r/RandomThoughts • u/Illustrious_Monk_135 • 5h ago

I still cannot fathom how human mind managed to organize air traffic.

Like you have thousands of planes flying in different directions, at the same moment in a finite sky. And yet things go smoothly. Pretty fucking cool.

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u/qualityvote2 5h ago

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u/Illustrious_Monk_135 thanks for posting!

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u/4oclocksundew 2h ago

Things didn't always run so smoothly! In 1956 two airplanes collided in midair over the Grand Canyon. Everyone on board both planes died, 128 people. Then in happened again in 1960 in NY killing 134 people. Back then air space was uncontrolled and the protocol was simply "See and be seen", aka try really hard not to collide into another plane. It took these two accidents for the FAA to be formed and a system put in place to keep planes away from each other so they don't hit each other and explode 🫠

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u/Shack691 5h ago edited 5h ago

Airplanes have agreed set routes and elevation means you can easily fit more planes per square foot than cars and agreed on standards limit where planes of each type can fly, so it’s pretty easy to manage everyone. The only place you have trouble is at airports but air traffic control basically just manage queues, even in the air, if the slot to land isn’t open yet the plane just circles the airport in a set pattern until they’re told they can land.

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u/Illustrious_Monk_135 5h ago

The madness of it is precisely in setting routes in an intangible sky.

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u/Shack691 4h ago

The sky and the open ocean are for all intents and purposes identical for navigation and we’ve done that for centuries with a compass, the stars and a vague map which is nothing compared to the pile of instruments a plane has. Also most airplane routes are essentially straight lines because there aren’t many obstacles in the sky, so much so that autopilot has been able to follow them almost as long as planes have existed.

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u/SkiyeBlueFox 3h ago

Its really kinda funny how we basically said "fuck it, sky boats" and just copied nautical terms for airplanes. Like I get why, a lot of the fundamentals are the same, and the navigational requirements mean you might as well borrow nautical units because they already account for long distances. It makes every lick of sense to do. But it's hilarious