Is it normal to have the shadow of a plane flying in front of the sun hit you?
I have a clear view of the sky from my apartment and the sun rises directly in front of my view. I also live near an airport and the flight path of planes flying to land is also directly in front of my view. Countless times I have noticed a plane completely covering the sunlight into my apartment for a brief second.. But when I think about it, what are the odds of that happening? The sky is huge, and the sun could be shining on my apartment from any angle, and somehow a relatively tiny plane that is several miles away from me and about 1,000 feet in the air just so happens to cross that specific path of sunlight into my apartment?!? And several planes will do it in the span of a few minutes but then it doesn't happen again for that day, which means there is a very small window of time where a plane and the sun light into my apartment can directly cross paths, and this happens ALL the time whenever the sun is shining bright enough.
And it doesn't just happen when I'm in my apartment either. Countless times I have been walking on the street, or riding my bike, or even in a car and the shadow of a plane will cover me on the street for a brief second. Seriously what are the odds of that constantly happening??
Does anybody else ever notice this happening to them?
• you live near an airport, • planes are quite large, • the Sun is so huge and so far away that it looks like a source of parallel rays at the Earth, and • scattering of light in the atmosphere lights up the daytime sky and--along with reflection--tends to provide some fill light
are the most relevant, esp. with two unanswered bits of information:
1) the level of air traffic there, and 2) the specifics of how your building--and areas where you frequently notice this!--is/are related to the specific geometry of your airport.
I think you must be [u]very[/u] close to both the airport, itself, and situated so that the airspace outside your window looks onto one or more major air lanes of your airport.
Being close would fit with your data; it's hard to have a sensible shadow cast by a plane at typical altitudes, so you are seeing them low (taking off or landing), not at 30,000 ft.
And being situated so that an extended line of a runway is right there makes even more sense. Have you used Google maps to check this?
Finally, I think this is also likely to be a case of you noticing something and then being more likely to notice it. You have become aware of something which others have relegated to the background of their minds; by becoming aware of it, your brain has moved it into the foreground, and you are noticing what others simply ignore like street noise, even the aircraft.
