Saint John Fog

[George Jones]

Two pictures taken through my work window at the same time of day, maybe a couple of weeks apart. The structures visible on the left of the foggy picture are refections from inside my office.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1433/sunnyyc9.jpg [Broken][/URL]

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2062/foggyik4.jpg [Broken][/URL]

 

[oedipa maas]

Hey, that's a pretty good view when the sun is out... So how come there are more cars in the parking lot on a sunny day than on a foggy one?

 

[hypatia]

Nice photos of some creepy fog!

 

[turbo]

Pretty nice, George!

I like fog. One day I accompanied a class of Maine warden trainees (with a lot of my camera gear) on an instructional outing to an island off the coast that is used by quite a number of nesting sea-birds. As we left Port Clyde, the fog was so thick that navigation was entirely by instruments, though the pilot would occasionally kill the engines to listen for audible buoys to confirm what his instruments were telling him. Visibility was limited to a few tens of yards, and the photographs on the island were wonderful. Fog lends a nice 3-D quality to shots of places like barren rocky islands.

 

[George Jones]

Today, I had some excitement with Saint John fog.

I flew into Saint John from Toronto, and it was so foggy at the Saint John Airport that the pilot missed the runway. The plane came in too far down the runway and had to pull up before the wheels touched down. It was announced that a second landing attempt would be made, and if that didn't work, the plane would land in Moncton.

The fog only extends a few kilometres inland, so, as we circled around, it was clear and sunny all the way to the ground. When we completed the circle, the airport was still shrouded in fog.

The second attempt was successful, but the plane again came in a ways down runway, and had to brake very hard. When the plane stopped, there was a round of applause from the passengers.

 

[George Jones]

My wife and daughter flew into Saint John from Toronto last night, and, even by Saint John standards, the fog was very dense.

The flight was scheduled to land at 7:13 pm, and I arrived at the airport about 7:00, since flights from Toronto often get in a few minutes early. About 7:40, it was announced that my wife's flight had attempted and failed to land, had flown on to Halifax, and that there would be further announcements after the plane landed in Halifax.

There was chaos in Saint John's quite small airport. Another airline's flight from Toronto also had failed to land, and was on the way to Moncton, where its passengers would board charter buses that would take them back to Saint John. People waiting for friends and family on the two flights were at the airport. Not only was the fog too dense for landing, it also was too dense for take-off! Flights to Toronto, and to Montreal and Ottawa, were on delay status, even though some had been scheduled to leave before noon, and passengers (and their friends and family) associated with these flights were still at the airport. Saint Johners are very friendly, and a real sense of camaraderie permeated the airport, with everyone chatting.

After landing in Halifax, my wife's airline tried to find hotel rooms for everyone on the flight, but there weren't enough rooms free. Passengers were given two options.

1) Disembark without checked luggage in Halifax.

2) After refueling, the plane would fly back to Saint John and attempt another landing. If unsuccessful, the plane would fly back to Toronto, the point of origin of the flight, and all remaining passengers would disembark there, since the plane was needed in Toronto for another flight.

My wife (and daughter) and some passengers chose 2), while others chose 1). After the passengers got off the plane, Transport Canada Intervened, and, for security reasons, forced the airline to give these passengers their checked luggage. To do this, all the checked luggage had to be unloaded and reloaded. Big delay. Reason for delay not announced in Saint John.

About 9:30, the fog began to lift gradually, and my wife's flight landed at about 10:15. Left the airport about 11:00.

I spent four hours in the airport, and, for three of these hours, I largely was in a state of ignorance about what would happen to my wife's flight.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

That's a nice pair of contrasting photos. It took me a while to realize that what at first looked to me like the roofs of a barn was the reflection of lamps inside the room.

I never thought much of fog until I took the tram up Mt. Victoria in Hong Kong on a foggy night with my wife. It added considerable romance to the occasion.

 

[mgb_phys]

Used to fly Leeds-Belfast every week. The site of Leeds airport is marked on old maps as 'foggy field' which should have given them a clue, and Belfast isn't known for sunny weather,
I used to like fog, it meant they would do a perfectly smooth automatic ILS approach instead of the; put it down hard and stop quickly and save time/fuel method.

Funny one was when we landed, immediately stopped on the runway and an announcement came on - "well the plane can land in fog completely automatically - unfortunately it can't find the terminal automatically so we have to wait for somebody to drive out here and find us".
Visibility when we got off was 3-4m, you couldn't see the wings from the nose.

 

[Sorry!]

Thats awesome, I was just up around moncton on the weekend drove down there from Toronto to visit some family in Grand Falls.