Planes
I spent yesterday afternoon watching planes at MSP airport. On interesting weather days I enjoy going down to the airport to see how skilled the ATC controllers and pilots are, and yesterday is one day I would not like to by going to MSP. Two things where going on yesterday when I was watching planes. The first thing was that instead of a headwind, the airport had a stiff crosswind, going at 20kt gusting to 30kt. This makes it very hard for the planes to stay lined up with the runway, as you can imagine, and because of the lack of headwind, departures need more runway to get in the air. On top of that, it was very hot, which affects how much lift the planes get. In this case, it was 96 deg F. Departures taking more time, in combination with arrivals going all over the place on approach made for some interesting viewing. Most of the planes where landing a good 1000ft farther in to the runway as they normally do, and going all over the place on the way in. The conditions also made weight a bit more of an issue as well. The normal 10,000ft runway was not long enough for a tiny little DC9, and they had to use the 11,000ft runway because of weight. I expect to see that from a 747, but not from a DC9.
Also, because of the conditions, I saw three go-arounds in the 2 hours I watched things. I normally hear three a week.
Very interesting afternoon.