Flying into the Twilight
It’s a long 12-hour flight, I squint my eyes.. we’re almost
there, the sun though still burning bright. Hurtling straight towards the
night, into the dark embrace of twilight. On the horizon, I catch a glimpse of
the coast, standing out against the deep blue of the ocean.. then, as if on
cue, darkness suddenly envelopes like a shroud. Into this, I stare out.. as
what once was.. I can only make out.
As least, that’s what I thought would happen, hehe. I left Manila at 10 in the evening for a flight to cross the
Pacific, cruising at 650 miles per hour relative to the ground and scheduled to
arrive at San Francisco
at 8 in the evening. Since the Earth rotates from west to east with a speed of
1035 miles per hour at the equator relative to the day/night boundary, I would
be hitting the day/night boundary at a relative speed of 1685 miles per hour! I
had expected instant darkness, like the day being switched off to night, hehe.
As it turns out, it was the summer solstice at that time, and that meant much
longer lengths of day. It was still bright at 8pm when I landed, quite
surprising. Sigh, guess I wasn’t able to fly into the twilight. Maybe next
time, perhaps I’ll choose a much later flight.=)
