Eclipse Total de Sol a 36.000 Pies de Altura

Chico3001

Active Member
La historia detras de este vuelo....

https://www.space.com/37849-alaska-airlines-eclipse-chasing-flights.html

[size=+2]How a Space.com Columnist Convinced an Airline to Chase the Eclipse[/size]

This is a story about how you can sometimes move mountains — or, in this case, airplanes — with a simple suggestion.

Back in March 2015, I emailed the corporate offices of Alaska Airlines. It was not to register a complaint; in fact, I had never flown on that particular carrier. But in just less than a year, a total eclipse of the sun was going to move across parts of Indonesia. I had no intention of going to the "Emerald of the Equator" for the eclipse, but I did take note that later, the narrow totality path, where a total eclipse would be visible, was going to sweep 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) north of Hawaii.

That's when an idea flashed into my head: What if a commercial aircraft were flying either from Honolulu to Anchorage, Alaska, or vice versa? A line connecting those two cities would cross over the totality path at approximately 0330 GMT on March 9 — that would correspond to 5:30 p.m. Hawaii Time on March 8. A quick check of the various travel websites revealed that there was indeed just such a flight that could possibly fit the bill: Alaska Airlines Flight 870, Anchorage to Honolulu.

[size=+1]An unusual request[/size]

Unfortunately, based on my calculations, that flight would leave Anchorage about a half-hour too early and would arrive at its potential intersection point with the lunar shadow well before the shadow itself would arrive. So my email to Alaska Airlines contained a request:

"Could you delay your Flight 870 from Anchorage by about a half an hour on March 8 next year?"

Of course, I explained the reason for the request and provided a detailed map that depicted the flight path relative to the totality path of the eclipse. I indicated that other than delaying the flight and making a few minor tweaks to the flight path (to properly position the sun through the right side/starboard windows), there would not be much difference compared to a regular daily flight. Indeed, upon leaving Anchorage en route to Honolulu, the aircraft (a Boeing 737-900) would head almost due south, while the lunar shadow would approach the plane perpendicularly from almost due west. A departure at 2 p.m. instead of 1:30 p.m. practically ensured that a rendezvous with a total solar eclipse over the Pacific Ocean would be possible.

But I didn't sell Alaska Airlines — a Fortune 500 company — immediately on the idea. Indeed, this was a most unusual "thinking outside of the box" type of idea. Among my selling points: Most airlines offer flight amenities such as in-flight movies, audio entertainment and free Wi-Fi, but how many would offer customers the opportunity to see one of nature's grandest spectacles?

Over the course of the summer of 2015, I continued to write and call (OK, maybe badger) Alaska Airlines about the eclipse concept for Flight 870. The answer back was always the same: "We're still considering it." Finally, in October, I was told that a meeting at the Seattle corporate headquarters would be scheduled to decide on the eclipse option. And that's when a high school buddy of mine stepped in and closed the deal.

[...]

https://www.space.com/37849-alaska-airlines-eclipse-chasing-flights.html
 
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