planefinder observations - Wed 13/10/10

[Jeff N]

Was watching movements on planefinder last night (endlessly entertaining!) and saw a few interesting things.

1. Mid evening noticed that no planes were departing from Mascot for 10-15 minutes, even though there were numerous ones waiting to do so. Only when I got onto the BOM weather radar, did I realise that the airport was getting absolutely hammered!

2. A flight I normally get back home to Sydney after a trip to Melbourne is Qantas 494 due out of Melb. at 2100. Last night on the Qantas and flightstats sites, this flight was shown as departing Melb around 2135 and due into Mascot at 2259. Strangely though, this didn't show up on planefinder at any stage. Why would this have been so?

3. Another flight that was late out of Melbourne last night was JQ528. I didn't see it actually take off, but did watch it from a few minutes or so later. From memory, it lifted off just after 10 pm. I thought it couldn't have possibly hit the ground in Sydney before the clock struck 11, however it touched down at 2252. That's got to rank as a pretty quick flight!