Flying on the 4th

OkieFlyer

OkieFlyer

En-Route
Joined
May 16, 2011
Messages
3,225
Location
Lindsay, OK
Display Name
Display name:
Andrew L.
A friend of mine, who is mid PPL training, texted me a couple days ago and enthusiastically said we should go for a 4th of July night flight. My reply to him was as follows:

"As cool as that sounds, flying around at night with rocket propelled ordinance screaming up from random places in every direction doesn't seem like a great idea to me. Also, I doubt that white hot exploding things is great for ones night vision."

I haven't heard back from him.


What say you? Do you or would you fly on the 4th?
 
I suppose if you fly high enough, it's plenty safe. Shells probably don't go more than maybe a couple thousand feet AGL???? Still have to land sometime. There is no place safe from ground fire around here, and the shelling usually continues for a few hours. I don't think I'd want to loiter until everybody burns through their explosives.
 
I did it once over Los Angeles. It's kinda fun to see all the different light shows happening all over the city, but fireworks really don't go very high up. Unless you were flying really low, it wouldn't be an issue.
 
OkieFlyer said:
I suppose if you fly high enough, it's plenty safe. Shells probably don't go more than maybe a couple thousand feet AGL???? Still have to land sometime. There is no place safe from ground fire around here, and the shelling usually continues for a few hours. I don't think I'd want to loiter until everybody burns through their explosives.
Click to expand...

More like a couple hundred. I’ve done it and it’s quite underwhelming.
 
You'll likely be disappointed.
I did it once by coincidence,I happened to be flying at night on the 4th.

Fireworks Don't Go Near as high as I expected. So they were miniscule and of course you can't hear them
 
The previous times this topic has been covered the consensus was to view the fireworks from the ground.

Christmas lights from the air seem to get better reviews :)
 
I actually like watching fireworks from the air, I think it's a cool perspective. I also like watching clouds from the air. I wouldn't be worried about safety unless someone next to the airport was firing them off.
 
We've done it a couple of times. Our city lights a huge display on the local lake, so the reflections off the water plus the hundreds of lights from boats on the lake looks neat. The big fireworks usually go about 1,000-1,500 AGL. We don't fly directly over but rather orbit the area about .5 to 1 mile away, about 2,000 AGL. The light is not that blinding, because as others have mentioned the explosions look small from this perspective. I had one friend that flew through the smoke cloud once, and was rewarded with pitted paint and windshield from the debris.

Our city does host a firework convention occasionally that host a contest. We were orbiting it once at 1,500 and thought we were safe, until one shell easily went twice our altitude.
 
While it is fun to be up...I concur with others. Pretty underwhelming and just little blips off in the distance.

Unless you were in a place like SoCal where thing are blowing up all over the place like W invading Baghdad...that would be cool to see...the fireworks that is, not Baghdad
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I wouldn't be worried about safety unless someone next to the airport was firing them off.
Click to expand...

It's quite likely there would be fireworks going off all around the pattern. Not necessarily commercial grade stuff, but some pretty good sized mortars are likely.
 
Andrew, you have to do it once to say you did. But it is an underwhelming experience.

They don’t go high enough to be a concern.

Unless your airport is in the middle of the city, I doubt there would be many, if any people doing fireworks.
 
I am in the 'not so much' camp, but I must say last night, 2145 arrival into DCA from the south, it was pretty cool. Literally hundreds of displays to be seen on the I-95 corridor. 'Murica!
 
catmandu said:
I am in the 'not so much' camp, but I must say last night, 2145 arrival into DCA from the south, it was pretty cool. Literally hundreds of displays to be seen on the I-95 corridor. 'Murica!
Click to expand...
Me too. I had one night arrival on a Southwest flight going into PVD 10+ years ago. It was pretty cool seeing the various fireworks shows as we were being vectored around. Never really had the desire to go up and watch them from a small GA plane though
 
The one thing I like about seeing fireworks from the air is that they appear much more 3D. You see this giant orb of ordinance explode which is a pretty cool perspective than you get on the ground.

Otherwise - yeah a bit underwhelming, but I like fireworks for the noise more than the view.
 
Unaided it doesn’t look all that great but under NVGs it looks pretty cool. Flew into Atlanta last night and there were flashes everywhere for miles. In the background was a big thunderstorm with its own fireworks display. Amazing sight. Wish I had a picture of it all.
 
I've flown 300ish miles at night on the 4th of July weekend. With Michigan and Wisconsin being relatively flat, you could see close to a hundred different firework displays at the same time. While none of them were grand, to see around 100 different bursts at the same time was pretty cool.
 
I've never personally flown at night on the 4th. But years ago say mid 80's a friend who had a PPL took me flying on the night of the 4th. We flew around took pictures and had fun. The really exciting part of the flight was when the landing light burned out and he had to land and taxi with no light.

On a side note after I got the pictures developed, we noticed the silo wet of another aircraft with the bursts under him/her. Didn't even know the traffic was there until we looked at the pictures..
 
You would probably be breaking altitude minimums if you were really had to worry about the exploding projectiles. On the other hand the place I fly out of often hosts big rocket club meets and while they are very cautious when they launch and pay attention to wind and arriving and departing flights when coming in and you see a big plume on the ground and a 4 or 5 foot rocket coming up it is interesting to say the least. I have never seen them blast the really big ones 8-9' they say the motors for those are cost prohibitive to fire very often.
 
OkieFlyer said:
It's quite likely there would be fireworks going off all around the pattern. Not necessarily commercial grade stuff, but some pretty good sized mortars are likely.
Click to expand...

I could see that being more of a concern where you are. Not knowing the local practices, certainly you have better insight there than I do into what risks may happen there.

We ended up going to our airport (MKC) to watch the fireworks and it was a great place to view. From our hangar we were able to see probably 6 different shows going on, including the main one that was front and center. We figure we'll make that our yearly tradition.
 
overdrive148 said:
Click to expand...
Interesting that it was set to "Time to Say Goodbye". I was waiting for the drone to be vaporized at the end.

I've seen fireworks over rural Oregon from 40,000'. I thought it was pretty cool, not because it was spectacular, but the contrast between the dark land and the exploding fireworks was interesting. Each little town seemed to have their own show.

Last night I watched from the condo roof. We had a panoramic view, but nothing was especially close.
 
Tried it once. As other have said you really have to be eye level or below. Hard above the city, max altitude of fireworks is around 1000' with most lower. Then there were all the other pilots trying the same thing. No thanks.
 
Here in Gallup the city fireworks display is in the traffic pattern. The new house is 200 feet above the airport and the mortars were going off an estimated 200 to 300 feet above us.

Except for one, it went off at about 1 feet AGL..... No report of injuries.....although the fire department reported extinguishing one seat of pants....

And I am with the crowd. Did it once, better show from the ground.
 
I did it last night actually, and agree with most all that it's underwhelming at any decent altitude. But, had to do it once.
It was happening in every direction as far as you could see. Also, plenty hot even at 10pm still....sweated the whole time I was flying.
I'd probably do it again though, if I was looking for an excuse to fly.
 
When I did my student pilot solo X/C, I was coming back in just a few minutes before official "night" (and hustling along). It was a few days before the 4th, plenty of residential fireworks going off everywhere. From 1000 AGL it was pretty cool, nothing got even close. It was pretty obvious the shells were only a couple hundred feet AGL.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top