Culture
A Spellbinding Look at 24 Hours of European Flight Paths
Europe's airplane activity in this visualization looks like a hive of angry, electrified bees.
What does a full day of flight paths over Europe look like? Sort of like an immense rave on the cloud tops, according to this trippy visualization that might have you reaching for glow sticks and PLURRing in no time.
The short animation depicts 24 hours of flight data extracted from one period in July, 2013. Planes launch over the Atlantic from North America like rockets spewing blue fire; they eventually join a scrambling hive of activity swirling over Europe's various airports. Glowing nodules depict especially active hubs near London – like Heathrow, the busiest international airport on the Continent, and Gatwick, said to be the most efficient single-runway airport in existence.