Ron Wagner :
On clear nights going east somewhere around Oklahoma City and Tulsa I have see the lights of Dallas ( 180 miles ) and Houston ( 420 miles ) in one instruction and Kansas City ( 300 miles ) and St. Louis ( 460 mile ) in the other focal point , all at the same clip . No matter how many times I saw that , it always blew me away that I could see that much of the U.S. at once .
EAST COAST VISTAS
Passing over New York City while flying to the south from Boston at night , I ’ve seen Philly , Baltimore , Washington , and Richmond . Flying north to Boston while over New York City , I ’ve figure the aurora borealis . Only once , as it ’s a rare condition to see them that far south , and they were n’t seeable on the background . But they were visible at jet altitude . And , for whatever reason buried in my ancestral amygdala , they give me the weirdy .
ST. ELMO’S FIRE
Speaking of things that gave me the weirdie in blue jet cockpit at night was when we got St. Elmo ’s Fire dancing all over the windshield . Sometimes it would fall into the cockpit and dancing on the glare shell . Despite being a wise guy with an aerospace engineering stage , St. Elmo ’s Fire always creeped me out . Something in my unconscious gets weirded out at the tidy sum of dancing electricity at night .
THE GREEN FLASH
Then there ’s the infamous and elusivegreen flashthat is visible at the exact trice the sun sets below the purview . I jazz , this is n’t at night , but it ’s the beginning of nighttime , so bear with me . I ’ve only seen it double while on the primer coat , both time on Kauai , in Hawaii . It can not be seen without super exculpated skies and a razor needlelike horizon without the little hint of daze , which is rare on the ground . But in the air , it ’s a much more common sight . In the strain , I missed it the first two or three times when the other pilot said he saw it because the event is ridiculously named . I was looking for some big event , worthy of the termflash . But ultimately , a more experienced jet jockey explained to me that it ’s really just agreen blipwhen the last tiny dot of the sunlight flashes light-green for less than a second . So , I guess it can technically be forebode agreen flash , but do n’t be fritter away by the name .
So , those are some of the thing we see at night .
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