Northern Lights Sightseeing Flight, from Edinburgh & Glasgow

• Pre flight presentation by northern lights experts
• A 3 hour flight, hunting the Aurora
• An out of this world experience!!

Seeing the Northern Lights is something that has always been on my bucket list, so when Fee and I got the opportunity to go on a ‘Northern Lights Flight’, to say I was excited would be an understatement…!

The experience began at the Edinburgh Airport Hilton Hotel where we were given an engaging and informative presentation which gave us a good indication of what we could expect on the flight – so long as Mother Nature co-operated! Our experts for the evening were Nigel Bradbury (northern lights astronomer) and Pete Lawrence (from the BBC’s Sky at Night) between them, they’ve done almost 400 northern lights flights, so we were in good hands! Once the presentation was over we were taken, by shuttle bus, to the airport where we boarded our flight.

We took off and headed north. The cabin crew made their way through the cabin with refreshments and the preparations to darken the cabin began! Pete gave a short tutorial on the best settings for cameras to capture anything we might see, a quick “flash test” was performed to make sure there was no sources of light once our eyes were ‘dark adapted’ and then the ‘switch off’ began…

All the lights in the cabin were turned off and as we approached our destination (somewhere between the Faroe and the Shetland Islands) Pete told us we were in for a good flight and the whole cabin began to buzz with excitement! As our eyes adjusted to the dark conditions, looking out the window we began to take in all the stars in the night sky – and then, we noticed a haze that had begun to appear at the bottom right of the window – the Northern Lights!

We had arrived at our viewing station and were treated to an amazing display of the Northern Lights. There were green glowing bands stretched across the horizon framed by the stars of the night sky and everyone was awestruck by just how lucky we were! The plane circled in a big loop, so both sides of the plane could appreciate what we were seeing and with a continued commentary from our experts.

The aurora did not disappoint, the colours and shapes changed but the mystical green haze in the night sky stayed with us throughout our flight. Nigel and Pete were both great at directing our gaze to the various constellations and activity in the aurora. Even when we were on the side of the plane that wasn’t facing the lights, viewing the stars in the completely blacked out cabin of the aircraft was incredible – I imagine it’ll be the closest feeling I’ll ever have to being in space.

The flight exceeded all of our expectations. I have never had the opportunity to see the stars so clearly and the aurora was so beautiful! We were so lucky. I could not recommend this experience enough and it really is the trip of a lifetime!