Is it possible to visually spot an AAM heading towards you ?
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You must be thinking of the AA-10 C or the AA-10 A/B Alamo I think the mig 29 and the Su-27 and the Su-30 carries these missles
I think the SA Designats a surface to Air missile
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I have hit my head on the plane during walkaround. I couldn’t even detect it at 1m slant.
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Now I know some people take issue with the man, but Chuck Yeager claimed to be able to see high altitude german fighters from ~50 miles out, at least enough to know that “something” was there.
If we just had to believe everything that Chuck Yeager said about himself….[emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23]
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able to see high altitude german fighters from ~50 miles out, at least enough to know that “something” was there.
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I have 30 on my left, … 50 on my right … who can top that?
Now I know some people take issue with the man, but Chuck Yeager claimed …
Chuck … you mean THE CHUCK ?
…
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I presume most of us (me included) spends most of our lives with our feet firmly on the ground. One thing most of us don’t realise is that air is really turbulent near the surface, and that is the main factor that, by far, limits how far we can see an object near the surface. We could see further, but the distortion by the atmosphere don’t allow us. Higher up in the air, however, this effect is much less prominent.
That being said, I could easily see a hiker a kilometer or two away. For a plane (say 10m wing-span), spotting it on the ground 10km away shouldn’t be a problem. Human eye normally has around 1 arc minute of angular resolution. That’s about 3m size object 10 km away, or 5.4m at 10nm.
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As much this is worth …. but spotting an airplane in the sky is not easy at all. Much easier when you are below it and you look up to it, depending on the sky condition the sky provides an ideal background for airplane spotting. If you look down on it, much much harder to spot something against the earth background.
Spotting an airplane at the same flight level as you is very hard ( to me). And as far as i know, up to 3000 feet … turbulent air actually increases visibility, a non turbulent air below 3000 feet is actually synonym for bad visibility.
But … sometimes, for some reasons, i do spot airplanes from further away, is it solely due to atmospheric conditions ? no idea. My little experience in aviation has taught me that amongst pilots, there is the “hangar story” syndrom, which somehow belongs to aviation culture, and in some cases the sole purpose is to entertain younger pilots.
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I can see the Sun, and that’s 90 something million miles away.
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I can see the Sun, and that’s 90 something million miles away.
Anybody could see a plane with a 1391684 km wingspan.
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I can see the Sun, and that’s 90 something million miles away.
And this at night!
Respect,
Daniel
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Hey Snail long time and I did not know you had a sense of humor!
Hi cptmtge, yes, still around. And humor is a matter of taste