Breath-taking images from cockpits reveal what pilots see when they land

While we sit in cattle class seeing the world through our little windows, pilots get the view of a lifetime from the plane's cockpit during landing.

These stunning images taken by pilot Christiaan van Heijst and his friend Daan Krans from the Netherlands, capture the world’s incredible weather from airplane cockpits.

From thunderstorms in Shanghai to Northern Lights shows in Toronto, these lucky guys have seen all the world’s natural wonders in action from above.

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The 33-year-old senior first officer, Christiaan and his business partner Daan, document their breath-taking work on their company’s webpage Amazing Aviation.

With views of the clearest skies uninterrupted by light pollution during a night flight from Russia, Christiaan took a photo from his seat of a Boeing 747-8 cockpit that captured the sunrise, the Northern Lights and the milky way all in one photo.

Another time when he was flying between Beijing and Shanghai, the pilot encountered the most outrageous thunderstorm that began approaching their flight path faster than he had anticipated.

“The cloud here seen on our left started to appear on our weather radar only a few minutes before and started to show off an amazing display of lightning that grew ever more intense. When we got closer, we saw that the cloud was going to burst through our flight path and we had to deviate up to 10km to avoid flying into this cell… The beauty of night flights in Asia this time of the year.” Christiaan captioned the image.

Although safe in the plane’s cockpit from the extreme weather outside, Christiaan says, “When viewing a big storm of Northern Lights or an active thunderstorm I feel very small and insignificant, compared to the raw energy, beauty and size that plays out in front of me.”

Christiaan began flying when he was 14-years-old and now flies jumbo jets around the world and takes incredible photos from the cockpit when his fellow pilots are flying.

“I feel very privileged that I can somehow translate these views with my camera into something that can be shared, viewed and appreciated by anyone,” he says.

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