The purpose of this application is to demonstrate MySQL 4.1 and some of its new and more advanced features. As MySQL matures, it is the hope that this application will also mature. Currently, the following features are used in some meaningful way:
In the short term future, more features will be added to FlightStats in order to be able to use all new features of MySQL 4.1. The following features are as yet unused:
The front-end web application is written in PHP, while the back-end loading scripts are written in Perl.
You can download the application and import scripts here.
This section will contain links to download the precompiled versions of this data set and will allow you to set up this application yourself.
You may find the original data at the following URLs:
BTS (Bureau of Transportation Statistics) "ontime" Database.
- Ontime Database Download Area
- http://transtats.bts.gov/Download/On_Time_On_Time_Performance_YYYY_MM.zip
The ontime database is released once a month, with around a 45 day delay.
The BTS Ontime database has quite a few reporting errors. Please see the Bugs Page.
FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) N-number Aircraft Registrations database.
This data is used to cross-reference flights listed in the "ontime" database against the aircraft used for those flights. It provides a reference keyed on the N-number (tail number) of the aircraft to its owner, manufacturer, model, engine types, seats, etc. This is used also to provide the detail for a particular aircraft, for example, Aircraft N183UW.
The FAA Aircraft Registrations database is released once weekly, with live data.
Lookup tables for FAA Aircraft Registrations database.
These are hand-typed by me, providing simple lookup tables for the aircraft_type_id and aircraft_engine_type_id fields from the aircraft and aircraft_engines tables. The data is sourced from and based on documentation from the FAA.
Airport Information Database.
This is a pared-down version of the FAA ATA-100 database below. It will be replaced with the ATA-100 database after all the import scripts are written for it.
FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) Air Traffic Airspace ATA-100 database.
This data is currently unused, but will be used to provide detailed information about particular airports, including detailed runway information, remarks, etc.
The faa_ata100 database is released every 56 days (8 weeks), with live data.
US Census Bureau 1990 Zip Code, City, and State Database.
As this database is from 1990, it is somewhat outdated, but still contains most Zip Codes. It is used for Zip Code proximity searches, in order to look up the approximate latitude and longitude for a given Zip Code. I would like to replace this database with the most recent version from the US Postal Service, but they do not seem to have a free Zip Code product.
Air Carriers Listing.
This is hand-typed by me, providing codes, nicknames, and full names for the most popular commercial air carriers. This data is used mostly for presentation purposes, and may in the future be supplemented by air carrier statistics provided by the BTS or FAA.
US States and Territories/Districts Listing.
This is hand-typed by me, providing postal abbreviations and names for the 59 postal abbreviations used in the airports table. This data is used mostly for presentation purposes, and is likely to remain as-is.
Outline map of the United States area.
This is based on data from National Atlas and is read from SHP format using libmygis, which I have written. After reading from the ShapeFile format it is drawn on a scale of 1.0 degrees = 2.5 pixels and cropped to include only the USA portion.
You may read about the author and compiler of this application by visiting the About Me page.
All DATA is in the public domain, and is either provided under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or is released into the public domain by Jeremy Cole. You may redistribute it as you see fit, but if you are redistributing a version compiled by me, please send me a note to let me know what you're using it for.
All SOFTWARE is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and is copyright Jeremy Cole. Please read the GPL and understand it before using this software. You should find the following license excerpt in all source files:
Copyright (C) 2004 Jeremy Cole and MySQL AB This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
You may freely distribute any source code or data for this application. Again, I ask that you send me a note if you plan to use either source or data for some interesting purpose.
All pages have been checked for compliance with HTML 4.01 Strict mode using the W3C's HTML Validator.
The stylesheet code used has been checked using the W3C's CSS Validator.
© Copyright 2005, Jeremy Cole, All rights reserved; Data from BTS, FAA; About. Bugs.