Looking at Google maps and another image I found, based on the angle of the photography I'd say he shot it with a drone.





Interesting take from Wikipedia:

Quote:

The airport is considered one of the most peculiarly perilous airports in the world[2] due to its location and its spectacular runway construction. The History Channel program Most Extreme Airports ranked it as the ninth most dangerous airport in the world, and the third most dangerous in Europe.[3] Pilots must undergo additional training to land at the airport.[4]

The rest of the article is pretty interesting about its construction.

Nice work. If this had been in the U.S., wouldn't there be restrictions on using drones near airports?

Yeah, it couldn't be a fixed position, the jet is moving over 100 mph. Nobody is that skilled with a zoom knob.

There's no way that was filmed from a drone. It's a telephoto lens from the hills somewhere to the south-east of the runway (05).

There are restrictions on using drones near airports everywhere, and within controlled airspace. Looking at skyvector this was shot from within controlled airspace, not that that stops people from using drones.

Go to Google maps and pinpoint the hill that has that height and angle on the runway.

Shot from around R. do Cerrado da Fazenda, Gaula, Portugal

At 0:13 in the video you can see the tanks way behind the airport at 32.742251, -16.730494

And of course no one will strap 5kg telephoto lens on a drone. A DJI Phantom has a payload of what, 200g? How hard would it be to control a big zoom lens on a drone?

I understand your position but I don't see any land mass that would match up with the angle and height of the viewpoint in relation to the runway. The first scene of the video before it dissolves to the plane, there is a very smooth slow floating of the camera. Not the kind of movement you would see on a tripod or fluid head mount, but yes to a drone. The tracking of the plane appears to be drone like.

And I could be completely wrong not knowing the exact height of around R. do Cerrado da Fazenda, Gaula. I've been playing around with the viewpoint angles in Earth and maps and its tough to line that up the same as he had in the video but an interesting exercise.

Video freeze:


Reverse view:

The telephoto lens makes it look as though the vantage point is to the right and high, since the runway is so squashed. It's just an illusion.

This looks like just the start of the runway, but based on the markings, we're actually looking at more than half:



This line shows the tanks at 0:13 in the distance, just to the left of the end of the runway, lined up with the vantage point:

You win. I found the photographer on Facebook and asked. "Zona elevada, posição fixa, não tenho drone!"

Bah! He just told you that so he wouldn't get in trouble for operating a drone where he shouldn't.

How fast is the drone moving?

More than zero mph.

Is U.S. Facing A Serious Shortage of Airline Pilots?

https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/0...airline-pilots

If this is, indeed, a classic case of "low supply and high demand," I have difficulty understanding why the normal functioning of labor markets won't [eventually] solve this problem. If there is a true "low supply" of qualified pilots, common sense would dictate that the salaries of these pilots should rise dramatically. If there is a true pilot shortage, airlines will have no choice but to raise pilot salaries - either that or they start rationing flights! (Passenger ticket prices should also rise to offset the increased cost of scarce pilot labor.) As pilot salaries rise, the increasing compensation should have the effect of attracting more and more "new" pilots. Eventually, the higher salaries will attract enough new pilots to effect a stable equilibrium between supply and demand. I wonder if the real problem is not a "shortage" of qualified pilots, but a shortage of airlines willing to pay pilots a competitive wage?

Maybe this is an apples and oranges comparison, but I've noticed that there is no shortage of professional baseball players, professional football players, professional basketball players, professional hockey players, and even "professional" poker players! It's easy to understand why there is no shortage of professional athletes. I don't know exact numbers, but I suspect the average salary of NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL players is [at least] in the six figures! Paying those kind of wages, it's easy to see why there is no shortage of professional athletes.

EDIT: Browsing the reader comments appended to the Slashdot post, it appears there are "other factors" I hadn't considered ...

Had an odd experience on a United flight from Denver to Newark last week. It was a 737 and the plane was almost full but there may have been 3 or 4 empty seats.

Anyway, they made an announcement once we were on the plane, that the plane was overweight. They said even though there were some empty seats, please do NOT move seats as it could "throw off the weight distribution". I found this odd (and a little disconcerting!).

Then, the captain made another announcement. He said the plane had added extra fuel due to storms in Newark, and that we needed more people to get off the plane due to weight. They offered a $600 voucher and said they could not pull away from the gate until 5 people had volunteered. They ended up getting 9 volunteers, and we took off.

Is this a common occurrence? I am a nervous flyer anyway, and this made me even more nervous. The message I was getting is that the plane was REALLY heavy and that it would be unsafe to fly unless 5 people (about 800 pounds total I'd imagine) got off. That seemed to be cutting it incredibly close, considering the weight of a fully loaded 737 aircraft. But, I'm sure United would not be handing out $600 vouchers unless they really needed to get the weight down.

To top it off, the takeoff felt very labored to me. Usually the plane lifts off and quickly ascends, this time it seemed like we were very low to the ground for a very long time. My wife thought so too, and she is not a nervous flyer at all. Still, it is possible that it had nothing to do with the weight, and it was simply the trajectory they were using from DEN.

Anyway the whole thing seemed odd and got me thinking about weight on the plane in general... is it standard that a plane can be so full (of fuel, baggage, people, etc.), that they literally need to bump people in order to take off? Seems crazy, and it had never happened to me before.

My other thought was that perhaps they had just overbooked and the weight thing was a fake story to avoid admitting it... but there were in fact a few empty seats so that leads me to believe that it really was a weight issue.

Any insight from W0X0F would be appreciated!

My purely layman's opinion on the above is maybe it was an off peak flight and United was carrying some other weighty cargo anticipating a much less than full passenger cabin.

The only time I've ever felt a plane laboring to take off was a 747 non stop LAX - Sydney, and I just assumed that was the 400,000+ pounds of fuel.

I've been on small regional jets that have moved people around for weight balance purposes.

I've always looked at it as there has to be a limit set at some number. And sometimes a couple of passengers will be the difference of being under or above that number. I'm sure the limit is set with a solid safety margin - so the plane would almost certainly have been fine if those passengers had stayed on - but you still have to have a limit.

Your plane would have flown fine with those five people still aboard, assuming both engines operate normally. But in our world, we plan for worst case: engine failure right at liftoff. In this case, that extra weight could be the difference between staying airborne or not being able to climb.

Even in that case, you probably would have been okay. The weight limits have to be established somewhere, but there is a little pad since the weights are all based on statistical averages (they don't actually weigh the passengers and bags).

On small airplanes, like the 19 seater I started on, balance was more critical and we would sometimes move passengers fore or aft to have an acceptable center of gravity. We used different weights for winter and summer (average adult was 170 lbs in summer, 185 in winter). No allowance for gender. Children under 12 could be calculated as "half weights" (70 lbs) if we needed it to make the required performance number.

Just to show you the vagaries of statistical weights, a carry on bag was considered to weigh 25 lbs if it had to be placed with luggage, but counted zero if stored under the seat.

The part of your experience that is a little baffling is the request to not change seats. Usually on large aircraft, the CG can be adequately managed by moving luggage and cargo and passenger distribution is not critical. But I wasn't on your flight, so I don't know.

When I've flown on puddlejumpers they ask me how much I weigh, lol.

Denver is at a high altitude, so every plane is going to have a little more trouble getting airborne in the thin air. Newark is also a long-ass way to fly, as well as probably has lots of landing delays, so they want to be extra sure on the gas. Basically no plane is rated for a full fuel and cargo weight, they always have to balance between the two. Maybe a lot of passengers checked barbells in their luggage and made the issue worse.

How many seats? For planes with eight seats or fewer, actual weights are probably used. Or larger airplanes I think it is unusual to use actual weights.

Thanks for the replies, makes sense! I will say there seemed to be a heck of a lot of checked bags coming off the carousel, so perhaps that, plus the added fuel, is why they had to bump passengers to get the weight down.

Plus, in the Western states we recently had a heat wave, which contributes to thinner air. Combine high altitude and high temps and I can see there being a problem. Weren't some PHX or LAS flights recently grounded because the ground temperature was too high?

Edit: Found an article about PHX being closed. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/ther...x-airport.html

Found this interesting article about the effects of thinner air on flight especially takeoff... I had no idea!

https://flightsafety.org/asw-article/into-thin-air/

Bolded probably explains why it seemed like the takeoff was taking so long to reach cruising height. It was a very hot day in Denver also which probably made it worse.

8 or 10 I can't remember, twin engine piston. I'm obviously over 200 and the plane was nearly full. I got to fly in the co-pilot's seat.

Ah, so my intuition was spot on. See my post above.