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I brought my 8x42* binocular on an international trip last year but I found it took up space and weighed my carry-on luggage down (every kilo makes a difference with lengthy time in transit and tired walks through large terminals). I also didn't end up using them all that much enroute. On my return trip, I simply packed it as checked luggage.

I imagine pilots and flight crews would have similar considerations as to how useful binoculars are on a typical sector - most seem to not pack all that much with them. It sounds that if pilots were to be issued expensive binoculars for the purpose of identifying unidentified objects, rare events would need to become a lot more frequent?

On a vaguely related note, in 2012 an Air Canada passenger plane was diverted to help locate a stranded yacht off Australian waters. Apparently, there was a call out to any passengers who might have had binoculars, but it's not clear whether they were instrumental in the end: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/18/travel/australia-yacht-re...

* While smaller binoculars are lighter and more compact, they also cost a lot more if optics quality is to be preserved. Also, smaller ones don't work as well at night - so that probably rules out any real chance of identifying stealth aircraft when it's dark.

I've noticed with my 8x42 binocular at daytime, large aircraft at a certain height (I can't remember if it was 10,000 or 30,000 ft) on a clear day with no contrails cannot be seen by my naked eye on the ground but shows up clearly in the binocular - but only if I know where to scan (after looking up FlightRadar, etc). While they do bring the view closer, they're not magic and come with tradeoffs like a narrow field of view, etc.




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