《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第58期:飛越州(1)

FLYOVER STATES

飛越州

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

Q．美國哪一個州被飛機飛越的次數最多？

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．當人們提到“飛越州”時，他們一般指的是在紐約、洛杉磯和芝加哥之間來回飛行時經過但又不降落的那幾個西部大州。

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.

那麼哪個州被最多的飛機飛越呢？有許多航班會沿着東海岸向北或者向南飛，因此很容易就能得出飛越紐約的頻率比飛越懷俄明的頻率更高的結論。

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.

爲了找出最爲繁忙的飛越州，我查詢了1萬多條飛行路線，並記錄下每條航線經過哪幾個州。

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

出人意料的是，被飛越次數最多的州——有起飛和降落就不算——居然是……

. . . Virginia.

……弗吉尼亞。

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

這個結果大大出乎我的意料。我在弗吉尼亞長大，從來沒有想到過它是個“飛越州”。

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.

驚訝之處在於弗吉尼亞有好幾個大型機場：服務華盛頓特區的兩個機場（羅納德•里根國家機場和杜勒斯國際機場）都位於弗吉尼亞州，這意味着大多數飛往華盛頓特區的航班都不會被計入飛越弗吉尼亞的航班裏去，因爲它們降落在弗吉尼亞。

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

我把美國所有州按被飛越的次數上了個色，結果如下：

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

被飛越次數僅次於弗吉尼亞的分別是馬里蘭、北卡羅來納和賓夕法尼亞。這幾個州每天被飛越的次數遠遠超過剩下的其他州。

So why Virginia?

爲什麼是弗吉尼亞位居榜首呢？

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於哈茲菲爾德-傑克遜亞特蘭大國際機場。