The vortex created each time an aircraft lands comes into view as an Airbus A340 touches down on the runway at Zurich airport, Switzerland’s largest international airport, thanks to the presence of fog.

Air travellers have a preference for selecting window seats on the right hand side of an aeroplane, according to an analysis by British Airways of passengers flying on their 747 aircraft.

Window seats are generally favoured over aisle ones, the research found, with six per cent more bookings. It also revealed that fliers will slightly favour the right hand side of the aircraft over the left, with 54 per cent of passengers opting for that side.

This means I’m definitely weird… I’m usually on the left hand side, (it’s just where I seem to end up) and in an aisle seat (which I often request though, especially for longer flights).

What’s a cinematographer to do while flying across the US, in this case between San Francisco and Philadelphia? Film the flight, of course.

Via Devour.

The hardest part of flying an aeroplane is landing, that I learned from my days buzzing about in Cessna 152s. Misjudge your height, approach speed, cross winds, and, well, you may have to overshoot, or go around, and hopefully you’ll have that luxury open to you.

Landing a craft much larger than a Cessna 152, with or without flight experience, is likely another matter however. In the event then you ever hear the dreaded words “does anyone aboard have piloting experience” while on a flight, hopefully this guide to landing an aeroplane if you are not a pilot will be helpful:

Anyone who plays with a flight simulator should get to this point without any instructions, but now things will get stupidly fast. Adrenaline and not knowing what you are doing are the main reasons for this. To land you will have to forget everything you know about xplane of microsoft’s flight simulator. Using small movements you will keep the runway between your legs. Be patient, do only small corrections, if you over correct you will start zigzagging. Airplanes are like kayaks, they are always skidding and inertia make things take a bit longer, you need to wait for you input to make a difference. (this impression is actually caused by our notion of space).

If you thought air traffic movements at London’s Heathrow airport were up on the upside of high, wait until you see the volumes at San Diego International Airport…

While the airspace obviously isn’t quite as cluttered as it appears, clever compositing of photos, taken over an almost five-hour period recently, creates an entirely different impression however.

PS: you may want to turn down the volume before watching the video… all those aeroplanes are quite noisy.

Felix Baumgartner, who recently jumped to Earth from a height of some 39 kilometres over New Mexico, attributes the level of interest that the undertaking attracted to people’s on-going fascination with flying and space travel:

Aviation – and space travel, in particular – have always been especially captivating. To this day, only 12 people have ever set foot on the moon. People are fascinated about the world above them because it seems so out-of-reach. My jump gave them an opportunity to come along for the ride. They could watch live on their screens how someone rises all the way up into the stratosphere – though the next bit was probably even more fascinating for them.

I whiled away many a lazy afternoon – and over the summer, evening – in Richmond Park, just outside of London. While I could talk at length about the park’s many attractions, one thing we used to marvel over was the constant procession of aircraft lining up to land at Heathrow airport, as the flight path was very close to the park.

While not filmed from Richmond Park, the above fast motion clip will give you a pretty good idea of what we used to see.

While you wouldn’t be sucked out of an aeroplane cruising at high altitude should one of the windows somehow open, as per the popular perception, it still wouldn’t be an especially pleasant experience:

An open window would create powerful suction immediately around it, though it would not suck everything out as you see in movies. Mostly passengers inside would feel short of breath and start to pass out. Small objects might be pulled out the window. There would be a loud pop and after that, the sound of a power-sustained gust of wind, as air flowed out of the inside of the airplane. Air would keep flowing out of the open window until the pressure inside the plane was the same as the pressure outside – in most cases, this would mean making up about 22,000 feet worth of pressure in minutes.

American Airlines expects to save US$1.2 million in fuel costs now that the contents of their bulky flight manuals can be stored on iPads. So if doing away with the paper versions of these manuals can effect such a saving, what else can go by the way side in the name of reducing fuel costs, and, presumably, airfares?

From small things big things come it seems. Even dispensing with packets of peanuts, or other light snacks that airlines serve, can make quite a difference:

What about 1 bag of peanuts? Suppose that each American Airlines flight removed just one bag of peanuts (that they no longer give you) from the flight. How much in yearly fuel savings would this be? Well, first I need the mass of a bag of peanuts. Instead of searching for the exact mass for a bag of peanuts, let me just get a ballpark mass of 25 grams. That seems close. So if each American Airlines reduced the payload mass by 25 grams, they would save US$2069 [per year per flight].

I’m finding Flightradar24, a website that tracks the location of aircraft traffic across the globe, to be strangely fascinating.