The North American Solar Eclipse, Aug. 21, 2017 Options

[PDP8E]

As all of you know, by now, there will be an amazing Total Solar Eclipse this summer in North America stretching from coast to coast, and basically from 10 AM to 2 PM local time, from west to east.
An estimated 75 million people will be less than a half day's drive away from totality.
My family and I will be in Missouri that day, prepared to zip east or west in case of inclement weather.
Do you plan on observing this event?

[tanjent]

In Tanya Harrison's recent Planetary Society blog post
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs...g-totality.html
I don't understand the logic of the course chosen by the Alaska Airlines eclipse-watching flight.

Why cross the path of totality at right angles?
I don't know the exact speed of the umbra at the point of interception, but a jet airliner flying along the totality track could have greatly increased the duration of the eclipse from the viewpoint of the observers. If I had been planning the event I would probably have tried to follow the track most of the way back to Portland. Instead, the flight appears to have actually reduced the interval of totality by crossing the track perpendicularly at 500+ miles per hour. A more stationary surface ship would not have faced this additional constraint, although it might very likely have missed the whole event due to cloud cover.

[JRehling]

Why cross the path of totality at right angles?

My guess is safety. The thousands of other planes in the sky can't all accommodate one doing something unique for a special occasion.

The regime that governs air travel to assure safety makes sure that no path crosses any other path in three dimensional space (except at airports). Deviating from that arrangement assumes a lot of extra risk, and is probably absolutely forbidden.

[mcaplinger]

The regime that governs air travel to assure safety makes sure that no path crosses any other path in three dimensional space (except at airports).

I don't think I follow what you're saying. Flights flying compass headings of 0 to 179 fly at odd multiples of 1000 feet MSL, headings 180 to 359 fly at even multiples. That insures minimum vertical separation. And then there are systems like TCAS to help planes avoid each other. I doubt if planning this eclipse flight was all that challenging from an ATC perspective.

FWIW, I saw a different commercial airliner fly almost across the sun west to east a minute or so before totality in Oregon but I doubt if any of the passengers could see very well on that heading. Nice for the pilots, though.