“Rack ‘em and stack ‘em”. That’s what air traffic controllers say when they have planes fly in a holding pattern over an airport because its runways are too busy.
With his neat video showing more than 60 planes flying over one spot on approach to San Diego Airport, all in the space of 25 seconds, California photography and film professor Cy Kuckenbaker has stacked ‘em in a way that no one has ever done before.
Landings at San Diego Int Airport Nov 23, 2012 from Cy Kuckenbaker on Vimeo.
Kuckenbaker says he captured all the planes that flew into San Diego International Airport over four-and-a-half hours between 10.30am and 3pm on November 23 (Black Friday).
His bending of time and space is nothing short of inspired. And, if nothing else, serves as a reminder of just how many planes there are in our skies these days, and just what an incredible job air traffic controllers do.
Of course, in reality commercial airliners are never allowed to be as remotely as close as they are in the film. Air traffic controllers generally separate jet planes by four or five miles (depending on how big they are) when on approach to landing.
An incredible amount of effort went into the planning and making of his short film. In an interview with PetaPixel, Kuckenbaker explains both how he composed the video and some of the challenges in putting together such a complex time-lapse film.
Kuckenbaker was inspired to make the film after seeing Ho-Yeol Ryu’s composite photo of planes taking off at Hannover Airport.
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
(Credit: Cy Kuckenbaker | cysfilm)
