Anyone here like looking at the small cities on the Airshow Map?
 

I love watching the Airshow Map especially when its on a PTV monitor. If I'm traveling with my Father and he is not watching anything or the seat next to me is empty I will have Airshow on my screen and the camera on that screen.

I love it when the Airshow Map shows small cities that a lot of people have never heard of or visited.

On my last flight from Rome to San Francisco I saw some towns such as Kamloops British Columbia, Moses Lake Washington, Resolute, The Pas Manitoba and other small cities.

On one flight coming in from Europe we had to head clear down the Peninsula to the Almaden Valley in San Jose and the Airshow map showed Los Gatos, Campbell, Cupertino and even the small town of Monte Vista(by Cupertino) and Monte Sereno as we made our way down the Coastal Ranges. It was fun seeing the landmark names in German

The map even displayed the small towns of Felton, Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek. It even showed Castle Rock State Park and Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

Its amazing at what small cities appear on the map. I wonder what small towns have you seen? Have you ever flown over your hometown or even home when flying?

I have flown over my home a couple of times and it was nice to have the Camera function on as it showed the area around my home.

maybe my age is showing, but I would rather watch Airshow than most of the IFE offerings

I actually prefer to watch the world go by outside the window, but there are times when that isn't feasible

the REAL reason I watch Airshow, though, is to monitor the as-flown mileage so I have a more accurate log entry

I once flew over the Jersey, Channel Islands on the way from North America to Frankfurt. Saw the island out the window.

Sure, I've liked maps since I was a wee tot. Or thereabouts.

Some airshow maps take it too far. When I'm flying from Abu Dhabi to Jakarta, I don't expect Brasilia to EVER show up, but what might be a rad in-flight game would be to guess (along with other passengers) the correct distances/flight times between any two points on the map. The winner gets full armrest privileges, and the loser gets to wait at passport control at MIA. Now I've digressed.

Oh wait, it was Etihad. I should have read between the lines... new for 2014, AUH-BSB.

I love the airshow maps. When I'm not sleeping or eating on board, I'm usually reading. So I typically set my IFE to display the map and I enjoy glancing at it periodically. It's especially interesting when flying outside of the US or southern Canada and passing over some areas that I'm less familiar with... pretty fascinating!

I'm usually more fascinated by the cities that DO NOT appear on the map. This is a made-up example, but why would you include Rockville, MD, but not Washington, DC? Or O'Fallon, IL, but not St. Louis? Does anyone know if there's a reason why a particular city might be included? (For example, is a there a radar beacon there?)

big +1 here, please someone shed some light on the choice of cities/towns displayed/not-displayed.

+2. I've often wondered why such obscure cities are picked and displayed at the very far out zoom level. You'll have Santiago to the south, Lagos to the east, Tokyo to the west, and Brighton, MI to the north :D

I get the impression that Airshow does not distinguish between the relative importance of cities... it seems to treat them all as dots on a map, no more no less. Shamattawa, MB, Bakersfield, CA and Munich, DE are all on an equal footing, it would seem.

I'm also interested in how various locations (eg, bodies of water) are designated based on the airline with which you are flying. For example, with JL and NH, you've got the Sea of Japan on Japan's western coast. To OZ, KE and others in the region, it's the East Sea.

Obviously history and politics have their hand in this cartographic claptrap, but the results keep some of us passengers entertained.

I have yet to fly over Kearney, Nebraska. On my return from Ireland in 2011, after flying over a heavy cloud bank, I looked out the window, and I saw North Platte. I easily recognized LBF, Bailey Yards, Lake Maloney, Sutherland Reservoir, Gerald Gentleman power station, Lake McConaughy, Montfort feed lot and other landmarks that I know all so well on my drives to Loveland, Colorado.

my favorite town name from the air show maps is 'Truth or Consequences, NM'

It's very rare that I ever put the IFE on anything other than the map and like someone else mentioned earlier if the seat next to me is empty I'll also put that screen to the map!

watching on JFK-SLC last Sat, and the latest version with the "Flight Data" touch link -- which is great, because the display doesn't constantly cycle between (map and data in English) and (map and data in Spanish) -- actually displayed Great Circle distance from JFK rather than as-flown

I discovered this about the time we crossed over Provo on descent and turned from a westbound heading to a northbound one ... "Distance from origin" had been steadily increasing, "Distance to destination" (which is certainly Great Circle) had been steadily decreasing ... once we made the turn, DFO actually started decreasing also ... guess I have to get as-flown from FlightAware