Take a guided tour of UK skies

‘Second album’ Brendan? Are you sure this is not a re-released ‘de-luxe edition’? I’ve had something very similar on my hard-drive for about 9 months. I fact, I nearly used it at a presentation a week-or-so back, but we ran out of time. Hope you’re well.

Why always mention Heathrow? What Gatwick has achieved, with regards to movements per hour, under NATS control is more impressive (speaking as a non-approach, LTMA controller). The fact we have the busiest single and dual runway operations within 20 miles of each other is also worthy of mention. All in all, another impressive video.

Fantastic visual, absolutely mesmerising!

Ross, BA Dispatch LHR

Superb! Great work, guys – very impressive…

What a wonderful experience 🙂

Glad Aberdeen has been included to show that it is not a quiet little airfield in N.E. Scotland!

There are a couple of places where there appears to a high altitude aircraft following a perfectly circular hold over the Yorkshire/Durham area and over the Shetland/Orkney area – what are these?

where is London Southend Airport?

Absolutely loved watching this 🙂

Fascinating viewing Brendan! Shame its not longer – could watch it over and over again

Really great film, I loved watching it. Does anyone know what the accompanying sound track is called please?

Is this derived from internal only data? I have been curious about mapping 2 dimensionally, hot spot areas of the U.S. for elementary school purposes.

A great visualisation of a world that is taken for granted by most travelling public, yet one that has taken decades to create.

Does any one know the name of the music being played on the video ?

Gatwick is just NOT London. So please continue to NOT mention Gatwick. I hate Gatwick! If there is no TUBE connection, you CANNOT be a London hub. Heathrow and London City are by far the ONLY airport you SHOULD invest in further. FORGET Gatwick, it’s far by car, far by rail and far BEHIND the levels of service you get at London City and Heathrow! I am GLAD you DID NOT mention Gatwick! Hoora!

Amazing

My daughter worked at Nats and her hubby works at controlling air traffic, so we are interested in their work. Had no idea it was so busy up there, brilliant viewing fastinating stuff. Respect to all who keep our airways safe.
From Madeleine Green.

Why is the north of England completely missing from this video?

I would love to see a similar visualization of how weather affects air traffic such as when winds shift to the East, requiring a reversal of the normal flow of arrival and departure traffic.

Any chance you could do a beautiful version of this animation ? Watching the storm cells move through, and the planes be vectored around them, is mesmerizing. It doesn’t have to be ATL, but I don’t know if other airports have the same volume of traffic and weather.

Thank you.

What a superb video – Comms professional from an unrelated discipline!

Absolutely brilliant. Worth watching more than just a few times.

Wow. 🙂

Just had to say as a visualisation, this series has been some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Really great job.

Amazing and very inspiring visualisation!

Awesome information and beautifully visualized! As a data scientist, I am very curious to understand what software was used to produce these 3-d spatial visualizations. Could you share?

Jimbo, FYI SEN is to the right of LHR.

brilliantly done, very interesting, very well put together and very scary. only glad is it is you and not me and as a frequent flyer in the skies over london every week, keep up the good work!!

Wow! Really interesting. Thanks for publishing.

Great work, stunning visual and important final paragraph re: the value of aviation to the UK economy.

With economic growth looking like it’s coming from Asia, North and South America over coming years, the rampant political dithering around airport expansion (obviously both Heathrow AND Gatwick need an additional runway) could cost the UK dearly.

Didn’t it look like Dubai was going to have more international movements than Heathrow this year?

My respect goes to the entire aviation industry, its commitment, professionalism and relentlessly high standards.

The incumbent and one or two previous UK Governments should apologise to us all for consistent lack of vision.

I saw the UK visualisation last week.
A few days ago I wanted to teach some year 5 pupils about how networks are all around them and your visualisation would have been incredible.

Unfortunately it is on Vimeo (which i use for other reasons) which is completely blocked in many schools.
Is there any way I could get a copy of the video on to my own site, which is not blocked. Obviously I would give all accreditation to your organisation.

Hi!

First of all, kudos for these gobsmacking videos. Breath-taking. Really.
Everything is right from the illumination of the Sun, the aerial photography projected on the DEM to the size of the planes, the colors, transparency and persistence of the trajectories, the 3D polygonal R or F-zone representation, etc. Awesome.

As a chief editor of a (French) magazine dedicated to GIS, I’d be delighted to write an article on the technical aspects of these first-class videos: software used – GIS, database if any – graphical choices, time passed on the footage, etc. Would that be possible?

Thanks and carry on the good job, both in the skies above and here over the Internet!

What a brilliant visualisation of the air traffic picture above us. Seriously impressed. Excellent work….

Seriously amazing! Well done to the traffic controllers.

Fantastic!
I would have liked it to finish with the Westbound North Atlantic flow as it started with the Eastbound North Atlantic flow.

Who were the illustrators behind this? It’s amazing!

It’s a very complex system, made easy for aircraft movement in such massive air traffic.

Between 16.20hrs and 16.50hrs today tues. 19th jan 2016 i saw twelve multi-engined large jets being flown south to north about five miles west of worcester city, they were almost in formation, i.e. fyling at the same altitude and on the same flite path, i have never seen that in this area over the last thirty years, any ideas?

I find all of your comments infuriating, beautiful???, you should try living under one of these flight paths. The film clip has just highlighted how much air traffic is passing overhead. Today flights are passing over Cardigan in West Wales continuously the noise is horrendous a constant roaring as planes pass above with very few breaks. Over the years this has increased to an unacceptable noise level. This area of the UK you would expect to be peaceful. To be honest I am sick of it and also infuriated because I have been trawling round the NATS site for an hour or more trying to find information as to why so many air craft are concentrated over this area and why they are not spread out across the UK north to south to give people a bit of peace. Can anyone tell me who I contact to get more info. I rang the number provided and it just rang and rang and then cut out. I want detailed info on flight paths, what height air craft is flying, at what height they should be flying at, who I can speak to about my concerns and how I can campaign to have traffic no longer concentrated so much in one area.??????

I live in Central Scotland and frequently the transatlantic traffic overflies us
Could you tell me what the frequency is to listen to ATC for transatlantic traffic

I live in monmouthshire on the same westbound Atlantic Flightpath and have also been trying to find out why this concentration of aircraft has happened since autumn 2014. One every three minutes, often several at once. I have written to everyone I can think of and always receive the same reply…that aircraft above 25,000ft are barely audible and that it is not therefore deemed necessary to undertake any analyses of the acoustic impact of concentrated Flightpaths in rural areas. Please undertake acoustic survey work and please consider using the new navigation technology to rotate concentrated flightpaths everywhere, not just close to the London airports. We all share responsibility to reduce emissions but in principle it cannot be right to accept PBN is problematic below 7,000 ft but somehow not a problem above 7,000ft, regardless of ambient noise level.

These NATS visualizations are the best and most realistic in their presentation. Unlike the FAA and their unrealistic 2-dimensional replays, where each aircraft symbol depicted is the equivalent of 30 miles long! In an misleading attempt to make U.S. skies appear completely “covered” by aircraft. (rolls eyes)

it seems no one is willing to accept the FACT that aircraft at 35 to 40 000 ft are noisy on the ground the flight path over the cardigan area is audiable at up to 58db down the teifi valley many of these flights could be given a much shorter route over the sea why are the authorities in denial ? a reply from someone at nats would be appreciated .

We live in Cumbria and are interested and concerned to know whether planes are allowed to fly over Sellafield?