Overheard in an air traffic control tower

12 year old looking at blips on radar screen: Does something tell you what kind of plane it is?

Air Traffic Controller: yes, there is a combination that tells us that

12 year old: I thought so. So where it says C-17 (points to spot on screen) is that C-17 right there (points to shadow in cloud outside tower window)

ATC looks at screen, looks out window, looks at screen again and then back at window and confirms that "yes, that is the plane" but no one really sees anything until this:



popped out of the clouds right in front of them.

Ian identified the plane, inside cloud cover and matched it to the blip on the radar screen. Pretty cool!!