4 and the one in front of that has just turned off the runway. Busy place Heathrow.
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Fascinating insight, chaps. Thank you all.
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Assuming that the 2 aircraft are of comparable size the only conclusion that I think we can draw is that the distance from the camera is about is 4x greater for the lhr photo.
The estimate that the lhr plane is at 1200' (which is what I would also estimate) and a typical height over Tottenham would be about 5000' (+-1000) (from similar aircraft tracks).
Placing the Google aircraft at a height of of 6000' would indicate a multiplier of approaching 5x
This would fit well within the likely error of these rough calculations. Can somebody do the accurate aircraft identification and give the wingspans for a more accurate estimate?
The view of the tail can either be explained from the offset of the Google aircraft to the East or the banking of the Tot aircraft.
Any better estimates?
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Fascinating. I did assume initially that it was some kind of fake to start with, like those pictures of a bus on the moon, but apparently it really can happen.
I was tempted to go to Street View and point the camera upwards, but a second's thought said that obviously it wouldn't be there, or as low as it seemed. :)
But there could in theory be planes visible in Street View. We live in open country overlooking a valley. Hercules transport planes sometimes fly past up the valley so low that we are actually looking down on them, so a timely StreetView could capture one.
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The Wierd and whacky world of stuff to be found on streetview!
www.streetviewfun.com/top-100/
Beware some bleeped profanity,.
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The 737 shown in my link of yesterday, 5 miles finals at LHR, is
Wing span 34.31m (112ft 7in), length 39.47m (129ft 6in)
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>> The plane appears large is because it is at a high altitude, i.e. much closer to the Google camera.
You are quite correct.
Judging from the photo, the aircraft is a 767-400 (note the wingtips and length/wing aspect ratio). I had thought it was a 777-300 but the tips look wrong for that. I couldn't work out the airline.
That aircraft has a length of 61.3m. Its projection on the earth though measures in at about 133m (using the scale on Google Maps).
Using trig, if the aircraft were at 35,000 ft it would put the camera at 65,000 ft.
If the camera was at 20,000ft the aircraft would be at about 12000ft. This one is more likely because :
1) there are no vapour trails
2) the aircraft is banking a fair bit which suggests it is in the hold
3) google maps uses aerial photography for some cities. 20k ft seems a reasonable altitude for an aerial surveillance photo.
.. hence also why there is no shadow. It would be miles off!
Last edited by: car4play on Mon 8 Aug 11 at 12:15
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Apparently it's an Air Canada 777 - see www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5225273/ - where this has also been spotted...
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I had originally thought it was a 777 because it matches pretty well apart from the tips. I also thought Air Canada, although the markings on the fuselage are completely bleached out and the tail looks the wrong colour, but again that could just be the lighting.
AC don't fly 767-400s so I guess that would make it a 777-300.
Well done for finding that post!
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A 777-300 is 74 m long twice the length of a 737 so now need to recalculate.
How ever I will stick to my estimate that it is actually flying at about 5000' (+- 1000) in view of typical flight movements in that area.
Do we know how Google do their aerial photos? Are they all taken from a similar height, or do they scale afterwards? Fixed focal length?
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Google Maps - Surprise! - Cliff Pope
