My guess is that you heard an aircraft add power to climb and then pulled back the power to level off, which often results in a sudden lack of noise as heard from ground level. Also, there are many reasons why a military aircraft might fly around without lights for training purposes. If civilian, they would certainly have landing lights on below 10,000 feet, but if above that it might be too high to see the strobes or position lights. Also, was it overcast at the time? A low cloud ceiling would easily hide any aircraft flying above it.

Listen up.

If you lot can't post with civility, and discuss this properly without accusations of people being "shills" and other such stupidity, then quite simply don't post, because the last time I refreshed the page it said ATS in the top left hand corner and - frankly - we don't do that here.

If you want to have an actual discussion about the subject, then by all means feel free to do so.

You may have witnessed/heard a noise abatement takeoff.


Depending on the local rules, the idea is to take off at max power - as is usual - get the nose up with max power still on (speed is controlled by pitch attitude, raise nose to slow down and lower nose to speed up) and climb to an altitude of about 1000' - 2000' (whatever the airport requires) then level off and pull power down to what's required to maintain either cruise speed at that altitude and once out of the area climb to the altitude assigned by tower personnel.


Commonly done at Burbank, California airport and it's a little scary to watch for the first time.

As the OP noted, the engine sounds virtually disappear when the aircraft levels off.

Well, I've never seen a plane with no lights. But I live in Sacramento, California and When a Jet fly's over my house it feel's like a earthquake. I've always wonder these Jet's are so powerful.

Ever occur to you that the pilot had a brain fart and forgot to turn his lights on? I've known a few to do this, embarassing, but no conspiracy, just a pilot with other things on his/her mind. It happens. After all, they ARE human.

I would say the most likely scenario was a military flight doing NVG work. They fly lights out on NVGs. It could have even been one of the C-17s.

I have not seen any jets flying without their lights on at night. However I have seen a small plane flying at night , with no lights on. When it passed under the light from the moon I could see it clearly and the plane was completely silent , no noise at all. I reasoned that it must have been 'drug-runners'.

What a coincidence! i was on the 401 and i saw two of them flying in formation lol. i think its just drill, my dad said he sees them every time he comes through the area, past out towards morrowsburg.