When I was a kid in Connecticut I remember noticing a regular pattern in my daily routine. Each morning at 7:55am as I walked a couple of blocks to Croft High School, a jet airliner passed over heading north. It was pretty high up and I guessed that it had started in New York. There was no way to find out for sure where it came from and where it was going.
Now there is. One of the first iPhone applications I bought was Flight Tracker from fboweb. As with the web-based version, it’s a handy way to find out where a particular flight is. I’ve used it at airports during layovers and June has used it to see when to leave to pick me up. Just a few days ago, they released a new version for the iPhone that adds a new degree of coolness: it can show you all flights near you. In addition to looking for flights coming to or from a particular airport, you can also ask if for anything within a 20 mile radius of where you’re standing, thanks to the iPhone’s location-awareness.
Our house is under the approach path for Montgomery field, a small airport for general aviation. From the back yard we can see planes landing at Miramar, the military base where Top Gun was filmed and airliners coming in from the north before heading inland to come down at Lindbergh Field. All of those are included in Flight Tracker. So now, I can sit out in the back and no longer wonder where that bright light in the sky is coming from. A few pokes on the screen and I know.
Planes overhead are as much a part of the natural environment of city kids as birds and bugs are in the country. Planespotting won’t replace bird watching as a hobby, but it’s nicely doable from anywhere. I can imagine creative teachers making use of this tool as a way to teach about trig, algebra, and geography. Not bad for $0.99!