Amazing Air Traffic visualisation

[Seawitch]

Hi all
Not sure this is really a video, but where to put it?
It is a visualistion of all the worlds air traffic over 24 hours, every yellow dot is an aircraft.....still feel safe?

 

[Flyboy2]

Wow that is really cool!

Ok maybe this is a stupid question, but why does it seem that alot of the flights from North America to Europe travel over that same curved path from the upper east coast of America to Europe, any paticular reason.

 

[MrCreak]

Wow that is really cool!
Ok maybe this is a stupid question, but why does it seem that alot of the flights from North America to Europe travel over that same curved path from the upper east coast of America to Europe, any paticular reason.

Because it's not actually a curve it's a "straight line"*.
The world is spherical, the map is flat so what is really a straight line appears to be curved on a 2D representation.

* Part of a Great Circle.
This might be of interest.

 

[Wurger]

Now I know why I'm always so tired after being on duty....

 

[Maximowitz]

Now I know why I'm always so tired after being on duty....

That's because you keep thinking in 2D. It's a round world you know!

 

[Flyboy2]

Because it's not actually a curve it's a "straight line"*.
The world is spherical, the map is flat so what is really a straight line appears to be curved on a 2D representation.

* Part of a Great Circle.
This might be of interest.

Right, but is that just like the best flight path to take to get to Europe? Is that why so many airplanes travel it?

 

[MrCreak]

Yep, a great circle route is usually the shortest distance.

 

[Milos Sijacki]

Nice. We have some really busy skies in the world.