This is nothing new from Alaska Air. I congratulate them for this! In fact this happened near Hawaii <a href="https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/news/eclipse-flight/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/news/eclipse-flig...</a> in 2015.
another cool one is the 70's one using the Concorde: <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q8qwk/the-concorde-and-the-longest-solar-eclipse" rel="nofollow">https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q8qwk/the-concor...</a>
Does anyone have pointers on where I could get an estimate on average maintenence costs / flight hour & fuel costs for a Boeing 737-900ER?<p>Interested in working up a rough number for how much this cost to make happen. Can't imagine it was profitable.<p>And very cool!<p><i>Edit:</i> Per Boeing [1], they quote $151 / flight hour in actual service on a 737-800. Random site [2] gives fuel on a 737-900ER as 0.17 km per litre / 0.40 NM per gallon.<p><i>Edit2</i>: After some digging, here's the flight track: <a href="https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ASA9671/history/20170821/1409Z/KPDX/KPDX" rel="nofollow">https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ASA9671/history/20170821...</a><p>[1] <a href="http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_15/costs_story.html#2" rel="nofollow">http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_15/costs_...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-737-900ER/29" rel="nofollow">https://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-7...</a>
Here is a picture I took after messing with the aperture and having quite a long lense <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YvyJB.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.stack.imgur.com/YvyJB.jpg</a> from Robinsville NC. I swear you can see stars in there but could be wrong.
I travelled last minute London -> Chicago -> Portland -> Salem to see my first total eclipse. The Saturday night flight to Portland was packed with excited passengers, all talking about the eclipse. The captain (Spirit Airlines) even announced the flight as the 'Eclipse Express', to cheers from everyone.
I was watching the eclipse in Corvallis and, about 10 minutes before totality, a plane jetted around at high altitude and left a contrail[1]. The new cloud, in the otherwise perfectly clear sky, began to drift toward the sun and I thought, "There could be few better symbols of the attitude that some of %0.0001 have to the rest of us than this." Fortunately, even though the contrail did drift over the sun during totality[1], it was very thin (and dark) and did not distract and the event in the least.<p>I'm glad Alaska Air did this flight over the Pacific and not where they would distract hundreds of thousands of people with their flight. Anyone know how to find out what flight (or private jet) was the one I saw was? Would be an interesting fact to add to my memory of the event.<p>Please forgive the many artifacts from this smartphone camera.<p>[1] Before totality (<a href="https://njarboe.com/eclipse/beforeTotality.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://njarboe.com/eclipse/beforeTotality.jpg</a>)<p>[2] During totality (<a href="https://njarboe.com/eclipse/totality.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://njarboe.com/eclipse/totality.jpg</a>). This photo was right at the beginning of totality and in no way captures what I saw, but does show where the contrail ended up. I was more interested in experiencing the eclipse than trying to get a photo.
Best part of the video: <a href="https://youtu.be/8FwF1DvksIQ?t=52s" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/8FwF1DvksIQ?t=52s</a>
>Great American Eclipse<p>That is rather egocentric to be honest. It is just a solar eclipse that happened to be visible in the U.S. this time.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_eclipses_in_the_21st_century" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_eclipses_in_the_...</a>