Lifeblood of Transportation and Commerce

[AlohaSteven]

If you have Quicktime installed on your computer then you may enjoy going to http://www.airportcodes.org and watching the flux of flights coming and going throughout the USA on 20-21NOV2006. Each little red dot marks an airplane and the time factor is sped up such that an hour of actual flight time is reduced a second or two in the animation, so the dots flow swiftly.

Watching the patterns throughout a one-day cycle is fascinating, or maybe I am just easily entertained. It is one thing to intellectually know there is a flux throughout the day to flights departing from various parts of the USA and quite another to see it all displayed dynamically together like this. The East Coast certainly is a flight-hog! Honolulu and Anchorage light up a bit against the darkness at a couple of points, Anchorage mainly as a swirling hiccup in the flow of red dots on the Great Circle route.

Imagine how much fuel is burned and exhaust is generated by each of those "dots" with this happening daily, the trade-off for quick and convenient travel. I will not say "cheap" as well as quick and convenient because imho there are some significant costs to all this which are being deferred and for which the bill has not come entirely due, yet. What was it, only a hundred years ago or so most Americans lived their whole lives and died within about 30 to 60 miles of where they were born, never having set foot anywhere beyond that short leash? Probably still is the way of it for most of the 6 billion people on the planet, as (relatively speaking) I doubt a whole lot of people in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and throughout much of Africa, South America, and Asia in general are doing much flying.

These red dots remind me of RBC's (red blood corpuscles) flowing in the arteries and capillaries of a body, coursing from major organs to various tissues while carrying oxygen and sugars, the tissues lighting up as with muscles during exercise.

The Hawaii connection? Visible out there in the middle of the Pacific, with those red dots carrying all of the medicines, foods, and products which are not locally produced in Hawaii as well as most of those visitors who pump tourism cash into the local economy.


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A pleasant slideshow: http://www.thejoymovie.com

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[Andrew]

Interesting animation. Interesting to see the traffic slow down at night and then re-start again as the dawn arrives. The traffic became busy again in the east and the increased traffic progressed to the West as the sun continued to rise.

Man that is a lot of planes. Thanks for sharing.

Andrew

[AlohaSteven]

that is a lot of planes. Thanks for sharing.

My pleasure.

I wondered if this animation record tracks only the bigger commercial flights or all flights and so went back to look more carefully.

Watching the flights heading out of Anchorage it is pretty clear this record shows only commercial flights in the biggest planes. If the flights heading north from Anchorage are watched then they can be seen as individual red dots headed over the north pole to destinations in northern Europe. If small airplanes from the air transportation hubs here (Fairbanks, Nome, Dillingham, Fort Yukon, Bethel, and so on) were also being shown then there would be a whole lot more dots moving around ...and if small private airplanes were also shown in addition to those small commercial planes, then there would be a real distinct swarm of dots around Anchorage, Juneau, Sitka and and places like those, so I think this record just shows big commercial flights which have numbered routes.

As Andrew says, that is a lot of planes!


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A pleasant slideshow: http://www.thejoymovie.com

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[Blakeyboy1]

I may be a sucka but I buy carbon offsets for every flight we take (http://www.terrapass.com/projects/listing.html). I don't like contributing to pollution but it is necessary at times and I feel a little better if just maybe I can prevent some pollution in the process. It is not particularly expensive in the grand scheme.

Oh yeah, and the simulation is kind of cool to watch. I may be easily entertained as well []

-Blake
http://www.theboysgreatescape.blogspot.com/

[Jon]

Yes you are....

you want to help stop the pollution... help move the world in to the 21 century... the western life style alone would reduce the population by a 3rd in 100 years.



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I do not believe that America is better than everybody else...
America "IS" everybody else.
HBAT

[AlohaSteven]

The Hawaii connection? Visible out there in the middle of the Pacific, with those red dots carrying all of the medicines, foods, and products which are not locally produced in Hawaii as well as most of those visitors who pump tourism cash into the local economy.

I mis-spoke: instead of saying "all" I should have said "much or perhaps even all of some types...."

What is the percentage of food arriving in Hawaii which comes by air versus via ship?

The percentage of tourists and their dollars arriving via air versus ship?

Medicines, especially perishable meds?

Mail, and everything it contains?

Does anyone know? I certainly do not, but it seems unlikely 100% of the above are coming via the big jets; some percentage must be coming via ship, particularly the dry goods.



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A pleasant slideshow: http://www.thejoymovie.com

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