Thanksgiving Lemmings

This is a map of planes in real time over the United States at 6:30pm Wednesday night Alaska time.  You can check this site yourself at flightradar.   Most of these people - I'm guessing all of these planes are pretty full - have suffered TSA to be with family for Thanksgiving.

It would be nice to have our kids here and my mom, but I wouldn't want to subject any of them to a Thanksgiving weekend flying experience.

Here's Southcentral Alaska - Anchorage , Matsu, Kenai, and Prince William Sound - about the same time.  When you zoom into a smaller area the planes aren't so crowded together.  At flightradar you can put your cursor on any plane and it shows you the airline and flight number.  Then, if you double click on the id, it gives you lots more information.  I didn't do that when I got the original screen shot, but I just did another EVA plane that was just leaving Anchorage and here's what I got:

EVA638

© Timo Jäger [CGN-Spotter]

• Airline: Eva Air
• Flight: BR638
• From: Anchorage, Ted Stevens (ANC)
• To: New York, John F Kennedy (JFK)
• Aircraft: Boeing 747-45EF (SCD) (B744)
• Reg: B-16483
• Altitude: 27800 ft (8473 m)
• Speed: 480 kt (889 km/h, 552 mph)
• Track: 90°
• Hex: 8990C2
• Squawk: 0
• Pos: 61.2999 / -147.769
• Radar: T-F5M
• Cockpit View
• 
  

Cockpit view would be cool, but it says I need a Google Earth plug in.  I have Google Earth, but it's not working with the flightrader site.  I wonder if it is really a cockpit view or a Google Earth view from where they are.   Google Earth is showing Anchorage dressed for summer.  So is flightradar for that matter.



I've got enough things in my life pulling my attention in different directions, and I never quite understood how it would make my life better, so I've not signed up for Twitter.  But every now and then I do end up there and try to figure out how it's supposed to make my life better.

And I found a picture of the airtraffic map here.   Then I tried to figure out where it came from, since I didn't see a link to the source or any source.  I tried to embed the whole tweet, but all it gave me was his text.  I can cut and paste that myself:

Andrew Kaczynski ‏@BuzzFeedAndrew

This is insane. The number of planes currently in the air for holiday travel. pic.twitter.com/WEYOgIv4