Bob Ellis – Flight of the Month December 2017

I flew from Columbus, Ohio down to the Kentucky-Tennessee border to see the eclipse from 12,000 feet. Flied a VFR flight plan too — and at that altitude there weren’t many aircraft and we stayed in touch with Center (who told us it was a total circus at lower altitudes).

The eclipse was moving at about 1400 mph and we had no idea what to expect — but it was amazing! The umbra was about 50 miles wide so about 25 miles on all sides of us it was bright, and for about 3-4 minutes when the eclipse was total, the stars came out above and the streetlights came on below, plus the corona.

No words to describe it. It turns out that another Mooney guy was flying at the same altitude, about 30 miles away from our location, and he had GoPro cameras mounted on his plane!Whoever you are, guy with the Mooniac t-shirt, thanks…