Delta Glass Bottom Jet — see beneath your plane using the Fly Delta App for iPad

In early 2013, Delta introduced its Fly Delta App for iPad.  The app lets you book trips, get information on destinations, and get flight information during trips.  One feature of the app that I had not tried until recently is called the Glass Bottom Jet.  While you are in flight, this part of the app gives you a sense of what you are flying over at that very moment.  It’s an interesting feature.

To take advantage of the iPad app during a flight, you need to be using an airplane equipped with in-flight Wi-Fi.  Once you are over 10,000 feet, you can connect to the Gogo internet service.  If you don’t pay for service, you are limited to accessing the Delta website in Safari or using the basic features of the Fly Delta App, but even that can be pretty useful.  You can see information on your current flight such as the estimated time of arrival and the gate where you will be landing.  (Which if helpful if you want to use the GateGuru app, which doesn’t require internet access, to get information on restaurants and other services close to the gate where you are landing and the gate where your next flight takes off.)  The Fly Delta app can also give you an graphical overview of your current flight.

At the very top right of the screen, there is a toggle to turn on the Glass Bottom Jet feature.  If you are not paying for the Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service, then you won’t be able to use the feature, and instead the app offers to show you a video describing the feature.

But if you have paid for Internet access, then the Glass Bottom Jet feature shows you your plane superimposed on a map.  On the map you will see pushpins with the Wikipedia W icon and pushpins with a camera icon.

If you tap a camera icon, you will see a preview of a picture taken at that exact longitude and latitude that was uploaded by a user to the Panoramio service.  Tap the picture to see it full-screen.  So in this way, the app let’s you virtually see what you are flying over right now.

Some pictures are stunning.  Others are more mundane.  But it is neat to be able to “see” what you are flying over.  And you don’t have to worry about the pilot announcing that all of the cool stuff is on the right side of the plane when you are seated on the left side.

If you tap a Wikipedia pushpin, you get a link to the Wikipedia entry describing what you are flying over.

I’m not sure that it is worth paying for Gogo Internet access just to use the Glass Bottom Jet feature.  Having said that, if you happen to be paying for the Internet anyway to catch up on your emails during the flight, this is a neat feature to entertain and perhaps even educate you for a few minutes while you are in the air.

Click here to get the Fly Delta App for iPad (free):