Monday, March 21, 2011

scarey take-off

Even allowing that zoom or telephoto lenses can distort things, this take-off of a Eva Air (Taipei based) Boeing 747-45EM looks uncomfortably close to the perimeter fence at Amsterdam Schipol. The photographer reports that the distance from the plane to the fence was 145 metres (475 ft). Given that a 747's take-off speed is 290 km/h or 80.6 metres per second, that is a margin of just under 2 seconds!

Possibly the plane was overloaded in which case the normal procedure is to sit on the tarmac and burn some surplus fuel off; not something airlines like doing, but better than crashing into a perimeter fence!

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