Message posted by Peter Merlin on July 25, 2009 at 10:12:47 PST:
Sightings of aircraft at night don't provide much information. You should never use the pattern of lights to define the aircraft's shape. Nearly every plane ends up described as "triangular." I have tried some observational exercises of my own. Living under the traffic pattern for AF Plant 42, I had all manner of aircraft fly over my house at relatively low altitudes. They included F-16, F-18, B-1, B-2, B-52, F-117A, L-1011, 737, 747, C-130, C-5, C-17, U-2, DC-8, and many others. I watched them in the day and at night. When they flew over at night, they received illumination from the city lights of Palmdale and Lancaster. Sometimes the aircraft were also silhouetted against a cloud deck. Without binoculars, however, all I could see were the lights on the airplane. The configuration usually looked like a triangle. I could never see the shape of the aircraft even when I knew what I was looking at. If, for example, I recognized the sound of a C-130, I knew what I was seeing but I couldn't discern the shape. That is why I never trust reports of night sightings.
In Reply to: Interesting A/C sighting last Wed night posted by Brian on July 25, 2009 at 9:18:23 PST:
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