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Ask HN: No planes visible at LHR on Google Maps (terrain)?

7 pointsposted 9 months ago

Item id: 41841727

17 Comments

thinkingemote

9 months ago

in Google Earth it says it was taken 10/04/2020

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.

warner25

9 months ago

But if the airplanes weren't flying, they would be parked on the ground somewhere. So where are all the airplanes in your theory? There are zero in parking.

thinkingemote

8 months ago

I have heard that the parking charges at Heathrow and the major hub airports are very expensive. Companies do not park their planes for longer than necessary (e.g. getting passengers on and off) during normal times.

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?

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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).

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"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"

tssva

9 months ago

I assume you mean satellite and not terrain mode. Terrain mode doesn't have images so there are no planes visible at any airports. As for satellite mode I looked briefly and noticed 2 planes.

slavomirvojacek

9 months ago

Yes I meant satellite. Still strange as it's one of the busiest airports in the world and images appear to be taken during the day so... no way there were only 2 planes at any given point... For example Gatwick (LGW) does show quite a few planes just parked.

tssva

9 months ago

Depends on when the images were taken. They might have been taken during the pandemic when passengers planes were grounded.

warner25

9 months ago

Grounded where? The point is that they aren't on the ground in this imagery.

tssva

9 months ago

Airplanes grounded for extended periods are not kept at airports but flown to airplane storage facilities.

warner25

9 months ago

I see the same suspicious lack of aircraft on the ground. It's really interesting. I see one Qantas aircraft taxiing onto runway 09R, and a Saudi aircraft taxiing into parking from 09R, and that's it. Also interesting is that I see a bunch of trucks on both ends of runway 09L. The Google Maps imagery of other major airports, and even military airfields, shows many aircraft on the ground.

warner25

9 months ago

I've found a few references around the web to an effort by Google Maps, about five years ago, to remove non-static objects likes cars and pedestrians from the satellite views. The algorithm is cool, but I guess there's nothing more interesting to this than that.

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.

jfoster

9 months ago

I hope they do that for Street View.

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.

pesfandiar

9 months ago

Very few parked cars too. I see the same phenomenon at London Gatwick Airport as well. Perhaps an internet sleuth can find out what time the image was captured (e.g. the control tower has a distinct shadow that can be measured) and see if it lines up with any specific event.

pants2

9 months ago

That's really strange. I don't see any planes in gates at LGW either, but spot checked other airports that have planes in gates.

slavomirvojacek

9 months ago

Yes sorry I meant satellite!!

Maybe someone from HN could help fix the title + desc if possible :))