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Trails of Wind: Data Visualization of the Architecture of Airport Runways

118 points by Osiris30 7y ago

otoburb 7y ago
Link is broken from the parent figures.cc site too. EDIT: Google DNS 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 doesn't resolve, but Cloudflare DNS servers do. Interesting.
jrrv 7y ago
Scroll broken in Firefox on Mac. Why does the Southern US seem to contain the highest concentration of North-South runways in the world?
- watertrash 7y ago
  You can use arrow keys
  - input_sh 7y ago
    More precisely: click on the sidebar and then use the arrow keys.
    - rishabhsagar 7y ago
      Couldn't get arrow keys (or scroll) working on FF on Windows. If you select text and drag to select, the screen scrolls.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Broken on Windows too.
  - okmokmz 7y ago
    Works for me in Firefox on Windows
- tidepod12 7y ago
  > Why does the Southern US seem to contain the highest concentration of North-South runways in the world? It has to do with prevailing winds. Thanks to the Gulf of Mexico, winds in the eastern half of Texas and the surrounding states pretty consistently blow south to north.
tony_cannistra 7y ago
Very cool. Why does Florida have so many airports?
- Ithildin 7y ago
  Because nobody wants to drive there.
- alexhutcheson 7y ago
  - It has a bunch of popular vacation destinations (beaches on the Gulf Coast, beaches on the Atlantic, theme parks at Orlando, cruise ship ports, and the Florida Keys) - It's both really large (it would take ~10 hours to drive from Pensacola to Miami) and pretty dense (8th densest state as of 2015[1]) - It has a lot of military bases: 5 active Air Force bases and 4 Naval Air Stations, along with a bunch of other installations that also have airfields. More broadly: It has good weather most of the year, it's the closest point in the continental US to a lot of places (the Carribean, Central and South America), and it had a ton of empty land during the period that the US started building a lot of airfields. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...
- CPLX 7y ago
  Many reasons, but likely the most prominent is that Florida has long been the country's locus for pilot training. The reason for that in turn likely has something to do with being extraordinarily flat, with good year round weather and close to major population centers.
hourislate 7y ago
Is there a way to search airport codes? Would be interesting to pull up a specific airport with relevant runway analysis. I think AeroData does this also.
- samstave 7y ago
  Im on mobile and dont have the link but you can easily get the list of airport codes - just google about. —- Whats interesting about the airport codes (the three letter designation) is that they are commonly derrived from the plot of land or field they were created on. Sometimes even the name of the land owner. Oh here you go: https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/history-airport-codes-logic-letter-codes/story?id=11684406 https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/history-airport-codes-logic-le...
JorgeGT 7y ago
Very cool, might use it in my aero eng lectures! Regarding this topic, in 2011 I did a quick Mathematica script to calculate the historical wind rose for any given airport and display it together with the airport map: https://wechoosethemoon.es/2011/11/08/mathematica-rosa-de-los-vientos/ https://wechoosethemoon.es/2011/11/08/mathematica-rosa-de-lo... Sorry, it's in Spanish, the notebook itself is available here: http://wechoosethemoon.es/assets/files/RosaVientos.nb http://wechoosethemoon.es/assets/files/RosaVientos.nb
chaosbutters 7y ago
it'd be fun to drop this vector field on a graph (maybe a sphere's surface), interpolate between points, and then drop in particles and watch their streamlines.
jweir 7y ago
One thing that sticks out is how many airports the US and Canada have and how few China has. Does anyone know if the data is incomplete for China, or is this accurate?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The US is fairly unusual in its vibrant general aviation infrastructure. A lot of those airports are tiny ones suitable to only propeller and small jet planes, not airliners. China's extensive recent work on a high speed rail network is probably relevant here, too.
- kart23 7y ago
  Heres a list of Airports in China vs the US. Looks to me that America has a lot more smaller airports, vs china which mostly has bigger airports for airliners and such. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:_Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:_K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:...
  - daveslash 7y ago
    I can't speak for China, but after a quick glance, I can name two actively used airports in the US that I can find on this map that are nothing more than flat stretches of dirt. [Edit] They're generally used for hobbyists. Although, I once watched a V-22 Osprey practicing touch-and-goes at [1] below -- kicked up all kinds of desert dust. I've never felt more like being in Half-Life than at that time. [1] Ocotillo Wells Airport https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1469143,-116.1300329,587m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1469143,-116.1300329,587m/da... [2] Salton Sea Airport https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2420755,-115.9513012,1246m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2420755,-115.9513012,1246m/d...
- sand500 7y ago
  I also don't think China has anywhere near the general aviation community as their airspace is controlled by the military.
arendtio 7y ago
Pretty cool. I am just wondering why they choose to color the runways from yellow to blue while using blue for mountains too...
azalemeth 7y ago
[Edit: I am wrong. Ignore this] >"Runways generally point in the wind direction, as aircraft take off and land more easily upwind. The designation of these is based on their respective alignment angles." NO!! This is exactly 180º wrong -- what generates lift on a wing is _relative_ airflow and thus pilots preferentially prefer to take off or land into a headwind -- which mimics speed "for free". Likewise, tailwind landings are downright dangerous for the same reason, and each aircraft has strict (and low) limits for the maximum permitted tailwind. The illustration is exactly the other way around.
- tgarv 7y ago
  "Upwind" means "into the wind", right? This seems to be written correctly to me.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    Yes, just like downstream and upstream for rivers.
  - azalemeth 7y ago
    I'm an idiot -- you're right. Apologies. The graphic vectors looked like the wind was blowing the wrong direction and I missed this.
    - tgarv 7y ago
      Haha no problem, you're not an idiot! You still explained why this is relevant to pilots, which is helpful to know.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
crazygringo 7y ago
Not only does the domain not resolve for me (Google DNS), but looking up the IP and connecting directly gives me an nginx 404. (http://217.160.0.68 http://217.160.0.68). In case the creator is here... a large part of the internet can't access it right now.
- clairity 7y ago
  it's disheartening to think that so many (technically-minded) people actively configure their networks & devices to give google even more of their data for free. fwiw, i use adguard dns[0] which i initially learned about right here on hn (edit: and figures.cc resolves just fine with it). [0] https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html
Stratoscope 7y ago
Cool visualization! One thing that isn't mentioned is the difference between true and magnetic compass directions. The runway illustration shows a runway 05 with a heading of 50°. The illustration makes it look like these are true degrees, since 0° is at the top as it would be in a typical map aligned with true north. But runways are not named by their true heading, they are named by their magnetic heading. It's generally not a huge difference, for example true and magnetic north are about 12° apart at JFK in New York. But it's something that one would want to take into account in any simulation or visualization like this.
- ddoolin 7y ago
  Good point. For purposes over a quite-small space, it's not a huge difference. However, I was quite surprised the first time I saw a magnetic declination map. Before flying I had never really considered the difference at all.

118 points by Osiris30 7y ago

Link is broken from the parent figures.cc site too. EDIT: Google DNS 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 doesn't resolve, but Cloudflare DNS servers do. Interesting.

jrrv 7y ago

Scroll broken in Firefox on Mac. Why does the Southern US seem to contain the highest concentration of North-South runways in the world?

watertrash 7y ago
You can use arrow keys
- input_sh 7y ago
  More precisely: click on the sidebar and then use the arrow keys.
  - rishabhsagar 7y ago
    Couldn't get arrow keys (or scroll) working on FF on Windows. If you select text and drag to select, the screen scrolls.
nerdponx 7y ago
Broken on Windows too.
- okmokmz 7y ago
  Works for me in Firefox on Windows
tidepod12 7y ago
> Why does the Southern US seem to contain the highest concentration of North-South runways in the world? It has to do with prevailing winds. Thanks to the Gulf of Mexico, winds in the eastern half of Texas and the surrounding states pretty consistently blow south to north.

tony_cannistra 7y ago

Very cool. Why does Florida have so many airports?

Ithildin 7y ago
Because nobody wants to drive there.
alexhutcheson 7y ago
- It has a bunch of popular vacation destinations (beaches on the Gulf Coast, beaches on the Atlantic, theme parks at Orlando, cruise ship ports, and the Florida Keys) - It's both really large (it would take ~10 hours to drive from Pensacola to Miami) and pretty dense (8th densest state as of 2015[1]) - It has a lot of military bases: 5 active Air Force bases and 4 Naval Air Stations, along with a bunch of other installations that also have airfields. More broadly: It has good weather most of the year, it's the closest point in the continental US to a lot of places (the Carribean, Central and South America), and it had a ton of empty land during the period that the US started building a lot of airfields. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...
CPLX 7y ago
Many reasons, but likely the most prominent is that Florida has long been the country's locus for pilot training. The reason for that in turn likely has something to do with being extraordinarily flat, with good year round weather and close to major population centers.

hourislate 7y ago

Is there a way to search airport codes? Would be interesting to pull up a specific airport with relevant runway analysis. I think AeroData does this also.

samstave 7y ago
Im on mobile and dont have the link but you can easily get the list of airport codes - just google about. —- Whats interesting about the airport codes (the three letter designation) is that they are commonly derrived from the plot of land or field they were created on. Sometimes even the name of the land owner. Oh here you go: https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/history-airport-codes-logic-letter-codes/story?id=11684406 https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/history-airport-codes-logic-le...

JorgeGT 7y ago

Very cool, might use it in my aero eng lectures! Regarding this topic, in 2011 I did a quick Mathematica script to calculate the historical wind rose for any given airport and display it together with the airport map: https://wechoosethemoon.es/2011/11/08/mathematica-rosa-de-los-vientos/ https://wechoosethemoon.es/2011/11/08/mathematica-rosa-de-lo... Sorry, it's in Spanish, the notebook itself is available here: http://wechoosethemoon.es/assets/files/RosaVientos.nb http://wechoosethemoon.es/assets/files/RosaVientos.nb

chaosbutters 7y ago

it'd be fun to drop this vector field on a graph (maybe a sphere's surface), interpolate between points, and then drop in particles and watch their streamlines.

jweir 7y ago

One thing that sticks out is how many airports the US and Canada have and how few China has. Does anyone know if the data is incomplete for China, or is this accurate?

ceejayoz 7y ago
The US is fairly unusual in its vibrant general aviation infrastructure. A lot of those airports are tiny ones suitable to only propeller and small jet planes, not airliners. China's extensive recent work on a high speed rail network is probably relevant here, too.
kart23 7y ago
Heres a list of Airports in China vs the US. Looks to me that America has a lot more smaller airports, vs china which mostly has bigger airports for airliners and such. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:_Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:_K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:...
- daveslash 7y ago
  I can't speak for China, but after a quick glance, I can name two actively used airports in the US that I can find on this map that are nothing more than flat stretches of dirt. [Edit] They're generally used for hobbyists. Although, I once watched a V-22 Osprey practicing touch-and-goes at [1] below -- kicked up all kinds of desert dust. I've never felt more like being in Half-Life than at that time. [1] Ocotillo Wells Airport https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1469143,-116.1300329,587m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1469143,-116.1300329,587m/da... [2] Salton Sea Airport https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2420755,-115.9513012,1246m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2420755,-115.9513012,1246m/d...
sand500 7y ago
I also don't think China has anywhere near the general aviation community as their airspace is controlled by the military.

arendtio 7y ago

Pretty cool. I am just wondering why they choose to color the runways from yellow to blue while using blue for mountains too...

azalemeth 7y ago

[Edit: I am wrong. Ignore this] >"Runways generally point in the wind direction, as aircraft take off and land more easily upwind. The designation of these is based on their respective alignment angles." NO!! This is exactly 180º wrong -- what generates lift on a wing is _relative_ airflow and thus pilots preferentially prefer to take off or land into a headwind -- which mimics speed "for free". Likewise, tailwind landings are downright dangerous for the same reason, and each aircraft has strict (and low) limits for the maximum permitted tailwind. The illustration is exactly the other way around.

tgarv 7y ago
"Upwind" means "into the wind", right? This seems to be written correctly to me.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  Yes, just like downstream and upstream for rivers.
- azalemeth 7y ago
  I'm an idiot -- you're right. Apologies. The graphic vectors looked like the wind was blowing the wrong direction and I missed this.
  - tgarv 7y ago
    Haha no problem, you're not an idiot! You still explained why this is relevant to pilots, which is helpful to know.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

crazygringo 7y ago

Not only does the domain not resolve for me (Google DNS), but looking up the IP and connecting directly gives me an nginx 404. (http://217.160.0.68 http://217.160.0.68). In case the creator is here... a large part of the internet can't access it right now.

clairity 7y ago
it's disheartening to think that so many (technically-minded) people actively configure their networks & devices to give google even more of their data for free. fwiw, i use adguard dns[0] which i initially learned about right here on hn (edit: and figures.cc resolves just fine with it). [0] https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html

Stratoscope 7y ago

Cool visualization! One thing that isn't mentioned is the difference between true and magnetic compass directions. The runway illustration shows a runway 05 with a heading of 50°. The illustration makes it look like these are true degrees, since 0° is at the top as it would be in a typical map aligned with true north. But runways are not named by their true heading, they are named by their magnetic heading. It's generally not a huge difference, for example true and magnetic north are about 12° apart at JFK in New York. But it's something that one would want to take into account in any simulation or visualization like this.

ddoolin 7y ago
Good point. For purposes over a quite-small space, it's not a huge difference. However, I was quite surprised the first time I saw a magnetic declination map. Before flying I had never really considered the difference at all.