Chinese missile launch photos from airliner
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Chinese missile launch photos from airliner
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They claim in the post that this was launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, so not "Chinese" most likely. As a commercial pilot I'd assume they knew exactly where they are, and the perceived distance to the launch site.
So that suggests "someone else".
So that suggests "someone else".
Anybody else seen something like this?
Westbound longhaul flight, Night, east of Baikonur but not by much,.... No heads up from ATC. Launched from just right of our 12 o'clock, appeared to travel up windscreen and over the top into our very high three o'clock...watched it past staging...several other aircraft in the area will have seen similar. Another company aircraft had similar happen a few months before and I guess it must have happened many times since.
With the benefit of hindsight and the web turned out what we saw was a "Soyuz" basic launcher with an early varient Fregat upper stage...and we reckon we were within 200km of the launch site....no idea of what the range safety area was in terms of "splay"...but if it had gone wrong we were certainly well placed for a h*** of a view...it was spectacular enough as it was..
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I've seen a similar launch in the predawn winter sky over the NOPAC on A590 eastbound. As with the recent incident, the glowing blobs expanded over several minutes with what looked like a couple of staging events.
Around three decades ago we were in Gander's airspace going feet wet out over the NAT tracks to Europe. Someone on guard freq said 'look overhead'. The Space Shuttle was sailing above on a high inclination launch. The motors were powered by the external tank and the vehicle left a glowing trail of ionized gas as it zoomed over us in the darkened sky.
Around three decades ago we were in Gander's airspace going feet wet out over the NAT tracks to Europe. Someone on guard freq said 'look overhead'. The Space Shuttle was sailing above on a high inclination launch. The motors were powered by the external tank and the vehicle left a glowing trail of ionized gas as it zoomed over us in the darkened sky.
Having mde previous post had time to check logbook:
It was 8th Feb 2000, (GMT date) - Soyuz-U/Fregat
http://www.starsem.com/news/images/ST07.pdf
It was 8th Feb 2000, (GMT date) - Soyuz-U/Fregat
http://www.starsem.com/news/images/ST07.pdf
The Fregat upper stage and its payload will be
injected into circular orbit by the Soyuz-Fregat
launch vehicle. The flight will occur on Wednesday,
February 9, 2000 at 4:20 a.m. local time (00:20
a.m. Paris time) from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
injected into circular orbit by the Soyuz-Fregat
launch vehicle. The flight will occur on Wednesday,
February 9, 2000 at 4:20 a.m. local time (00:20
a.m. Paris time) from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
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I saw a similar plume circa 1980 from Palomar Mountain one evening. It was a Minuteman ICBM launched from Vandenburg. What I saw was like the last few photos by van Heijst. Curiously, the Soyuz-FG burns kerosene and liquid oxygen, whereas the Minuteman uses solid fuel, yet the late stages of the plume illuminated by the setting sun looked similar.
Last edited by czarnajama; 29th Oct 2017 at 21:08.
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Funny you should mention it...from this weeks Russian ICBM tests:
https://vk.com/alex_626
https://vk.com/alex_626
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td0C...o&pbjreload=10
