The Map Room

Paper maps have been replaced by their digital equivalents in many fields, but the idea that paper aviation charts could be replaced by an app running on an iPad is something new. Wired: “The Federal Aviation Administration is allowing charter company Executive Jet Management to use Apple’s tablet as an approved alternative to paper charts. The authorization follows three months of rigorous testing and evaluation of the iPad and Mobile TC, a map app developed by aviation chartmaker Jeppesen.” Via Engadget.

This video is a visualization of the resumption of flights over European airspace after everything got shut down due to volcanic ash. ITO World combined flight data from flightradar24.com with OpenStreetMap map data; there are some gaps in coverage (France, the Atlantic), but you get the idea. Via La Cartoteca.

The Norwegian Meteorological Office has put together a time-lapse animation showing the spread of the ash cloud emitted by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. I’ve converted it from the original animated GIF, which is nearly 14 MB, and uploaded it here. Yellow indicates ash that has fallen by itself, red ash that has fallen as a result of precipitation, and black where the ash cloud is at that moment in time. More information (in Norwegian) here.

Radar Virtuel is a map of European airspace that shows the real-time positions of aircraft; lately it has been showing (1) an overlay of the ash cloud and (2) not many aircraft in the air. For obvious reasons the site has been kind of hard to load lately (or I would have been able to mention it in my previous entry on Eyjafjallajökull). Via Mapperz.

Matt Fox has put together a Google Earth layer of IFR Enroute Low Altitude Charts, which are used for airplane navigation under instrument flight rules at altitudes below 18,000 feet (5,500 metres); note that the charts are not current and shouldn’t actually be used for navigation.

Both the first- and second-prize winners of this year’s National Geographic Award in Mapping are graduate students from the University of Wisconsin, Madison — a fact that the university’s geography department trumpets. Rising Skyline: The Tallest Buildings in Europe, 1875-2007 (680 KB PNG) by Daniel Huffman, which maps “the location of each of the 118 buildings ranked among the thirty tallest buildings in Europe at some point between 1875 and 2007,” came first; Ben Coakley’s map, Scheduled Service on Small Airlines in Canada, Summer 2008 (2.2 MB PDF), came second. Third prize went to Gregg Verutes of San Diego State University for his interactive map of Accra, Ghana (10 MB flash). Via AnyGeo.

Previously: National Geographic Cartography Award Winner.

Mario Freese writes to pimp his Air Lines art project. “Every single scheduled flight on any given day is represented by a fine line from its point of origin to it’s port of destination, thereby forming a net of…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Never having flown them, I was not aware that Southwest Airlines printed their route map on the cocktail napkins they hand out to passengers during the flight. That’s kind of neat. Via Cartophilia….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Flightmapping.com’s interactive maps show airline routes between airports in the UK and Ireland and, well, everywhere else in the world — which reflects the site’s overall focus, viz., providing flight information to and from the British Isles. Of limited…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Wired: “Two million flights pass through New York’s airspace each year. Artist Aaron Koblin used images from his piece, Flight Patterns, to create a Google map representing air traffic across the United States over a 24-hour period. The map…  •  Continue reading this entry.

About.com’s Amanda Briney has a primer on great circles. A great circle is the shortest distance between two points on a sphere; sailors and aviators use great circles to get the fastest and most efficient route from point A to…  •  Continue reading this entry.

A simulation of global air traffic over 24 hours: Cooool. Via Gadling and Infonaut. Previously: Flight Patterns….  •  Continue reading this entry.

A new book from the University of Chicago Press looks interesting: Cartographies of Travel and Navigation, edited by James R. Akerman, a collection of essays about the history of all kinds of transportation-related maps — railroads, roads, nautical and…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Aaron Koblin took FAA flight data and made some flashy animations out of the flight paths. Via atlas(t)….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Edward Tufte has been asked “to take a look at airport runway maps and how runway incursions might be reduced by better maps”; the discussion on his bulletin board makes for interesting reading, particularly in light of the recent…  •  Continue reading this entry.

I love looking at aeronautical charts even if I have no idea what to do with them; I just think all the detail is neat. So it’s no surprise that I’ve been enjoying playing with the aeronautical charts collected…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Cartography has a great post about online collections of airline route maps, at the eponymous Airline Route Maps and elsewhere. See previous entry: Old Airline Route Maps….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Readers have written in asking about wall-sized maps before, but Joe Thompson is looking for something a lot more specific. Actually, in his case, the charts he wants are too big; he’s looking for a way to make them smaller:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Huw — probably my best link submitter — writes in with another one: a series of maps on UAV safety. That’s unmanned aerial vehicles: think Predator drones. Unmanned aircraft are apparently 100 times less reliable than manned aircraft; the maps…  •  Continue reading this entry.