What’s With The Random Airplanes In Amarillo?

I'm sitting at the Sod Poodles game this weekend with my boys, and we start to notice some random planes flying overhead. These weren't your typical commercial airliners we're used to seeing as they head into Rich Husband International Airport.

The first one we saw appeared to be an older type of plane. I thought maybe someone was out for a flying lesson or it was coming back from an airshow of some sort. Then a couple more flew past that weren't your typical aircraft.

Get our free mobile app

Now I'm starting to wonder what's going on. Concern was not an issue, but it was definitely something random so I decided to look into it a bit.

The general consensus was that these planes were up in the sky surveying all the flooding we've been getting here in the panhandle thanks to all the rain. Getting an aerial overview of how bad the flooding is in certain spots is important. It gives officials an idea of where the biggest issues are, and where they need to try and relieve some of the water if they can.

I thought to myself, why not just get drones to do that? It would seemingly be a lot cheaper considering you don't have to fuel up a drone, and there are undoubtedly more people who know how to fly a drone than they do an airplane.

I brought this up to someone in the office and they said, those pilots love any reason to get up in the air, and that's a valid statement. So if you see these random aircraft, no need to panic, it's actually a good thing as they're doing work to make sure the city doesn't end up underwater.