Thanksgiving is one of the, if not the, busiest travel day of the year in the United States.
Below is a YouTube video, prepared by Peter Richie, showing a 20-hour timelapse of U.S. airspace from approx 2AM to 10PM EST on November 27th 2013:
- Yellow planes represent aircraft with ADS-B (live global tracking).
- Orange planes represent aircraft monitored by FAA tracking alone (slower rate of refresh).
- Red planes represent aircraft that have changed their Squawk Code (may be loss of communications, a hijacking, or a general emergency).
FOTM’s joworth, who sent me the video, has the perfect description:
Like a busy bee hive
Contrast the Thanksgiving airspace to this one on a “normal” day, 4AM-4PM EST December 8th, 2012:
H/t BigGeekDaddy and FOTM’s joworth
~Eowyn