Classic British Flight Sim

Sky (or "Chinese") lanterns perhaps? The way they are extinguished towards the end of the video sells that theory as the most logical to me. We used to see them all the time when I lived up in Dundee and it was amazing how quickly they seemed to move when they were close to the horizon and quite far away, especially if they end up caught in an air current.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zqf8E2-WKoM
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j0QtdpgT41k

There are plenty of other videos on Youtube if you dig around.

I think that these lanterns would have been incredibly bright at the distance I was virewing them on, in fact the image was invisible to the eye only on the camera was it seen, I think they disapeared due to going through the clouds?

tonymadge wrote:I think that these lanterns would have been incredibly bright at the distance I was virewing them on, in fact the image was invisible to the eye only on the camera was it seen, I think they disapeared due to going through the clouds?

A few months back, I went outside on a saturday night for a fag..... Samantha followed me and started shouting. Literally dozens of sky lanterns were appearing from above the rooftops - I realised what they were but Samantha didn't and was screaming at me to get the camera..... to be fair, cars were stopped in the street and people were out looking, and a Police car was also askew the road with driver out looking.... Samantha was not too happy when I told her what they were (IE I let her believe it was aliens :roll: ).....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7539334.stm

Looks like 2 landing lights to me.

tonymadge wrote:1000ft over Wolverhampton the other day I picked this up on the camera, by the time I hit the record I had already gone in a few lens settings, I noticed it at first just above the horizon, the video shows it closer than it was so bear with it..I aint no Speilberg ;-)

Your thoughts....


http://www.simviation.com/hjg/tm/skypicture.wmv

When Jupiter was very close to Venus recently (around 5/6th Dec) here in Bridport on the South Coast, at around 6pm or so, I glanced up and saw the two aforementioned bright stars but I was intrigued to see that also there were two round red lights travelling South at the speed of an aircraft.

What made me think was that there was no noticable sound and that the lights were both Red.... The only light I would expect to see from an aircraft from the rear would be White.....neither light was pulsating or anything like that and they were in close proximity to each other but did not appear to be linked.

So if it was aircraft....there were 2 of 'em as one light moved slightly forward to the other and dimmed until the light went out...this was followed about 3 seconds later by the second light in the same manner. Visability was excellent with no cloud.

As your film clip is Monochrome Tony....I don't suppose these lights you saw were Red by any chance?

Regards.

Bridon Bear

No coloured lights and the clip was b/w due to the image being from the FLIR which works off heat switchable from white heat to black heat, hence my therory it was the exhaust from the engines, but oddly I never picked up the APU and the body as the camera is very sensitive and will pick up heat form all scources, obviously the hotter the heat the more intense the image, i.e. for example on a recent film I did of a police dog in action... the body of the dog was clearly visible but the white heat was immense from its mouth and "bottom hole" bt also some of the internal organs heat trace was visible on the dog along with the spine running all the way down the tail!!

True, but a police dog isn't made from aluminium doing 180knots in -10 Maybe the APU was off?

Would be curious to see what the image looks like if you diliberately targeted what you new to be an airliner with the camera?

Hi,

With the info given above, I agree it looks like two aircraft. In the shot where you are panned out, it looks like they are going right to left and can see two afterburn trails 'pulsing' and then I presume the aircraft turn away from you and as the heat sources are slightly oval, I suspect they are twin engines (Tornado or Typhoon ?). When the sources dissappear into cloud you momentarily get a glimpse of what looks like a slight white trail and then they go.

My tuppence worth.

Regards

John

Lichfield Corridor not too far away, used frequently by F-15's transitting from Lakenheath to "play areas". APU? SOPs on Boeing's i to shut the APU down on the After Start/ Taxi checklist.

Nige C

Hi Folks

Tony -
Cheers for the vid.
Interesting.



My tuppence worth -

Is LAT LON the camera platform coords ?
and
is TLAT TLON the observed/target object's calculated coords ?

i.e.
Camera platform moves,
but target object doesn't ?

At 18:26:17 to 18:26:27 ignore the object(s),
and look at the foreground cloud peaks , (both above & below target)
relative to distant cloud peaks,
indicates camera platform moving left to right.

Possibly the objects are almost stationary.
Hence the INS NAV HdgUncert



Apparent trails may be due to sensor 'burn/smear'
as camera azimuth pans to track the object(s).



Relative elevation changes are minimal and possibly due to camera platform roll.



Hope it wasn't a passenger aircraft
as initial relative attitude of two light sources
is one o'clock / seven o'clock
they then roll anticlockwise through > 90 degrees
towards 9 o'clock / six o'clock.



Just before the objects disappear
there's apparent Newtons Rings transition
indicating either sensor 'burn'
or increasing vapour density between camera & object(s).



ATB
Paul