Holy mother of god!

[Cam]

Ok, ok, I know it was safe....what would the spacing be?

Remarks: Same track ‘overlaps’ are rarely seen in radar controlled airspace. On this occasion the lower and faster Air France 747 is rapidly overhauling the Continental 767, so the radar returns would not have merged for long on the controller’s screen.

[VectorForFood]

Same track overlaps, are very common in Canadian airspace, it's not uncommon for us to see 4-5 airplanes all stacked vertically on top of each other during the busy flow periods. It is not only common, it is almost standard during the eastbound flow.

Those aircraft have 1000' if not more separation vertically, obviously not much laterally, but that obviously doesn't matter if you have your 1000'

Observation from underneath is quite deceiving to the eye. I'm not sure if that quote Cam was from the photo site, but it goes to show don't believe everything you read on the internet

Also a 747 overtaking a 767 would take sometime to accomplish lateral, well in this case longitudinal separation, a common mach for those two types would be .82 for the 767 and .85/.86 for the 747, headwinds/tailwinds can change quite dramatically by even just 1000' so the 30 knots the 747 might get from their mach speed could be lost due to stronger headwinds.

[FrankM]

As a side question: how do you know that the other airplane is a CO 767 ? I can see a registration number under the right wing of the 747, but what about the other plane ?

[VectorForFood]

I'm just guessing perhaps the White paint with Gold Stripe under the tail? And perhaps someone with a scanner....

[Cam]

Yup you got it. Also it's a 200, which Continental flies....or a 300, it's hard to tell.

[David Hilditch]

Yup you got it. Also it's a 200, which Continental flies....or a 300, it's hard to tell.

It's a -200. Continental have no -300s. If it were one of their -400s, it would be clear from fuselage length and raked wingtips. I think most of these aviation photographer/spotters usually carry an airband receiver, so he probably heard the Continental coming along.