VyCurve Climb performance & awareness

The atlas

Where aircraft actually go — and how high they were when they went there.

The atlas is the spatial half of the record: plates where the map gets visual priority and the caption, scope and caveats sit on it rather than a page below it. Maps show patterns and review cues here. They never make a claim about a flight, and the language on them is chosen so they cannot be read as one.

The field right now

Every aircraft the station can see, drawn over the corridors this field's departures and arrivals actually fly — and against what the field normally does at this hour. That last comparison is the part a general-purpose tracker cannot make, because it needs an archive of your airport rather than a view of the sky.

Fairview Cedar Junction Granite Bench observed departure corridor observed approach corridor Class D 27 9 33 15 in use N-•••4G 3,900 ft · +720 fpm N-•••7T 2,400 ft · −480 fpm N-•••1M 1,300 ft · pattern N-•••9K stale · 41 s WIND 250° 9 kt favours 27 RUNWAY IN USE 27 traffic and wind agree SKY Few 6,500 10 sm DENSITY ALTITUDE 7,240 ft +310 vs normal NORMAL FOR 15:00 HERE 4 aircraft · typical 5 last 9 hours Positions are interpolated between two observed fixes, never extrapolated — so the plate runs deliberately a little behind. Faded marks have gone quiet. +−
Fig. 1. Positions are interpolated between two observed fixes rather than extrapolated past the last one, so the plate runs deliberately a little behind rather than confidently wrong; marks that have gone quiet fade instead of vanishing. The state strip names the runway in use from two independent signals — traffic observed using it, and the end the wind favours — and says which one answered. Illustrative rendering over invented geography.

Three ways to show it

The same frame renders as the plate with its map, a tracked-aircraft table for a second monitor, and a big-type wall display for a screen nobody is standing at.

Today against yesterday

Movement by movement, with density altitude by hour over yesterday's and over the median for this month and hour, and the runway in use hour by hour.

Server-rendered first frame

The first frame is drawn on the server, so the page is readable — and accessible — with no scripting at all. Everything after that is an update, not a requirement.

Normal, quantified

Traffic in view sits beside the typical count for this hour at this field. "Busy" stops being an impression and becomes a number with a comparison attached.

The day, replayed

Once a day is complete it can be played back over the airport on a clock: the pattern filling in through the morning, the flow flipping ends as the wind veers, where climb-outs actually turn. Built for the study hall and the community meeting, where a moving picture settles an argument a table cannot.

departures arrivals 27 9 33 15 LOCAL TIME 14:22 06 09 12 15 18 1× 8× 30× 120× TUESDAY 14 JULY · 128 MOVEMENTS METAR rides along · ghost trails fade behind
Fig. 2. A scrubber, speed presets, a quiet-gap skip, ghost trails, and the weather riding along. A replay is offered only for a day whose records are complete — a partial day animated is a quiet day misread, so the page would rather offer nothing than offer that. Illustrative rendering over invented geography.

The corridors aircraft actually fly

Not the published procedure — the observed one. Full-distance profiles are clustered into the corridors they form, and each corridor is then readable in cross-section: the shape of the paths flown through a slice of airspace.

The observed corridors, side by side

Illustrative
The observed corridors, side by side Clustered from accepted full-distance profiles · one shared scale West, over the bench n = 214 departures lowest average 940 ft AGL Northwest, valley exit n = 168 departures lowest average 1,180 ft AGL East, over town n = 96 departures lowest average 720 ft AGL Corridors describe where aircraft went — never where they should have gone

Fig. 3. Three busiest corridors on one shared scale, each captioned with its member count and its lowest average height above ground. Corridors describe where aircraft went — never where they should have gone.

Both halves of the flow, on one axis

Illustrative
Both halves of the traffic flow, on one axis Arrivals from the left, departures to the right, each anchored where it physically was arrivals departures runway 27 0 500 1,000 1,500 profiles behind each ¼ mile 2.6 mi out threshold 2.6 mi out

Fig. 4. Arrival and departure fans radiating outward from the runway deck, each profile anchored where it physically was along the centreline.

Protected surfaces, in cross-section

The 14 CFR Part 77 horizontal and conical surfaces are geometry, not opinion — so the record draws them as geometry, with observed low passes against them. A pass below a modelled surface is a review cue for that area. It is not a finding about a flight, and the plate says so on its face.

Part 77 surfaces, in cross-section

Illustrative
Part 77 surfaces, in cross-section Modelled surfaces — not a claim about any flight's legality horizontal surface · 150 ft conical 20:1 0 200 400 600 800 0 2 4 6 Distance from the field (NM) Height above the field (ft) below a surface — a review cue

Fig. 5. Most passes sit comfortably above both surfaces. The handful that do not are drawn in red — the only thing on a VyCurve site red is ever used for — and become review cues for those areas.

Where the field connects

Illustrative
Where the field connects Arc thickness is movements · a distribution, not a route map CJT 210 GBH 168 WLD 96 STN 74 ARO 52 MPL 41 Fairview Local-only flights excluded · origins and onward fields are estimates

Fig. 6. The peer-airport view: arrivals by estimated origin, departures by estimated onward field. Local-only flights are excluded, and it is a distribution rather than a route map.

One aircraft, every track it flew

Each aircraft, model, engine and operator has its own record card, and the map on it answers the question a card cannot: does this one always go that way? Identifiers are masked here exactly as they are everywhere else.

one departure apart from the rest 27 9 N-•••4G · 12 RECORDED DEPARTURES Masked identifier · aggregate view

Fig. 7. Eleven departures following the same first turn, and one that did not — the kind of thing that is invisible in a table of medians and obvious the moment the tracks are drawn together.

This flight, inside its own history The same airframe's previous climbs — its own benchmark, not the fleet's this flight its median · 11 previous climbs 0 1,000 2,000 3,000 Distance from the runway (NM) Height above the field (ft)

Fig. 8. The same idea in profile: one climb placed inside that airframe's own history rather than against a fleet it was never going to match.

And the awareness map itself

The plate the community actually opens: every terrain grid cell an aircraft crossed, carrying its estimated height above ground, drawn over the airspace your field really has — in a colour grammar built not to alarm. It has its own walkthrough on the overview page.

See the awareness map, cell by cell → Browse the figure gallery →

How to read a map on this site

A map here shows a pattern, never a verdict. Colour marks an observed value, not a judgement about a flight; an absence of colour means no observed track crossed that cell, not that the cell is "safe"; and a value below a threshold is a cue to look, stated with the threshold beside it. Reconstructed tracks carry position error and terrain has finite resolution, so every plate states what it estimated and how confident it is. Every figure on this page is synthetic and illustrative, drawn over invented geography for a fictional demonstration field.