Thursday, November 05, 2015

Ultra Light

Waterbury, Connecticut

Yesterday afternoon I was wandering around the Town Plot section of Waterbury, thinking about a series of urban landscape pictures I'd like to make. There was a sound like a lawnmower overhead, and it turned out to be a very small airplane circling around, low, over the city.

2 comments:

scott kirkpatrick said...

Even ultralites are required to stay 500 feet above populated areas. Lower altitudes are supposed to be for helicopters and drones only. This guy looks like he's legal. Are you tempted to get a ride on one of these things?

scott

Carl Weese said...

I'd seen/heard him a little earlier and he was much higher. This time he came in really low over the Town Plot area. The valley walls, especially on this western side, are very steep. If he was flying over the valley and circled around over Town Plot he'd suddenly lose at least 200 feet of effective elevation above ground level.

I should locate a topo map for the Naugatuck valley to check out actual elevation differentials. The steep walls of the valley (the river runs almost due north/south) are a distinctive feature of the place that not only affects the buildings and streets but also strongly influences the light, and so pictures made there.