《那些古怪又让人忧心的问题》第58期:飞越州(1)

FLYOVER STATES

飞越州

Q. Which US state is actually flown over the most?

Q．美国哪一个州被飞机飞越的次数最多？

A. WHEN PEOPLE SAY “FLYOVER states,” they're usually referring to the big, square states out west that people stereotypically cross over while flying between New York, LA, and Chicago, but don't actually land in.

A．当人们提到“飞越州”时，他们一般指的是在纽约、洛杉矶和芝加哥之间来回飞行时经过但又不降落的那几个西部大州。

But what state do the largest number of planes actually fly over? There are a lot of flights up and down the East Coast; it would be easy to imagine that people fly over New York more often than Wyoming.

那么哪个州被最多的飞机飞越呢？有许多航班会沿着东海岸向北或者向南飞，因此很容易就能得出飞越纽约的频率比飞越怀俄明的频率更高的结论。

To figure out what the real flyover states are, I looked at over 10,000 air traffic routes, determining which states each flight passed over.

为了找出最为繁忙的飞越州，我查询了1万多条飞行路线，并记录下每条航线经过哪几个州。

Surprisingly, the state with the most planes flying over it-without taking off or landing-is . . .

出人意料的是，被飞越次数最多的州——有起飞和降落就不算——居然是……

. . . Virginia.

……弗吉尼亚。

This result surprised me. I grew up in Virginia, and I certainly never thought of it as a “flyover state.”

这个结果大大出乎我的意料。我在弗吉尼亚长大，从来没有想到过它是个“飞越州”。

It's surprising because Virginia has several major airports; two of the airports serving DC are actually located in Virginia (DCA/Reagan and IAD/Dulles). This means most flights to DC don't count toward flights over Virginia, since those flights land in Virginia.

惊讶之处在于弗吉尼亚有好几个大型机场：服务华盛顿特区的两个机场（罗纳德•里根国家机场和杜勒斯国际机场）都位于弗吉尼亚州，这意味着大多数飞往华盛顿特区的航班都不会被计入飞越弗吉尼亚的航班里去，因为它们降落在弗吉尼亚。

Here's a map of US states colored by number of daily flyovers:

我把美国所有州按被飞越的次数上了个色，结果如下：

Close behind Virginia are Maryland, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. These states have substantially more daily flyovers than any other.

被飞越次数仅次于弗吉尼亚的分别是马里兰、北卡罗来纳和宾夕法尼亚。这几个州每天被飞越的次数远远超过剩下的其他州。

So why Virginia?

为什么是弗吉尼亚位居榜首呢？

There are a number of factors, but one of the biggest is Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

原因有很多，但其中最重要的原因之一在于哈兹菲尔德-杰克逊亚特兰大国际机场。