This is a screencap from an interactive Google Map created by artist Aaron Koblin, representing the 205,000 aircrafts the FAA tracked on August 12, 2008. In this case, we've filtered the air traffic by model, so each color represents a different one of the 573 aircrafts that flew that day. The flight paths are darker as the planes maintain their altitude and brighter the closer they are to the ground.
The work emerges as part of a collaboration between Koblin, Wired, and flight tracker FlightView. Koblin took images from his larger Flight Paths project and layered them, creating the interactive map.
You can go to the main project page and play around with the real version. You can choose your own filters, zooming in and out of your favorite city, and even look at the paths of specific aircraft.
The main page also has some genuinely spooky animations of three of the major US corridors over the 24-hour period. This is the Northeast:
There are also animations for the ATL and LAX corridors. Before you ask, yes there are high-res pictures available as wallpaper downloads. There's even a secondary interactive map with filters for specific aircraft, so you can flip from one plane to the other.
The fun part is checking out how some models are used to crisscross the country while others fly in and out of the coasts. The depressing part is when you've been at this so long that you can guess what airlines use what aircraft based on which hubs they light up. Shiny shiny.
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