Ever wondered what side of the plane is the best in order to avoid that early morning glare? Or you want to make sure you capture a beautiful sunset at 36,000 feet?
Then SunFlight could be for you! [Chrome only at the moment]
Created during THack Singapore in October 2011, SunFlight uses flight scheduling data provided by OAG OnDemand to plot on a Google Map exactly where the sun will be in relation to the progress of a flight.
After sitting around on the servers of GetFlight, an Australia-based flight search engine run by ex-Travellr boss Ian Cumming, for the past eight months, SunFlight has now been picked up by the influential Google Maps Mania blog.
Although SunFlight didn’t win THack Singapore at the time, it was praised by the judges for its creativity, ease-of-use and viability as a tool airlines and OTAs might consider using.
So how does it work?
Users enter any flight number for a trip and then plots the route on the map. It then adds a shaded area to illustrate night and day and also the sun’s position.
So here is Qantas flight QF320 from London Heathrow to Singapore later today. The aircraft symbol shows the flight in London at 21:15 local time, just after dusk.
Six and half hours into the flight and QF320 is somewhere over Afghanistan. It is coming up to mid-morning and the sun is on the left-hand side of the aircraft (note the sun symbol over the Philippines).
Fast forward to landing at Singapore’s Changi Airport (12.5 hours after take-off) and passengers on the right-hand side of the aircraft will get a wonderful sunset to the rear of their view from the plane.
It is worth mentioning that this hack was created in just 24 hours in Singapore.
As someone said at the time: “It would take my developers weeks to do that!”
NB: Not too late to join THack London. Other THacks for 2012 to be announced very soon!
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Plus 20 bucks to book that sunny side seat, with Qantas.
But thinking about it on the QF 320…
LHR SIN 2115#1705 @QF 320 F3 A1 J2 C0 DC IC WC TC Y9 B0#744C*E
You’d get on at Heathrow at 8.45pm in the dark and when would the blinds come up? 2 hour before arrival? Would you pay for that? Hmmm.
Still twas done quickly. Looks cool too. Nice map work.
I like it. I admire it. It’s clever. It’s elegant… (you can feel the “But” coming)….
But it’s not exactly rocket science.
The sun’s overhead position drifts south to the Tropic of Capricorn (Queensland, Namibia, Paraguay), which it reaches at the winter solstice (December). Then it starts drifting north to the Tropic of Cancer where it arrives about now (June).
The Tropic of Cancer runs through the Sahara, northern India, and Mexico. If your flight is anywhere north of those countries, (what, 80% of global air traffic?) then at any time of the year the sun will be port side flying west and starboard flying east.
Still, this would be handy for flights out of Singapore in March or October!
@alastair thx for the comment. Our motivation for showcasing it here is because it was also built in 24 hours.
And yes, (and to Mr rtwflights) I probably should’ve picked a more dramatic example.
TBF I was thinking – but didn’t want to add for the sake of not complicating an already complicated comment
– that while routes running on a mostly north-south axis are also pretty easy to work out in your head where the sun will be (eg, a morning flight from London to Oslo will probably have the sun on the starboard side), it starts getting much more complicated on ‘diagonal’ (eg. NW-SE) routes, particularly longhaul flights on curved ‘great circle’ flightpaths!
Oh, and programming it in 24hrs IS the work of genii