Views from a Window Seat

[yflyer]

Over the years, I have noticed that on flights, a significant proportion of passengers don’t appear to have any interest in the sights out of the window. This is a pity, because there are often amazing sights to be seen from the window seat.

Often, what you see depends on luck. Time of flight matters, as does flight routing and weather, not to mention which side of the plane you are sitting.

Very occasionally, everything falls into place, and from your window seat, you are rewarded with unusual sights, or at the very least views of major landmarks from a rare vantage point high in the sky.

Sometimes there is help from the cockpit: some pilots take great pleasure in pointing out sights and landmarks to passengers over the PA. But even without these announcements, the airshow map displays available on many aircraft these days make it easier to identify prominent landmarks to look out for.

I consider gazing out of aircraft windows a form of IFE. Sometimes it is an occasional glance out of the window on a long sector. On other flights, I have spent lots of time with my face plastered to the window, looking down at a gorgeous ever-changing landscape.

I thought that a thread on this topic would be interesting, and invite everyone to post pictures of what they have observed out the window on their flights.

I will also be posting window-seat pictures from some of the trips I have taken over the years. To kick things off, here is a picture out of the window just after departing from Changi Airport in 2016…

[SQ228]

I just not happy unless my seat number has the letter A at the end of it!

I can't ever get good photos due to low light and interior reflections, but I'm so familiar with the experience of arriving at Changi at night from MEL. Singapore always looks as though someone has adjusted every leaf on each tree with a pair of tweezers...

[ninervictor]

Mount Fuji, Taken in 2016

[ninervictor]

San Francisco, Taken in 2015

[ninervictor]

Flying over Macau, taken in 2017

Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge

[ninervictor]

Flight from KUL - SIN, taken in 2016

Singapore taken from 23,000 feet

[StarG]

Thanks for sharing, yflyer.
I am a big fan of views from a window seat myself.

[yflyer]

Originally Posted by SQ228

I just not happy unless my seat number has the letter A at the end of it!

Originally Posted by SQ228

Singapore always looks as though someone has adjusted every leaf on each tree with a pair of tweezers...

Well not quite, but details of every single tree in the country are stored in a browsable public database...

https://www.nparks.gov.sg/trees

Originally Posted by StarG

Thanks for sharing, yflyer.
I am a big fan of views from a window seat myself.

So am I! Although these days I typically select an aisle seat so that I can get up to stretch or use the bathroom more easily. At least on most A380's and 777's the aircraft doors also have windows so I can still take pictures from those if I don't have a window seat...

[yflyer]

Originally Posted by ninervictor

Mount Fuji, Taken in 2016

Very nice pics of Mt Fuji and SF, ninervictor!

On my flights to Tokyo, I've never had really good views of Mt Fuji. There was one flight where I passed some distance away and had good views, but it was the wrong time of year, and there was no snow on the peak, like in your photos.



The pic above taken in Oct 2015 on SQ632 SIN-HND (TR here), not long before you took your picture in 2016!

[yflyer]

Views of the Suez Canal from an EK A380 DXB-BCN in March 2016 (TR here).





Even from cruising altitude, it is possible to see ships navigating the busy waterway...





That flight also passed close to Cairo, however I was not able to locate the Great Pyramids of Giza.

It was only more than a year later, in Sep 2017, on Scoot TR701 ATH-SIN that I managed to spot the Pyramids (TR here)...

[yflyer]

There is often a lot to see arriving or departing from LAX.

These pics of the iconic Hollywood sign on Mount Lee in Los Angeles are from SQ12 NRT-LAX in Oct 2015 (TR here.)

[yflyer]

On SQ318 SIN-LHR in late Oct 2014 (TR here), the flight routing took us almost directly over Teheran Airport...





At the time, I only had my iPhone 6+ with me, and yet the the letters "IranAir Cargo" on painted on the red building roofs were visible from cruising altitude...

[yflyer]

There are often great views out of the right side windows on final approach to London Heathrow.

Here are pictures from SQ318 from July 2016 (TR here).

Tower Bridge and The Shard...



London Eye, Westminster and Big Ben...

[yflyer]

Pictures of Mount Ararat in Eastern Turkey, taken from SQ337 DUS-SIN in Dec 2016 (TR here.)...

[yflyer]

On quite a few flights from Europe to Singapore, you will pass over the India-Pakistan Border. One unique aspect of this border, is that it is lit up at night, and that this line of light is clearly visible from cruising altitude. I have observed this on several occasions...here are two:

SQ335 CDG-SIN in 2015 (TR here)...



I also saw this again in Dec 2016, on SQ337 DUS-SIN (TR here), and this time as a bonus I got the border as well as the A350-900XWB wingtip...





On a related note, this border is also visible from outer space. A pic taken by astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) can be found here.