Photos from the Boeing Cockpit

The Boeing 747-8 cargo plane pilot has seen thunderstorms, shooting stars and sunsets from up above the clouds and has looked down on mountaintops, carpets of cloud and cities lit up at night. The incredible pictures give a glimpse of the view from the pilots are treated to every day. Van Heijst, 34, from Haarlem in the Netherlands, said: “All photos together create a much bigger picture of what it’s like to fly high up in the empty skies, an isolated vastness where humans or animals naturally have no place to be. One of the fascinating aspects of flying for me is being in this vast and nearly empty world that is completely alien for human beings and can only be seen and experienced when flying a modern airplane. There is a powerful and peaceful sense of solitude about it while sitting in a small cockpit, 38,000 feet up in the sky with a vista that extends thousands of miles from horizon to horizon and not another human being close for hundreds of miles, except my colleague, of course. Views that are unique and never to be seen again, I just feel I have to capture and share them, before they are gone for good”. Here: An aurora seen from the cockpit. (Photo by Christiaan van Heijst/Caters News Agency)