In article ,
John Clear wrote:
" In article ,
" Brad Allen wrote:
"
" Why would a plane do such a maneuver?
"
" The first example sounds like S-turns for spacing.

Oh. It makes sense it could be that.

Planes there come in within minutes of each other during some rushes
that I see (usually around 1PM and 6PM when the soup kitchen under it
feeds).

" It is very hard to judge bank angles from the ground, and I'd be
" surprised if it was even as much as 30 degrees.

Ok. As I age and practice my spatial relationships less than I
anticipated, it is possible my abilities underrate what I think or
thought they are or were, despite my abilities formerly overrating
what I thought they were.


" If you want to try and track which airlines were involved, try this
" website: http://www4.passur.com/sjc.html

I found it. That web site is neat! The first one I mentioned was at
(PT) 20060929T1956...T1959, flight Id AAY9873, aircraft type MD83,
route LAS-SJC, track ID 164, and it did a left then right then left
then right turns, which seems like S turns just like you said. It
dropped in altitude during that maneuver according to the web site,
but I didn't closely study those altitude changes.

The second one from a few days later was at (PT) 20061001T2014, flight
Id SWA1939, aircraft type B733, route SJC-BUR as it approached for
landing at SJC (yes, that seems wrong -- should I watch it take off to
be sure where it came from?). It came in a sort of J turn, but more
like a hook. It was looping to the left in a small arc, then it came
in and straightened out to the right to approach landing. It was that
right turn I saw that night. It sure looked more dramatic from ground
(I was a few blocks away, which is accurately recreated in the data in
that web site). It was definately less of a sharp turn from my point
of view than the one from Friday (the first one above).


"
" John
" --
" John Clear - http://www.clear-prop.org/
"


P.S., my host name based on computer model name; other abbreviations
unintended (and regretted).