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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

> while Mr. Trump is traveling in the state, where he is scheduled to attend fund-raisers in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.

On an unrelated side note, I was driving today and this absolutely massive plane was right over my head, almost just hanging in the air. From the underside I couldn't tell what color the top was, but I saw it had four engines and seemed to be heading straight for the local Air Force base.

So apparently I saw Air Force One today. I think that's the first time I've seen it since Trump became President. The flight path is right outside my office window, so when Obama was President, it seemed to come on a much more regular basis.

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"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

When you watch an A380 land at SFO it will seem to hang in the air, because its size will make its apparent motion slower than that of another plane. And the A380's enormous fuselage makes its slightly-larger-than-average engines seem to be the usual size.

On the other hand Moffet field has a runway that crosses 101 and the usual runways at SFO are parallel to 101.

It looks like any other 747 other than the colors.

The big military cargo planes are far bigger. Which air force base?

Yeah the big cargo planes are bigger, but since they are painted dark colors they hide their dimensions so they don't look as big. Also I'm not usually driving under the landing path. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield

I guess technically it's not a base but an airfield.

It's not a base because it'(wa)s a Station... NAS Sunnyvale (i guess the city lines between Mtn View and Sunnyvale were much different back then).

It's one of those 'We don't use the terms that the [Army|Navy] use, goddamn it' things.

* Edit: Apparently it was named Sunnyvale because 'Mountain View' had too much of a supposition that it might sound like something to crash into, lol.

The Airfield is not part of either city but borders both cities fairly equally. Either name would make sense and choosing Sunnyvale to avoid the mountain reference makes sense too.

Yeah but C130s fly into Moffett quite regularly. Past few tuesdays I've been able to see them down in Los Gatos at the high school track, either on approach or flying away.

Come to think of it, today's another tuesday...

It's definitely pretty cool to see them fly over when you're going over the hump on 101.

The C5 that accompanies the President's 747 is almost the exact same size a a 747.

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