(December 24, 2014 at 10:02 pm)Zen Badger Wrote:(December 24, 2014 at 9:35 pm)Alex K Wrote: If it was orange, could it still have been something high-flying which was lit by the sun barely under the horizon? It would be the time I expect stuff like airplanes to be lit by the sun, or iridium flares.
If it was flying high, then it was huge and fast.
To put it in context, airliners from Perth international airport fly over our house on a daily basis heading north to the mines. When they pass over our house they are only at a few thousand feet(the airport is only 25 miles away so they have only just taken off) and travelling at least 500mph.
What we saw was much larger and brighter and moving a lot faster than they do.
At a few thousand feet, they will not be traveling at 500+ mph. Firstly, they're generally incapable of doing so at low altitudes; the denser air imposes a lower speed limit. Secondly, that close to the airport, air traffic is very regulated regarding both vectors and speed limits, and even on a climb-out ATC won't be allowing that sort of speed near or in the pattern.
If the airport is 25 miles away, a few thousand feet seems to be a pretty conservative climb-out. Perhaps y'all do things differently there -- I've never been in the air over Australia -- but here in America, climb-outs are generally steep and slow so that the airliner can get to its most efficient operating altitude quickly.
