Animated Flight Atlas

For the real FlightAware lovers, Michael Peterson and Jochen Wendel worked on flight atlas in form of a DVD. It features animations of flights over North America. The animations are time-lapses that show flights over 24-hour period. The display times are between 30 and 90 seconds. Animations are sorted after flights, aircrafts, airports, cities corridors and regions.

The location of airplanes was mapped using FlyteTrax. The program updates the position of flights every minute and also allows for the selection of flights based on the aircraft, airline, and the departure or arrival airport. The DVD is accompanied by a 40-page book that explains the North American air traffic control system, Aircraft Situational Display to Industry (ASDI), flight mapping, and air traffic patterns.

Don’t yell “it’s Christmas in June!” too soon… the authors are still looking for a distributor.

Relation to my thesis: Beginning in the 1990s, data on the location of aircraft was made available to the airline industry. The Aircraft Situational Display to Industry (ASDI) system conveys up-to-date information on flights to the airline industry and the public. In 1995 the ASDI information became available on a “need-to-know” basis. Will there be an ASDI for any kind of objects in the future?