Show HN: I'm an airline pilot – I built interactive graphs/globes of my flights

Posted by jamesharding 6/27/2025

Show HN: I'm an airline pilot – I built interactive graphs/globes of my flights(jameshard.ing)

Hey HN!

Pilots everywhere are required to keep a logbook of all their flying hours, aircraft, airports, and so on. Since I track everything digitally (some people still just use paper logbooks!), I put together some data visualizations and a few 3D globes to show my flying history.

This globe is probably my favourite so far: https://jameshard.ing/pilot/globes/all

If you’ve got ideas for other graphs or ways to show this kind of data, I’d love to hear them!

1539 points | 197 commentspage 4

andreygrehov 6/27/2025|

This is great work! I have a somewhat off-topic question. How are your ears? Do pilots have any tricks to save their ears from getting clogged due to the constant pressure changes?

Second question. Would it be possible to predict flight delays based on the number of inbound and outbound flights?

jamesharding 6/27/2025||

Thank you :) I haven't had issue with my ears (other than the occasional lingering cold), but usually a good yawn or chewing gum will clear it. On a normal day, I am fortunate to have wide eustacian tubes I guess!

lbotos 6/27/2025||

Not a pilot but fly frequently -- A lot of the modern larger planes 787 Dreamliner or an A330/350 have something that helps with the ear clogging.

I travel NY/LON a lot, and I rarely have any ear popping. If I travel on a smaller plane say NY -> Miami, I easily get the clogged feeling.

netsharc 6/27/2025||

The newer planes pressurize their cabin to a lower simulated altitude.

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/1728/does-the-b...

iamspoilt 6/27/2025||

Having a computer engineering background, what motivated you to become a pilot and switch careers?

jamesharding 6/27/2025||

I had always been interested in aviation, and I was fortunate that I was in the right place at the right time after graduation to join an airline on a sponsored "cadet scheme".

I still (hopefully evidently) very much love software/engineering, but I guess I chose the path of "professional pilot, hobbyist engineer" over the alternative of "professional engineer, hobbyist pilot".

phkahler 6/27/2025|||

>> chose the path of "professional pilot, hobbyist engineer" over the alternative of "professional engineer, hobbyist pilot"

Both pay well for a job, but as a hobby the costs are very different ;-)

avgDev 6/27/2025||||

I loved programming before doing it as a job. Now, I really can't be bothered to program outside of work.

At what age did you make this change?

I love medicine, researching diseases I hear about and learning about the body is hobby for me. I would love to get into it but I am almost 40.

svara 6/27/2025||

> I would love to get into it but I am almost 40.

You're young! Saying that as a fellow almost-40.

joshvm 6/27/2025|||

I'm surprised how wide the acceptance age range is for BA's program (18-55). Is it common for people to transfer from unrelated careers? Nice to know that door isn't technically shut for a while!

iamspoilt 6/27/2025||

Looking at your projects, seems like you still have the hacker going in you! Saw Home Assistant one! Kudos!

jamesharding 6/27/2025||

Love Home Assistant! I have a screen on my split flap display that shows aircraft flying overhead our house (at very high level) - all fed by home assistant and various HACS addons.

maxehmookau 6/27/2025||

This is super cool, although perhaps the coolest thing is that this website is part of a WEBRING!

jonlucc 6/27/2025||

This is great data visualization of interesting data! I'm curious about the last graph; there seems to be something making some of the longest flights take more time/nm. Is that real or an artifact, and is there an explanation for the tail?

jamesharding 6/27/2025|

Great question! It is not an anomaly, it is very geographically specific.

Due the the Ukraine war (and my home base being in the UK), we have to fly the long way around to get to far-east destinations like Tokyo and Hong Kong. Flying outbound from London we have to fly down over Turkey (which adds about two hours of flight time).

Flying home from Tokyo with the ongoing airspace closure, if the the weather is suitable at the ETOPS airports enroute, it is actually quicker to fly home eastbound again, flying up over Alaska. A proper around-the-world in 4 days!

rob74 6/27/2025||

So for London-Tokyo the return route is completely different from the outbound route? Fascinating! I guess that has something to do with the jetstream (which only helps you when travelling eastbound)?

jamesharding 6/29/2025||

Exactly that! This is the only route that I know of where this is the case.

Looks like today’s flight home is following that route: https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW8/history/20250629...

piker 6/27/2025||

So cool! I assumed that pilots just generally flew the same hops back and forth over and over, but it seems at first glance that there is actually a lot of variety.

Does it make you nervous when you have to land in a new place for the first time?

jamesharding 6/27/2025|

I guess the variety of flights is based on which aircraft one flies! I flew the A320 for the first 6 years, which covered all of Europe and a little bit of North Africa (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan). Now flying the A350, there is more of the world unlocked, but there are still some routes that only other aircraft (777/787/A380) fly at my company.

We have comprehensive company data for each airport that we operate to, and some of the more challenging airports have special training (in the simulator) as a requirement, or a video briefing. Nervous would be the wrong word, but it is always exciting to fly somewhere new!

undebuggable 6/27/2025||

My IT career is rather nowhere, my glider training terminated before going solo, at least have equally cool domain. Good to know someone is succeeding overall in all these, haha. Entertaining post and engaging data presentation!

simonjgreen 6/28/2025||

Noticed the last logged flight is KDEN>EGLL. I do that KDEN<>EGLL route many times per year, sometimes multiple per month. I wonder if I’m ever on a flight with James :) Will have to listen out!

jamesharding 6/29/2025|

If you ever hear my name on the PA, please come up to say hello! In fact, after the flight when it is not busy, we are always happy to have visitors in the flight deck. Feel free to drop me a message any time too, the A350 is a pretty small fleet, so the chances are higher than one would think! :)

aquafox 6/27/2025||

I would plot the destination matrix as a jeatap where each row is a departure and each column an arrival and color is the number of trips. Additionally, you could cluster the rows and columns of this heatmap.

malteeez 6/27/2025||

Awesome data and perspective!

Do you have any takes on the performance and quality of ATC systems across your most frequent routes? Have you noticed any patterns in terms of delays, communication efficiency and related..

Chico75 6/27/2025|

I'm curious to know what is the small concentrated cluster of flights Northwest of Dulles airport, where the flight durations seem way too high compared to the effective distance between the points.

jamesharding 6/27/2025|

Those are all of my flights in light aircraft around my hometown in Canada! They fly a little bit slower than the A350 :) There is a similar cluster around the south of Spain where I completed my Commercial/ATPL training.

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