Ask HN: No planes visible at LHR on Google Maps (terrain)? If you look at London Heathrow in terrain mode on Google Maps no planes are visible. Most other airports have at least some planes visible at the gates. Why is this? |
Ask HN: No planes visible at LHR on Google Maps (terrain)? If you look at London Heathrow in terrain mode on Google Maps no planes are visible. Most other airports have at least some planes visible at the gates. Why is this? |
1. That was during the first corona lockdown. In that case, the airport would mostly be closed. However news reports say that the airports were kind of open with some flights flying during lockdown (massively reduced - 60 vs 600)
2. Looking at the date gives another clue. April 10 is Good Friday, the Friday before Easter weekend. Good Friday is a big national "bank holiday" when most things are shut in the UK. Therefore even less flights that day.
Given this, one would imagine the planes going any place cheaper during that time.
I agree, not seeing any planes at all on the ground looks strange and exceptional. It was an exceptional time. Maybe they made a composite image?
---
A very quick search about this fact showed the following (I'm sure someone would be able to fully investigate and find better and more accurate data with more time)
"However, with aircraft parking charges at major European airports often exceeding £200 per hour for the largest airframes, less expensive storage sites were required"
Grounded aircraft: An airfield operations perspective of the challenges of resuming flights post COVID
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096969972...
Note that this article says that Heathrow did have some planes on the ground in May of 2020 (only a month later but outside of peak lockdown).
----
"Aircraft on ground" which might just refer to broken planes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_on_ground
"$10,000 to $20,000 and possibly even as high as $150,000 per hour"
As an aside, when I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011-2012, I worked on an airfield and forward operating base that got hammered with effective rocket and mortar fire on a daily basis. I was... annoyed to discover that Google Maps satellite view showed our footprint in perfect detail; like I could see the tent where I slept, where every one of our aircraft parked, etc. It's not like anything about it was secret, but the imagery could certainly provide good targeting information for whoever wanted to shoot at us. I wish things had been removed from the imagery back then. It stayed that way until 2021 or 2022, long after we'd abandoned that place.
Actually, I would like it to be a toggle. Sometimes I might want to know if a place is likely to be busy or not. Sometimes there's a bus blocking the storefront that I want to see.
Maybe someone from HN could help fix the title + desc if possible :))