Google Earth - Complete US Air Routes
A couple of weeks ago I put together a small collection of Google Earth airline route maps for various countries. These work interactively, using mouse hovers over airport Icons to activate and reveal destinations.
The previous files each had fewer than a thousand routes, and were fairly limited in scope. So, I was wondering, how effectively do these scale up ? As it turns out, surprisingly well.
The following Google Earth networklink opens a file including 13287 scheduled routes within the USA, between 714 airports.
Flight Maps (USA) (2 MB)
Data is from the US Bureau of Transportation’s most recent monthly flight stats: October 2007. Strictly speaking it’s not really a route map in the same way as my other files - rather, it’s a map showing where scheduled airlines flew that particular month.
Viewing Suggestions:
- Because of the high number of placemarks and long distances involved, this all looks much better full screen [F11].
- To permanently lock on a set of lines:
- Right click on the entire file, a folder or airport,
- Go to Properties,
- Select the Style, Color tab,
- Then increase the line opacity.
- Hit OK.
- The only way to fully reverse this, and get the mouse over effect back, is to re-download or re-open the file. To do this within GE: right-click on the root folder: US Flight Maps, and select refresh.
- Don’t forget you can hold down the middle mouse button and swing the view around while keeping the flightpaths displayed.
Posted By James On February 6th, 2008.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from Frank Taylor
Time: February 6, 2008, 10:30 pm
James, I found if you mouse over an airport’s placemark and then click and hold the middle button on the placemark, you can rotate and tilt while viewing the routes. But, using the SpaceNavigator is even better. Once you mouse over you can then use the SN to move your view all over the place while still seeing the flight lines. I’m going to do a video showing this.
Comment from Pete
Time: February 7, 2008, 10:33 pm
You can also copy an airport node and paste it external to KML, allowing customization without messing up the original
Comment from James
Time: February 7, 2008, 11:48 pm
Pete - Good point. Helps save my bandwidth too. 
Comment from Jan
Time: February 18, 2008, 1:47 pm
Hi James,
I just noticed that total pax data you provide via FAA is only for arrivals. Another link you could use is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World’s_busiest_airports_by_traffic_movements
Krgds
Jan
Pingback from Cool US Flights Visualization in Google Earth | Google Earth Flight Simulator Non Official blog
Time: February 18, 2008, 9:29 pm
[…] how GE would perform with over 13,000 flights represented. But, GE seems to handle them well. Read more at James’ Barnabu blog.See also: Real-time Flight Tracking, Australia/New Zealand Flights, […]
Comment from Nick
Time: March 3, 2008, 11:28 pm
I installed the flight program but cannot get it to animate.I’m new at this so i need some real help.There is a guage at the top of the screen going back and forth with the same date ,over and over.All I get is a plane flashing in and out in the same spot.Help….please…
Nick
Write a comment