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

[jamesharding]

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!

[ok_computer]

Cool visualization for your personal logbook. How is the raw or display data stored?

The globe map reminds me of this hexagonal grid article from my bookmarks I’d found on here or reddit.

https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/

As an airline pilot, I am curious, have you watched the season 2 of Nathan Fielder’s Rehearsal on HBO, that comically addresses the topic of pilot-copilot communication?

If so what are your thoughts on his portrayal of the existence of copilot communication friction. And without intending to dig into your personal business, do you think there is a tendency and survivor (retention) bias for the profession to remain high functioning ______, without recognizing a need for help. Or is this portrayal of stunted coworker dialog an edge case that is amplified from his perspective.

[jamesharding]

The data is all in a sqlite file from my logbook software! I wrote a little post about extracting the data here: https://jameshard.ing/posts/querying-logten-pilot-logbook-sq...

I have only seen a few clips from The Rehersal (the bit with Sully listening to Evanescence), so I don't have much to go on. Pilot communication is definitely something that we spend a lot of time talking about and training (under the larger banner of CRM - crew resource management), and in my experience the industry is making real efforts to be better in this area!

[wetoastfood]

> How is the raw or display data stored?

He answered in the post that he uses LogTen Pro[1] which enables querying with SQL[2]. In the SQL post he says the app has an export for CSV but the app stores it in SQLite which you can access and query from directly.

[1] https://logten.com/ [2] https://jameshard.ing/posts/querying-logten-pilot-logbook-sq...

[fastball]

I assumed the globe was using Uber's H3 library for the hexagons.

[bombcar]

Reminds me of https://youtu.be/1SKDvQzcasg which is quite old.

[voxleone]

Very cool. I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading through your detailed flight logs — the way you’ve documented your experience, from distances and time in the air to the nuances of roles (P1, P2, PICUS), was fascinating.

As someone concerned with these matters — developing SpinStep, a quaternion-based library for modeling orientation and vector state evolution in physical systems — I found myself unexpectedly inspired by your data. It got me thinking: could these kinds of spatiotemporal logs, with their emphasis on direction, roles, and environmental influences, be approached through something like rotational state modeling?

For example:

.Aircraft headings and orientation changes could map naturally to quaternions.

.Role transitions (e.g. P1 ↔ P2) resemble discrete state changes within a continuous system.

.Wind effects or flight network patterns might even be modeled as external fields influencing orientation over time.

I hadn’t envisioned SpinStep in this context, but your log offered a compelling perspective. Whether or not it leads to something concrete, I just wanted to thank you for the inspiration.

.https://github.com/VoxleOne/SpinStep/blob/main/README.md \

.https://github.com/VoxleOne/SpinStep/blob/main/docs/01-ratio...

[jampekka]

The repo reads a bit LLM written.

Quaternions have some nice properties for some operations with 3D rotations, but they are not a panacea.

[the_arun]

Folks like you (expert in multiple domains) are an inspiration for people like me. I always dream to do something other than my day job. Hope I push through my laziness to do it some day !

[ProZsolt]

Sometimes I wish software development didn’t pay so exceptionally well. I’m interested in so many other things, but it’s hard to justify switching to another full-time field, knowing it would mean a significant pay cut.

[jamesharding]

What a kind comment :) Thank you!

[sillyfluke]

There's an oft-repeated line that goes something like, "I was lucky enough to be terrible at my first job." ie, optionality is a curse.

[weinzierl]

That is beautiful. Besides the globe and the cool animations I like the dashboard that shows summary stats.

This made me think. Either Frauenhofer or Helmholtz in Germany used to have a site where you could enter your specific flights and it would tell you your overall radiation exposure. This was meant mainly for flight personnel and it was not nearly as beautiful. The accumulated exposure would be a useful addition for the dashboard.

[jamesharding]

A great idea!

The company that I work for does actually provide us with our cumulative dosage data for the month/year/lifetime, but not at such a granular level. Do you know of any statistical way that I could calculate this?

I suppose I could work out the great circle routes and the approximate dosage in that airspace at a given time?

[mcflubbins]

Nomadlist had (has?) radiation exposure for all of your trips too, I was shocked when I saw the stats!

[zX41ZdbW]

I have a similar visualization on top of ~150 billion data points of ADS-B data: https://adsb.exposed/

It is interactive, so you can filter by any dimension, like the types of aircraft you fly.

It is 2D, but I thought about making it 3D as well.

PS. The map you showed is somewhat slow - when I zoom in, the framerate is less than 10.

[leeoniya]

wow, that's some serious data crunching.

can you share some tech details?

[18172828286177]

Being a professional pilot while also being able to put together such a polished software project like this is incredibly impressive

[barbazoo]

It’s not a 9-5 for many and time between flights can be significant. Not surprised they do that as a hobby on the side. Not imagining they’re doing anything during the flight.

[shawabawa3]

do pilots get to mess around on a laptop while flying? My understanding is that most of a flight is just sitting there waiting for landing to start, could mean a lot of spare time to pick up programming

[perks_12]

He graduated from UofT with a major in CompSci.

[inoffensivename]

I love what you've done with your logbook, but the coolest part of the page was the photo of you on the flight deck with your Dad.

I'm an airline pilot here in the US and it would be the privilege of a lifetime to be able to do that with one of my kids.

[jamesharding]

It truly has been the career highlight for me! He will be retiring in a few months, so we have the last flight together planned aleady.

Hopefully you will be able to have the same experience with your kids! What fleet are you on currently?

[ccorcos]

You should add time dilation to your list of statistics! You’re probably around 5 microseconds younger than someone who stayed in Earth!

[jamesharding]

Flying Eastbound across the international date line also kind of counts as going back in time, right?

[_dark_matter_]

Okay but I commute to work so give me a picosecond back please.

[imp0cat]

The logbook is nice, but the split-flap display is downright awesome. ;)

https://jameshard.ing/projects/split-flap

[jamesharding]

Glad you like it! I have a screen on there which shows my flights live while airborne - maybe worth a post of its own :)

[jakub_g]

If you're interested in the subject, let me introduce you to GCMap.

GCMap can plot a line between any two IATA airport codes; actually you can put arbitrary number of pairs comma separated; and best of all, they can be passed as a URL param. For example: `JFK-LHR,LHR-CDG,CDG-FRA`

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-LHR,LHR-CDG,CDG-FRA

I track my own flights by sending an email to myself with a GCMap URL every now and then.

[kccqzy]

GCMap doesn't have a whole lot of different map projections to choose from. Having more than one pair on a single map will result in a pretty bad map projection. That's my biggest complaint. They really need to add more better projections such as Mollweide, Winkel Tripel, Robinson, etc. Or they should just have a globe.

[david422]

Looks great, thanks for sharing! One thing I love about software engineering is that you can apply it to so many different aspects of ordinary life. Showing your flight career like this is really cool.

[jamesharding]

It is so true! This XKCD comic always comes to mind though with projects like this: https://xkcd.com/1205/

[joemi]

Nice metrics and visualizations! The kind of graph you used for the destination matrix doesn't always feel very useful, but in this case it worked really well.

One thing I immediately thought to check after seeing your hours graph was what percentage of the year you were in flight (or in a plane, I guess). For your peak year (2024), it worked out to be about 8.7% of the year! It probably even higher if you just count your waking hours, but I don't know your sleep habits or how many of your flights you might have slept during.

[jamesharding]

You did the math! Thank you :)

It is one of the pecularities of the job, in that I will be "at work" for 4 days, but only actually strapped into an airplane for 8-14 hours at the beginning and end of that - the rest is mandated (and much needed) resting.

[amelius]

You could turn this into a product!

Something pilots can link to from their LinkedIn accounts.

And of course to impress friends and family.

[halilkoklu]

Inspiring profile with beautiful charts.

Glad to have found someone else with a similar background who decided to fly jets.

I had a good run as a software engineer and executive for the last 20 years. I have just completed my Airbus 320 type rating waiting for my base check. I will be flying for a national flag carrier.

[Crier1002]

This is awesome and I love it. Thanks for sharing! I'm just wondering what made you wanna be a pilot instead of sticking with a regular software engineering career, especially since you’ve got a degree in that and, of course, your talent here :)

[jamesharding]

Thanks! My father being a pilot certainly played a large part, not in the sense that he forced me into it, but rather that I had the opportunity to sit on the jump seat as a kid (pre-9/11) and it planted the seed quite early.

After finishing my degree, British Airways had opened their cadet pilot scheme - windows of opportunity like that are usually short and infrequent, so I went for it! The nice this is that I can still code and keep up on the software engineering trends (what I tell myself while checking HN for the n-th time in a day) on the side, and I think it is also a safe set of skills to have in case I can no longer fly (pandemics, losing my medical, etc)

[alabhyajindal]

Very cool! I didn't know pilots are required to maintain a logbook. What's the official recommendation for this - using a paper logbook?

[jamesharding]

Each country has slightly different requirements! For the US, here is the FAA rule for it: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-D...

A lot of people still use paper (and fill it in after landing each flight), but there are quite a few digital options on the market now. I use one called LogTen, which stores everything in a SQLite file behind the scenes which is what I used to make this.

[arccy]

I wonder if you can spread out the airport labels a bit when they're clustered together, like the cluster around CYOO in the US.

[jamesharding]

Good idea! Not sure exactly how to do this with globe.gl but I will look into it.

[silasdavis]

There seems to be some crossover between the software and flying 'communities'. Perhaps this is rather unsurprising given some of the shared prerequisite skills? Is it your experience there are many commercial pilots who code?

Do you expect to get 100% of the way to the sun over your career?

[jamesharding]

There are quite a few ex-engineers who fly (though anecdotally, most seemed to have studied aerospace engineering. At this rate, I think I am on track to make it about 10% of the way there by the time I retire (unless supersonic travel comes back in a large way!)

[kinow]

Amazing visualization. Any plans to add more features to each log? e.g. difficulty of taking-off/flying to/landing, or trajectory with/out turbulence, etc.?

[jamesharding]

Thank you! I have text comments/remarks for all particularly memorable flights (for all of the above reasons you mentioned, plus famous passengers, family on board, etc), but some of those are quite private and also difficult to show in a visualisation like this.

I would love to track more data over time, but balancing that with it being easy to collect is the challenge!

[xyst]

Should add the amount of CO2 emissions per flight since you know the model of plane(s). And if you have occupancy data for each flight, can even determine efficiency.