Show HN: I'm an airline pilot – I built interactive graphs/globes of my flights
114 comments
·June 27, 2025ok_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!
im_down_w_otp
Hey! I used to work for the company that makes that logbook software. That was a great job. The CEO was an amateur pilot himself and really, really loved software product design.
It's been over a decade, but it's cool to see that software still being iterated on and pilots still loving it.
Even cooler to see someone such as yourself extending its usefulness by leveraging the data. Cheers!
jamesharding
Awesome!
You can tell that the software is created by people passionate about aviation (and also passionate about nice UX, something that most all of the Logten competitors really lack). Do you remember if my guess about using NSDate internally was correct?
ok_computer
Cool, thank you for the response and details.
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...
bombcar
Reminds me of https://youtu.be/1SKDvQzcasg which is quite old.
fastball
I assumed the globe was using Uber's H3 library for the hexagons.
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?
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 !
jamesharding
What a kind comment :) Thank you!
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
mbreese
I don’t think the cognitive context switching required would be a good fit. I imagine pilots always have to be “on” just in case something happens, even if they are letting the plane do some of the routine flying.
perks_12
He graduated from UofT with a major in CompSci.
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/
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.
mattfrommars
If I understand OP journey, was he fortunate to have been scholarship to fund his studies to become a pilot?
I was looking into pilot school here and they cost upwards to $100k
vmh1928
Air Cadets appears to be a part of the Canadian Armed Forces and intended to provide an on-ramp for young people interested in different aspects of the Armed Forces (Army, flying, Naval.)
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/service...
Qualifications to join the Air Cadets. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/service...
jamesharding
Exactly this. When I joined, the company offered a cadet scheme where the company would underwrite the loan required for your pilot training (84,000 GBP in 2016), and then that amount was repaid to us over 84 months of employment (while on a reduced cadet salary). It essentially spread the cost of training out over 7 years.
The current cadet scheme is better in the sense that you do not have to take on a personal loan for the flight training!
ta12653421
Beautiful!
Make an App out of it, sell it to your colleagues? why not?
Peterpanzeri
Damn this is soo cool im not even close to understrand all of it but its damn beautiful
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.
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.
pinoy420
[dead]
sokoloff
You are only required to log time required for 61.51.a.1 or .a.2, but are not required to log “all [your] flying hours” by the FAA. (Your airline might require it and it’s a good idea to log all your flights, but it’s not a law.)
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!)
null
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!