air shimmers

There's a spot on the west end of Balboa Park where no one ever goes, where the incoming planes heading for the San Diego Airport zoom in right overhead. You can position yourself directly under them and watch them land. It's a very loud and, with my necrotic brain, dizzying experience, what between craning your head to look up, hearing the roar, and losing your sense of balance as the plan rushes past--all of which reduces the great fun of doing this not a bit.

The coolest part, though, is that after the plane passes, you hear this shimmery, wiggly "whsk whsk whsk" sound all around in the air, almost as if invisible creatures were flying past. It's really eerie. This is a phenomenon caused by the disturbance in the air that the huge passing aircraft makes, and you have to be in exactly the right spot to hear the effect. And you have to wait for what seems like a pretty significant amount of time to hear it: it's approximately 20 seconds after the plane passes by before the air shimmers make it down to the earth. First you see the tallest trees start shaking violently, then you hear the sound.

Some of the newer planes are now being built to reduce this phenomenon, as it's basically caused by air resistance that creates a certain amount of interference with the overall aerodynamic efficiency and...er, the thingamajiggies. Heck, I don't know. All I know is that I never get tired of listening to it. On a clear and sunny day we'll plunk ourselves down on that western hillside overlooking the city for hours, chasing the planes and listening to the air shimmers.

I'll bet it's even neater at night.