
Trails of Wind: Data Visualization of the Architecture of Airport Runways - Osiris30
https://trailsofwind.figures.cc/
======
Stratoscope
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
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.

------
JorgeGT
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-
lo...](https://wechoosethemoon.es/2011/11/08/mathematica-rosa-de-los-vientos/)
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)

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

------
otoburb
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.

------
jweir
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?

~~~
kart23
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:...](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)

~~~
daveslash
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/da...](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1469143,-116.1300329,587m/data=!3m1!1e3)

[2] Salton Sea Airport
[https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2420755,-115.9513012,1246m/d...](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2420755,-115.9513012,1246m/data=!3m1!1e3)

------
hourislate
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
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-
le...](https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/history-airport-codes-logic-letter-
codes/story?id=11684406)

------
crazygringo
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
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)

------
chaosbutters
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.

------
azalemeth
[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
"Upwind" means "into the wind", right? This seems to be written correctly to
me.

~~~
azalemeth
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
Haha no problem, you're not an idiot! You still explained why this is relevant
to pilots, which is helpful to know.

------
tony_cannistra
Very cool. Why does Florida have so many airports?

~~~
alexhutcheson
\- 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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population_density)

------
jrrv
Scroll broken in Firefox on Mac.

Why does the Southern US seem to contain the highest concentration of North-
South runways in the world?

~~~
nerdponx
Broken on Windows too.

~~~
okmokmz
Works for me in Firefox on Windows

