Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2006-07-18 07:58:41 - Graham Ellis
"How do you tell a large plane from a small one?". A question asked of me yesterday, and alas such routine physical issues are very hard to explain from first principles, aren't they? I'm glad I'm not writing a dictionary!
"When viewed from a similar distance, a small plane subtends a smaller angle at the eye than a large plane, thus occupying less of the viewer's field of vision" was the best I could come up with. Alas, it seems I had mis-interpreted the question; we were standing at Bristol Airport awaiting a customer arriving from Aberdeen, and I commented that it would be a small plane. Of course, I couldn't see the plane at all; I just happen to know that Eastern Airways operate Jetstream 41 aircraft ... I've traveled with them to and from the Isle of Man.