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 9

dkga 6/27/2025|

Fascinating!

jcsnv 6/27/2025||

this is so cool!

baroquetaxers0s 6/27/2025||

this is cool

b0a04gl 6/27/2025||

when a route doesn't come back as a roundtrip , like you fly LHR > HKG but not the return . how does that usually get handled on your end? do you deadhead back, get reassigned regionally or wait out a layover cycle?

jamesharding 6/27/2025|

Good question! There are a few routes in my data where the outbound and inbound sectors don't match for this exact reason. Since almost all of our flights begin and end at LHR, if a flight is cancelled we either operate the flight the following day, or fet "positioned" (our word for deadhead) home as a passenger.

Usually when a route changes aircraft, there is a requirement to "position" some pilots out a few days before as passengers to bring the aircraft home when it lands there for the first time. Logistically, very complex!

Shadowfight 6/27/2025||

[dead]

napierzaza 6/28/2025||

[dead]

supportengineer 6/27/2025||

Here I am having accomplished apparently nothing in my life.

gavmor 6/27/2025||

Your handle is "supportengineer". Presumably you outrank OP if you count assists, or a share of others' successes.

Do the developers of the libraries he used count this site as a personal accomplishment? Do the airplane mechanics? Do their support engineers?

We participate in a circulatory economy, but we haven't yet adopted a perspective of circulatory attribution. Maybe we never will. Maybe we never should.

Maybe you should recognize your piecemeal contributions as a sort of ikigai, or maybe you should see this as a wakeup call to carpe diem.

Thanks for the opportunity to pontificate!

uncleDingle 6/27/2025|||

Relatable

oulipo 6/27/2025||

[flagged]

Wololooo 6/27/2025||

Oh come on, lighten up a little, it's Friday, it's kinda cool as a display tool. should we reduce the number of flights and CO2 released? Of course.

But no need to be rolling in on a guy that just did something neat...

lucasban 6/27/2025||

I’m also not sure how much sense it makes to talk about the personal carbon footprint of a pilot flying for their job, in terms of “could they make decisions that would change how much is released”

purple_mugs 6/27/2025|

[flagged]