Xi'an Xianyang International Airport (IATA: XIY, ICAO: ZLXY) is the main airport serving Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, as well as the whole Guanzhong area. Covering an area of 5 square kilometres (1.9 sq mi), it is the largest airport in Northwest China, and the second largest airport in Northern China. The airport was the hub for China Northwest Airlines until the company was merged into China Eastern Airlines in 2002.
This app shows satellite views of random airports. Its aim is to introduce you to the variety of airport structures embedded into the landscape.
Parts of the website are heavily inspired by David Schmidt's website chuchichechocha.com.
Usage
Click on the satellite image or on the button in the control panel to advance to another randomly selected airport.
Click on the button in the control panel to start auto play mode (every 30 seconds a random airport is loaded); Click on the button to stop the auto play mode.
Click on the button in the control panel to search for a specific airport by ICAO code, IATA code, airport name, or location name.
Click on the button in the control panel to show additional information about the current airport and to open the current view in a variety of external services (e.g. Google Maps).
Click on the button in the control panel to toggle fullscreen mode.
Unlike other mapping websites, it is not possible to change the view by panning it around with the mouse or to change the zoom factor.
Technologies and Data Sources
This app is based on the Google Maps API, which on the one hand provides a powerful programming interface for web-based mapping applications, and on the other hand opens access to high quality satellite imagery for places all over the world.
The backend is realized in Python with the help of the excellent Flask micro framework.
The locations of airports have been imported from the public domain data provided by the aviation enthusiasts at OurAirports.com. The app displays randomly selected airports of the categories 'large_airport','medium_airport' and 'small_airport' for which runway coordinates are available.
Furthermore, the user interface incorporates icons from Font Awesome and fonts from Google Fonts.
Author
This is brought to you by me, Florian Pigorsch.
Feel free to contact me via Google+ or mail.
The source code of this app can be found at Github.
Backlinks
Random Airports has been featured on several websites including
This app shows satellite views of random airports. Its aim is to introduce you to the variety of airport structures embedded into the landscape.
Click on the satellite image or on to advance to another randomly selected airport.
Click on start 'auto play' mode (every 30 seconds a random airport is loaded).
Click on to search for a specific airport.
Click on to show infos about the current airport.
Click on to toggle fullscreen mode.
Search for airports
You can search for ICAO-codes (4-letter airport codes, e.g. 'KSFO'), IATA-codes (3-letter airport codes, e.g. 'SFO'), airport and location names (e.g. 'San Francisco').
Search queries containing multiple words and/or non-alphanumeric characters may be problematic - try to keep your query simple (e.g. prefer 'Helsinki' to 'Helsinki Airport')!