☀️ The sky over Lisbon
Living in Lisbon comes with an interesting perk. The airport sits right inside the city, close enough that planes don't just pass through the sky overhead; they inhabit it.
On any given afternoon, you can watch an Airbus make its final approach from your kitchen window, or feel the low hum of engines while having coffee in a café in Marvila. There are 2 sides: people who complain about it, and the ones who enjoy it. I am (to my surprise) in the latter group. Should I consider myself a plane spotter?
Well, I wouldn’t say so. Plane spotting is a serious hobby, and it has communities all over the world: people who gather near runways with cameras, notebooks, and flasks of tea to watch aircraft arrive and depart.
Some of them can identify a Boeing 737-800 by the sound of its engines. Some have helped guard Air Force One. And the more you read about them, the more you realize that their passion isn't eccentric at all. It's a very human response to something genuinely extraordinary that we've somehow trained ourselves to find boring (I mean, wow, we can fly!)
This edition is about what we miss when we stop looking up.
📖 3 Articles to Spark Your Curiosity
The Quiet Community That Gathers Near Runways
In Los Angeles, a devoted group of plane spotters stakes out positions near LAX with long lenses and endless patience, cataloguing aircraft the way birdwatchers catalogue birds. The New York Times followed them, revealing a hobby that's part obsession, part meditation, and entirely misunderstood by everyone who has never tried it.
→ Read on The New York Times
Wake It from a Veteran Flight Attendant
Meryl Love has spent a decade in the air and has developed an entire system of rituals to survive it. Her piece also reveals that the Queen never liked to be disturbed when her plane landed, and that the phrase "smooth flight" during a preflight briefing is treated by cabin crew with the same dread actors reserve for uttering "Macbeth."
→ Read on The Guardian
Breakfast with the Plane Spotter Who Helped Guard Air Force One
Inside the world of serious aviation enthusiasts: the people who know exactly which aircraft carries the president, who show up at airports not to fly anywhere, but simply to watch.
→ Read on Substack
🗞️ 3 Headlines Worth Exploring
Dubai's Flying Taxi Is Almost Ready for Boarding
Dubai has been testing autonomous air taxis since 2017, and 2026 is shaping up to be the year commercial routes actually launch. The city is building skyports, mapping urban corridors, and finalising safety approvals.
→ Read on Time Out Dubai
NASA's Quiet Supersonic Jet Could Change How We Fly
The X-59 QueSST is NASA's attempt to bring back supersonic travel by solving the one thing that killed the Concorde: the sonic boom. The jet is designed to produce a soft "thump" instead of the thunderous crack that led to overland supersonic bans. If it works, London to New York in three hours could return.
→ Read on Travel + Leisure Asia
“I Started a Women's Plane Spotting Club”
A BBC short story about the woman who decided to create the first Women's Plane Spotting Club. Her club has since introduced dozens of people to a hobby they didn’t know about before, and sparked conversations about who gets to be considered an "enthusiast."
→ Watch on BBC
☀️ 3 Actions to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
Go plane spotting
Find out if there's a flight path or airport viewing area near where you live. Then go there for 20 minutes with no agenda: no podcast, no scrolling, no purpose other than watching. Pay attention to what you feel when something that heavy passes overhead at that speed and simply continues on its way.
Notice your flight rituals
Next time you fly, or even just think about flying, pay attention to what small rituals or habits you have without realising it. Do you check the emergency exits? Read the safety card? Text someone before takeoff? These aren't anxieties; they're the things we do to feel at home in an extraordinary situation.
Try five minutes of skychology
Go outside, lie on your back if you can, and look at the sky for five uninterrupted minutes. Don't check your phone, don't plan your day. Research suggests that the simple act of looking upward reduces stress and creates a sense of scale that makes most problems feel smaller. If a plane passes, let it be part of it.
⚡ 6 Quick Resources
✈️ To watch: The Secret to Good Airport Design
How architects like Zaha Hadid balance efficiency and beauty, and why the TWA Flight Center at JFK remains the gold standard.
→ Watch on Architectural Digest
🔍 To know: 11 Hidden Airplane Features You Had No Idea Existed
From secret crew sleeping quarters above the cabin to the tiny pressure-equalising holes in your window.
→ Read on Reader's Digest
🛩️ To admire: The 25 Most Beautiful Airplanes Ever Built
A photo gallery that makes a strong case for aviation as one of humanity's most elegant design disciplines.
→ Explore on Flying Magazine
🌤️ To check: What Is Skychology?
The science-backed case for why simply looking up at the sky is one of the easiest things you can do for your mental health.
→ Read on Unplugged
🏛️ To add to your bucket list: The World's Most Beautiful Airports for 2025
Airports worth arriving early for, according to Condé Nast Traveler.
→ Explore on Condé Nast Traveler
🧘 To read: How to Calm Down at the Airport
Breathwork and meditation techniques for nervous fliers, or anyone who finds departure halls overwhelming.
→ Read on Art of Living
🎲 This week’s wonderfully random corner of the internet
✈️ FlightRadar24
A live map of every commercial flight currently in the air, anywhere in the world. You can click on any plane and see its route, its altitude, its speed, its origin, and its destination.
→ Explore at flightradar24.com
📝 Word of the Week
Empyrean (Greek, from empyrios, meaning "in or on fire"): Originally, the highest heaven in ancient cosmology: a realm of pure fire and light where the divine resided, far above the clouds and beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.
In later poetry and literature, the word expanded to mean simply "the sky" or "the heavens" in their most awe-inspiring sense.
The empyrean was never meant to be boring. It was the place of wonder, of the unreachable, of things that moved through space without explanation. And yet here we are, surrounded by it every day, mostly annoyed that our flight is delayed.
Plane spotters understand something the rest of us have forgotten: the empyrean is still up there. We just stopped looking.
🧘♀️ Question of the Week for Introspection
When was the last time something completely ordinary, something you pass by or use every day, suddenly struck you as genuinely extraordinary? What made you stop and look at it?
See you next Sunday! Until then, keep your eyes open, your questions big, and your sense of wonder alive.
Your curious internet friend,
Ruxandra
