Eclipse viewing at 30k feet: Delta to offer path-of-totality flight
news.delta.com
news.delta.com
And buy direct, don't use Amazon because of the counterfeit risks.
They are often pulling stuff like this, tax evasion, LOTS of discrimination complaints, etc https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-owned-bh-photo-accused-...
Their return policy isn't great by any means. I buy a $2000 49" Monitor that arrives not working and I can't return it because I opened and tried to turn it on? Yeah, ok.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/ReturnExchange....
> Nonreturnable Items
Opened TVs, combos and monitors 37" and larger — original packaging cannot be unsealed Opened computers and computer software — original packaging cannot be unsealed Electronic software downloads Opened consumable items (e.g., film, tapes, paper, bulbs, CD, DVDs, ink cartridges, etc.) Any computers built or modified by B&H to customer specifications Select special-order merchandise, or any item indicated on the website as nonreturnable Underwater equipment that has been submerged Opened or unwrapped educational tapes and books
I know some consumer protection laws aren’t as strong as others – I’m blessed to live in Australia in this regard – but surely this just isn’t legal?
Retail stores aren't usually on the hook for items that arrive non-functioning from the manufacturer -- the manufacturer is.
I rarely buy from box stores but when I do that and being able to test things in person is the only reason I ever go near a bestbuy/etc.
Microcenter for instance- https://community.microcenter.com/kb/articles/28-what-is-the...
> Products not eligible for return *
Opened software such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Server, and Microsoft Windows Server clients Electronic software downloads Point of Sale Activation Cards that have a dollar value Micro Center Gift Cards (except as required by law) Products with customer-induced damage such as, but not limited to, aerial drones with damage due to pilot error. So let’s be careful out there! Microphones and microphone accessories * VR Headsets, Headphones, including AirPods, Earbuds, and Over-the-Ear Products
* Hardware items deemed defective are eligible for exchange
The retailer should absolutely be on the hook. They are the ones with a working relationship with the manufacturer, and hence are best positioned to be able to hold the manufacturer accountable.
As an Australian who lives in the US atm, they are right to be grateful for the ACCC (consumer protection watchdog). I certainly am now. In the US you have to rely on retailers who treat good consumer protection as a competitive advantage like Costco, REI, Best Buy, sometimes Amazon, etc. In Australia you can easily hold any retailer accountable (and they’re all just generally better behaved with this stuff anyway, so you rarely have to force them).
For the most part, credit card chargebacks serve a similar purpose, though of course the retailer may ban you from their store afterwards.
Absolutely agreed that the retailer is on the hook. The customer is not making a deal with the manufacturer to buy the good; the customer is making a deal with the retailer. Along the same line, I dislike it when retailers try to weasel out of shipping issues by blaming it on the parcel carrier. That's only valid if the customer went to ups.com and created and paid for a shipment themselves!
One of the great things about Australian consumer law: the retail store is responsible.
> A US Labor Department lawsuit filed in 2016 accused B&H, the largest non-chain photo and video equipment store in New York City, of heavily discriminating against Hispanic employees by forcing them to use separate, unsanitary bathrooms.
Man, I had no idea. Forcing an ethnic group to use separate bathrooms? Whoever thought that was a good idea?
[0] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1750791-REG/american_...
They flagged it for further inspection, unsurprisingly, but the agent was pretty amicable, I didn't really get any grief
Too totalitarian for me.
Have one bottle of Sudafed in your luggage and nobody will care. Have 100 bottles of Sudafed and you're going to jail for drug manufacturing.
Anyway, stories like this where strangers help everyone around them experience something great always warm my heart. Kudos to you!
If people think they won't get a chance to see, they might all crowd to one side of the plane, causing enough weight imbalance so as to cause a crash.
It's a big problem on boats, and there are countless stories of someone on a crowded boat seeing a dolphin, shouting about it, everyone crowds to one side to get closer, and the whole boat capsizes.
Regulations now require that boats stay afloat if everyone stands on one side, but the regulations aren't perfectly adhered to and that still doesn't prevent people crowding to one side enough to push/knock others overboard.
This gives me an idea. Introducing, the Brennan airplane (see: 7:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUYzuAJeg3M)
Banking the plane is a nice gesture to help everyone experience a special occasion.
So I was on a flight from London to Vancouver, which had us approaching Vancouver from the north. It was December but a sunny day. Half the passengers were on ski holidays. We had to delay our arrival a while so the pilot said he was going to bank the plane to the left and do a circle, which would put the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort in view out the left side. In unison, seatbelts be damned, everyone on the right of the plane got up and moved left to get pictures. About half-way through the turn, the pilot came back: "Um, we felt that up here. When you return to your seats can you please do so slowly, at least slower than how fast you moved to the left." Pre-9/11 was a simpler time.
I doubt everyone moving side to side when the plane isn’t taking off or landing is going to automatically cause a crash.
Side to side weight balance of passengers is not a major factor in any plane I have ever read the manual for. They are too close to the centerline to impart much force. The pilots might notice it and trim it out, but I doubt they would have to do anything beyond that. Fore and aft balance is critical, but still unlikely to be an issue with passengers at cruise speed since the elevator has a lot of control authority at 500mph.
A 737 can fly fine with a completely empty wing tank on one side and a completely full wing tank on the other. The wing tanks of some models can carry 4,500 kgs of fuel in each side, so that amounts to a 9,000 kg imbalance outboard of the fuselage. That is the equivalent of about 111 "standard" passengers' weight on the wing that can be handled with trim alone, and 737s are capable of safely landing in that configuration.
Boats are different because as they heal farther and farther the righting moment diminishes (for conventional monohull powercraft at least), and the passengers are able to get all the way to the extreme.
Planes on the other hand have the same "righting moment" no matter how far over they bank since it is a function of airflow over control surfaces rather than buoyancy and gravity.
Sounds like it might be something that they should tell people about, I guess they don't because when there's enough people in an airplane people either tend to (1) behave according to rules or (2) just not be a significant amount of people to cause the plane to {{do funny things}}.
...but in any case, I can imagine being a pilot and hoping/trying to/prayin for people to stay in their seat regardless of whatever is happening outside...
...must be a scary experience...
For the 2017 one, we went to a field about 100 miles from where we were staying and compared our experience to our hosts who stayed behind because of cloud cover forecast for the day. Clouds cleared for both of us, but from the discussions, it was worth going that 100 miles.
It's not a linear "eclipesness" where 99 or 95% is close enough.
It's a binary 100% or not experience. Even 1% sunlight is enough to wash out the entire experience and you must keep the glasses on the whole time. At 100% you can take them off, and see the most incredible sight you might ever see.
Not the roof of a building. Not 99% totality. And don't miss it.
Everyone that stayed in town for the 2017 eclipse barely remembers it today.
Those of us in a rural area of 100% totality thought it was magic. Pure, real, magic.
Go into a field. Bring some friends. Let yourself feel awe. You won't see it again in the USA for twenty years, so... now's the time.
It is a mind-boggling experience.
But viewing the corona of the sun... wow! I cannot begin to describe how cool that is. You don't get to see it in 99% totality. Only when the sun is completely blocked from space. It's remarkable and beautiful and impossible to capture the light on camera and you only get to see if for maybe a couple of minutes in your life.
https://www.google.com/search?q=sun+corona+during+solar+ecli...
With things like this it's always so impossible to tell if everybody is altering the brightness and so forth.
It's entirely a natural lighting spectacle, so it's hard to capture the size and dynamic range on an LCD screen.
The pictures make it look like some sort of lens flare, but it looks nothing like that in real life. You can actually see the vapory tendrils of the suns' plasma making stringy loops around the sun in the pattern of the magnetic waves. There's a lot of detail.
This does a better job of showing the detail: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fi... But you can tell they had to crank up the exposure because the space doesn't look nearly as black in this one.
Again, it's something you have to see for yourself. If you lived an entire life in a cave, me showing pictures of the sun would not have the same effect as actually feeling the light.
I was a skeptic when I went to the 2017 one. I've booked flights to go see next month's.
Nope. During totality, the whole sky goes dark and you look up and there's a fucking ring of fire in the sky.
It looks exactly like these photos, just sitting there up in the sky. It feels like you got teleported to another solar system onto the surface of an alien planet.
Imagine just going about your day as normal and all of a sudden the sun does that.
The feeling though, is very hard to convey. Everyone I was with confirmed that they felt it. Very primal to me. It was clear that my body (and the natural world around me) was unsettled or could tell that something was disrupted.
I'm not a "vibes" person, but for sure this was felt.
It literally isn’t the same thing at all. The moment of totality is just unreal and has me wanting to chase total eclipses.
Awhile back, I argued to our school district to move spring break for 2024 in order for families to potentially travel for this year’s total eclipse (I live in California), but they wouldn’t consider it. Sadly, I’ll miss it this year.
Also, think for a moment how crazy this is: our moon is exactly the right size to cover the sun exactly (coupled with being exactly far enough away) that we can see this beautiful ring of fire with flares emanating from the sides during the moment of totality.
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On Monday, April 8, a total solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over southern Ontario. The City of Hamilton is expected to experience a deep partial solar eclipse, with the timing of this event presenting a concern for school dismissal. The solar eclipse will begin at approximately 2 p.m. and end around 4:30 p.m.
A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and earth, completely blocking the face of the sun. The sky will darken as if it were dawn or dusk. These events can pose potential risks and severe damage to eyesight if proper precautions are not taken. Viewing the sun directly during an eclipse can permanently damage the retina's light-sensitive cells.
In addition to the physical risks associated with directly viewing the solar eclipse, a period of increased darkness will occur. The peak period of darkness (referred to as the mid-eclipse) will occur at approximately 3:20 p.m. This aspect of the eclipse can present safety concerns for students, staff and families during dismissal time.
Hamilton Public Health Services (HPHS) understands that there are significant risks associated with the unprotected viewing of the solar eclipse and is supportive of HWDSB’s desire to mitigate potential risks. Shifting the P.A. Day is a proactive measure to support the safety and well-being of students, staff and families.
HPHS is working with HWDSB to provide information for families and staff regarding safety considerations. These resources will be shared closer to the P.A. Day on Monday, April 8.
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I sent them a letter in response:
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I fully support changing the PA Day so that children have a once-in-a-generation, highly educational opportunity to view this incredible celestial event. Describing it as risky and dangerous is just plain weird! There are plenty of dangerous natural phenomena (e.g. the lake that we happen to be situated next to, in which many people drown each year), but rather than frighten people, we educate them on how to safely enjoy them. This is an incredible opportunity to teach kids about solar cycles, space, etc., and something we should all be excited about.
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I didn't a response. I'm still completely baffled by this!
It is worth crossing continents for.
If it's like 2017, traffic out of totality regions will be very, very memorable. :\
That's like being 90% of the way to the ocean versus swimming in the ocean.
Seeing an eclipse is like flying in an airplane. Seeing it in totality is like jumping out of one.
Even at "99.9%" you get to see the sun's corona for 0% of your life.
99% you’re in daytime. 100% you’re in nighttime.
Hell, I saw it at a library in small town SC and it was still primal and surreal. The birds got quiet, the crickets started chirping. You really felt a direct link back to prehistory and you understood why it affected ancient people the way it did. There a small, tickling sense in the back of your mind that what you're seeing is profoundly wrong. The closest I can describe it is low grade existential terror, in the biblical sense of awe.
Is it about light pollution? About being somewhere quiet? Is it about a field specifically or about being away from road traffic? Like is a park OK? Is the beach OK?
Or is it mainly just being in 100% and you usually have to go somewhere rural for that because statistically it doesn't pass directly over major cities?
We were within the area of total eclipse, but as you can see from the map, there wasn't much area to choose from. Other than the towns and cities on the coast it counts as rural for England. (Plymouth is largest, 300k people; eclipses certainly do pass over cities.)
We stood on a hill, along with probably 30 other people who'd chosen the same place, just above a village. It went completely dark, and quiet (except for the people), the street lights on a road in the distance came on. We could see sunlight far to the north and south, yet ourselves were in near-total darkness (like overnight twilight at high latitudes).
Then it started to get light again, and the birds starting singing. It was mostly overcast, but with some glimpses of the occluded sun at every stage of the eclipse.
It wasn't a profound and spiritual experience, but it is one of the things I remember clearly from several holidays to that part of England with my family. Maybe being alone would make it different — there'd have been no-one else saying "isn't this amazing!" to their children. But more realistically, English families on holiday aren't looking for profound and spiritual experiences, we leave that to the Americans.
We couldn't see the corona, due to the clouds. Maybe that's important.
I think being on a small hill helped, and not being within an urban area.
You got such a laugh out of me there! True words.
Thanks for the details.
It goes from quiet sunny day, to an insect rock concert, and back again. And if you're outside, you feel the temperature plummet, adding to the experience. All in under 4 minutes.
In the city you'll likely still hear some of that, so... whichever you do, it'll be great.
I was standing in a farmer's field next to a bunch of beehives, and the change was palpable.
I can't even put the feeling into words. Not just seeing the sun, but the feeling of the entire environment was just wild.
In fact, I have a relative whose rural house was in the path of totality for 2017, but it was not centered on the path. That relative and I went to her friend's rural house on the centerline.
It was by a field too, and yes, the animals went weird.
If you're going to do it, go whole hog.
Some friends and I did this for the 2017 eclipse in Nashville. We drove 30 minutes north and happened across a huge group of nerds in a big green park and the moment of totality was absolutely bonkers.
It gets true twilight dark, the birds and crickets start going wild, and you see this glowing reddish sunset color perfectly evenly along the base of the horizon. That part was the most fascinating to me, because I realized that comes from the diffraction (diffusion?) of the light from above and all around, and NOT from the “edge of the sun below the horizon” as we all kinda assumed.
(Note I am likely very materially wrong about that explanation so I’d love to be properly corrected.)
Anyway, regardless, go experience 100% totality on the ground!
I doubt very much you'd experience anything like that on an airplane, but possibly that's just me having sour grapes this time.
Just for you, I created an Imgur account. Cheers.
> Another passenger experience factor determined by the manufacturer is the aircraft window. In this case, the 737's windows are smaller - 10" x 14" (25.4cm x 35.56cm). The A220's windows are a bit larger at 11" x 16" or 28 x 40.6cm. In addition to a difference in window size, the position of windows is different for each type as well. Window-seat passengers on the 737 (the MAX, but also all others) will find that they have to bend down slightly to look straight out the window. For those who love to get a good look out at the horizon or the world outside, the A220's windows are preferable.
https://simpleflying.com/the-airbus-a220-300-vs-boeing-737-m...
Not always…
I suspect my dad would have been reluctant to drive all that way, but I'm glad he did.
There's an excellent book [1] about this adventure written by its senior scientific advisor (Pierre Léna). The flight went under the shadow of the moon for 74 minutes !
[0] https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/30-juin-1973-le-concorde...
[1] https://www.fnac.com/a17820796/Pierre-Lena-Soleils-eclipses
Have to mention the famous Connie Willis eclipse short story “And Come from Miles Around” (it’s collected in “fire watch” and I won’t spoil it for you).
> DL 924, LAX-DFW, 8:40 am PST departure, A320
> DL 2869, LAX-SAT, 9:00 am PST departure, A319
> DL 1001, SLC-SAT, 10:08 am MST departure, A220-300
> DL 1683, SLC-AUS, 9:55 am MST departure, A320
The eclipse will happen after Daylight Saving Time began in March. If an airline can't even get time zones correct...
One of the things I love about an eclipse is how the world around me reacts to it. I saw one in the middle of Wyoming in 2017, in the middle of the day. Every animal seemed to think it was night. Wolves started howling, moths came out of the grass and flew around, daytime insects disappeared.
I saw a partial eclipse in New Delhi in the 1970s, and it was very different. The city was a ghost town — everyone was inside waiting it out. It was hard even to find a taxi, in one of the largest cities in the world.
So yeah, seeing it from an airplane sounds cool. It wouldn’t capture everything I’ve loved and enjoyed about eclipses.
Until someone tries it, we won't know if it's worthwhile. Even if it doesn't live up to a "better" experience, we will know more about those experiences than we did before
Trying new things is the whole reason for existing
https://www.planetary.org/articles/are-your-solar-eclipse-gl...
This annular eclipse tour by Delta - https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-travel/2021-annular-ec...
This thread sold me on experiencing 100% totality so I'm bummed.
Via https://time.com/4897581/total-solar-eclipse-years-next/
Or would that be just a hole in the sky?
I mean that would be a radar invisible plane. Would the scattering of the light around the rest of the sky be enough to occlude your “hole” ?
1. Approximately 22,200 kWh of electricity usage.
2. 674 kg (or about 1,486 pounds) of grazed beef.
3.1-2 new freshwater wells in rural areas
https://www.delta.com/us/en/about-delta/sustainability
*note there are lawsuits on the dubiousness of the credits and the focus on carbon removal.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
Poland is about 30x dirtier than Sweden. World numbers vary all over the place.
Similarly for beef - are the cattle raised under conventional agriculture (with maximum emissions) or regenerative agriculture (with minimum emissions)?
By my rough count, an example round-trip flight for this trip is about 2600 miles (~4200km) with an approximate climate cost of about 1100kg per person. This accounts for the fact that airline emissions do roughly 3x the damage as expected (compared to ground transportation) as contrails form cirrus clouds which "are too thin to reflect much sunlight, but ice crystals inside them can trap heat. Unlike low-level clouds that have a net cooling effect, these contrail-formed clouds warm the climate... A 2011 study suggests that the net effect of these contrail clouds contributes more to atmospheric warming than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by planes since the dawn of aviation."
https://www.science.org/content/article/aviation-s-dirty-sec...
We have ways to make electricity and food carbon-cheap, and potentially even carbon-negative, but the same is not currently true for flying. I think we should move to passenger ships for transoceanic trips and electrified trains for overland travel.
we can start by collectively solving poverty and go from there
It’s really as simple as caring about improving the world for others worse off than you over making yourself more comfortable
Only you can determine where your lines are
Why is my simple advocacy for the elimination of poverty threatening to your philosophy?
Or are you projecting your fears and biases into the discussion?
I took your original point "caring about improving the world for others" to mean "you should make decent efforts/sacrifices to help others if you have the capacity".
That is, you should not go on this flight, because the CO2 released will make the world a worse place.
But if you have this moral obligation to help others, it seems like the much greater mistake here is to spend $1200/person on the flight. $1200 is enough to save ~240 children's lives for a year if donated to an effective charity (Helen Keller Foundation). Compared to that good, the moral harm of the CO2 released is a rounding error (someone mentioned a bit over 1 ton/person).
I've never understood the moral axiom that says "you need to make sacrifices for others, but only if those sacrifices are for carbon dioxide release. You don't have to make much smaller sacrifices which do vastly more good". That to me seems clearly absurd - can you help me understand what mistake I'm making?
To be clear, I'm not saying it's wrong to cut your carbon footprint - I'm saying that if there's a moral compulsion to do that, it seems like there's a stronger moral compulsion to donate a high % of your worth to effective charities. But nobody every seems to think that is the case!
Let me use an example from this morning.
My kids ride the bus to school. The bus stop is about 800 feet from our house and an equivalent distance to other kids' houses. That's at most a two minute walk. Almost everyday, unless the weather is basically PERFECT, there will be four SUVs running and burning gas waiting at the bus stop where the other parents literally drive 800 feet so their kid isn't mildly cold, wet etc...
This is what is confusing behavior TO ME. It's wasteful and unnecessary because the prevailing behavior for people is "do not be inconvenienced, avoid discomfort, and maximize experiential pleasure with no thought of externalities"
Why is this flight even an option to begin with? Simply because someone at Delta thought, hey this is a great opportunity to make revenue and be fun and etc...I'm sure someone even made the point that "well we buy carbon credits so that solves that pesky carbon problem." Delta used it's propaganda (advertising) to induce a novel fear of missing out in order to increase it's revenue and brand. That's it. There is simply no thoughts here other than "maximize revenue" and "have fun."
This is not "growing the pie" the people who buy these tickets are choosing this environmentally egregious set of actions, and actively crowding out more pro-social spending.
This is the world we live in
Lots of methods have been worked out; that's not the problem. The problem is political resistance.
Also, isn't there a risk of lots of commercial and private planes all following it together?
For the smaller planes lower down, they don't even need to file if they don't want. They can go VFR and just see and avoid.
The amount of aircraft flying around NYC airspace is far higher density on any given afternoon than something like this.
There is definitely a possibility of there being cloud cover, even at FL300, to cover the path of that flight. Assuming they would be allowed up to fly above FL380 by ATC, even less likely, but still not zero potential.
A major part of the eclipse experience is observing its interactions with the world. There's no much world to interact with at 30K feet, besides one big shadow.
This seems like a thing where the main value is that it costs more and is less accessible, so you can brag about it.
Seems like just a marketing stunt (which, of course it is, but a pointless one at that).
For example: https://image.pbs.org/poster_images/assets/buac18-vid-epicmo...
You’re also guaranteed to be able to see the eclipse because you’re flying above any cloud cover.
https://eclipsophile.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/April-No...
If you have bad weather, it may ruin the eclipse. Don't let it ruin the wedding by letting it ruin your attitude.
I was able to catch the last eclipse in 2016/17 (?) and am using the wedding to trick all my loved ones into (hopefully) getting to experience one too.
Of course, the article makes no such claim that this is their plan. After all, planes don't go 2000 MPH. But they do go 600+ MPH, so maybe if things go perfectly you'll have 20 minutes of eclipse. Call it 10 minutes due to inability to rapidly correct for a slightly wrong departure time. Better than the 4 minutes you'd get standing still.
SR-71: hold my beer
So if turns out to be totally overcast wherever you would have been on the ground, this is going to change everything.
No it doesn’t. Very low probability, yes, guaranteed to not be clouds, no.
Cirrocumulus clouds are common on that flight path and can extend up to FL450. Is it rare that they are that high, for sure, but can it happen, definitely.
Cirrostratus clouds are also a possibility and they often extend up to FL400. Whenever the sky has a soft white haze, these are a common cause.
Will either of those guaranteed ruin an eclipse, probably not. But still saying guaranteed no cloud cover obstructing the view is very much inaccurate imho.
And a cloud in the dark sky looks the same from above vs below. The difference is how the sun itself looks.