24 Hours of Flight Patterns
+ Brandon Fuller
Aaron Koblin offers a video showing 24 hours worth of flight patterns in the United States. John Metcalfe of The Atlantic Cities Blog offers a good description:
Air traffic is heavy in the early evening but hits a low of about 4,100 in-transit flights around 4 a.m. EST. It rockets upward again after the sun rises, peaking around 3 p.m. Take-offs flow in a wave across the country as people wake up and get to the airport. On the East Coast, flights shoot out of major hubs like New York City and Atlanta like the sparks of exploding fireworks, while solitary jets squirm around like protozoa in less-populous areas like Canada and the Gulf of Mexico.
More of Koblin’s work here.