3D Flight Data Visualization

I recently came across some delicious raw data from a flight tracking tool. Here's what it looks like in 3D!

Grab Flight Data

• Go to FlightAware.com
• Search for a flight and select it to . I found a flight from Minneapolis to New York City - a flight I'd like to be riding right now
• Click the track log & graph on the right information panel 

• Open Excel, Google Sheets, etc.
• Build the field headings separately since they don't select well with the data values from the Web page
• Select the data from the page, and copy it

Copy the data by itself - Build/copy headings separately

• Paste Special into your spreadsheet with text/values only - no formatting! If you directly paste the selection, there may be a bunch of graphic elements that migrate over too

Format & Convert

• Fill in the gaps of any altitude values that aren't available. I used the Fill Down (Ctrl+D) tool to duplicate the previous reading

• Make a new field called Linestring
• Use this formula to concatenate Longitude, Latitude, and Altitude together, separated with commas. Fill this down for the entire dataset. We'll come back to this in a moment

=C2 & "," & B2 & "," & H2

• Copy the following KML template and paste it into your favorite text editor (Notepad, Notepad++, Sublime Text, etc.)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><br /> <kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2" xmlns:kml="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><br /> <document><br />     <name>Flight Visualization</name><br />         <placemark><br />             <name>Flight Path</name><br />             <linestring><br />                 <coordinates><br />                     <!-- Replace this line with Lat,Long,Altitude values --><br />                 </coordinates><br />             </LineString><br />         </Placemark><br /> </Document><br /> </kml>

• Replace the comment on line 9 (<!-- Replace... -->, between the <coordinate> tags) with the data (not the field heading) of the new Linestring field
• Save this as Flight Visualization.kml, or something appropriate

Display in Google Earth

• Double click the new KML file to load in Google Earth
• Expand the new folder until you find the Flight Path. Right click on that Path layer and choose Properties

• Navigate to the Altitude Tab. Change the Altitude setting from Clamped to ground to Absolute. Make sure that Extend path to ground is checked
• On the Style, Color tab, choose a bright red Lines color. Use a Width of 1.0. Set a 30% Opacity for the Area symbol. I like the Filled + Outlined setting
• Play with these settings until you're happy. Click OK to start playing with your visualization