Video Shows Every Flight on Earth in 72 Seconds

Aspiring scientists from the Zurich School of Applied Sciences have built a video simulation that displays the flight path of every commercial flight in the world over a 24-hour period. There isn't much of an application for it, but it sure is cool to look at.


While the map may look complex, Dr. Karl Rege tells us he and his team found it surprisingly simple to assemble using data readily av More..ailable on the internet.

"We used a commercial website called FlightStats to gather global flight and schedule information," he says. "So there was no need to contact the different airlines."

The team mined FlightStats for the departure and arrival times of every commercial flight in the world, then plugged it all into a computer to assemble their simulation. For the sake of simplicity, they assumed every plane traveled at the same speed and every flight took the most direct route to its destination. Then every flight was assigned a position on a Miller cylindrical projection, which is similar to a Mercator Projection but doesn't distort the poles so much.

"After that we drew it, that was it," Rege says. "It was that easy. We are astonished that nobody did it beforehand."

Well, others have done it, but on a much smaller scale...

Check other two videos for Europe and USA...top right.

Twenty four hours of air traffic above the United States. Notice that around :10 the sky is dark except for red-eyes from the west coast, and then at :15 the east coast explodes with morning flights.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Aviation
• World
• Flight
• Planes
• Aircraft
• Passenger
• Airlines
• Map
• Interactive
• Massive

[planemadmatt]

@Beorning1972 I don't know what you are on about but this video is enabled for embeding. I tested it on the website in question and it is working perfectly.

[Thewildside]

I found this through a website that disabled embedding.

[planemadmatt]

I'll say again, this video is availible on any other website, embeding and linkage is enabled.

[bigd524]

i will probably be on one of these flights over the atlantic.

[planemadmatt]

I really wouldn't be surprised!

[temanatahiti]

With all these flights every day, 365 days a year and only very very seldom hear of major crashes, it makes me feel alot safer flying now!! Cool video!!

[planemadmatt]

No problem!

[QueenBling1]

that is actually amazing! I need to show my sister this she is scared of flying I am a bit too but looking at this it shows how many planes fly all over the world in 24 hours! And that is alot!!!

[Beorning1972]

This was featured on UPHAA in a post titled "16 Coolest Time-lapse Videos of All Time". But when I tried to watch it there I got the annoying and pointless "embedding disabled by request" message. Why the fuck would embedding be disabled for this?

So guess what? This vid might contain the secret of the universe neatly explained so that a two-year-old could understand it, but I'm not gonna fucking watch it. Stop inconveniencing people if you want them to the watch the goddamn thing.

[mayfly00]

By the way, what is the song name?

[mayfly00]

Holy Crap, a lot of people must be going on Holidays to Europe!

[dionsanchez24]

god check out Europe

[futureav8r]

thats a lot of fucking planes :P thanks 5/5!!!!!!!

[eflover4ever68]

It looks like ants crawling all over the world map.. XD