AIR PICTURE — CHAGRIN FALLS, OH — 2026-06-23
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Volume is marginally above the seven-day average, though the anomaly log is anything but average — military callsigns, a contact operating above 70,000 feet, and enough unknown hex codes to keep the watch officer occupied.
NOTABLE TRAFFIC
SAM803 [AE6CF1] — Military hex, SAM-prefix callsign, 41,000 ft. Special Air Mission asset in the overhead. Someone important is moving.
RCH4070 [AE1173] — Second military hex today; REACH callsign indicates Air Mobility Command logistics. Observed at 36,000 ft. Routine but worth logging.
N75976 [AA3EE4] — 70,600 ft. That is not a typo. Well above the commercial ceiling of 45,000 ft. No further data in the feed. Make of that what you will.
KOW301 [A323C8] — 47,000 ft, also above standard commercial ceiling. Business jet or something that prefers not to share airspace with the commoners.
THY3CM [4BB1A3] — Turkish Airlines hex, Netherlands registration, heading 051° at 34,975 ft. Transatlantic traffic on a typical North Atlantic track.
DLH441 [3C4A8B] — Lufthansa, German registration, 35,625 ft. Solid transatlantic presence today alongside multiple British Airways and KLM contacts.
ANOMALIES
FIN20 [461F50] and AMX044 [0D0BBA] — ICAO hex codes fall outside any known national allocation. Neither is squawking a recognized country. FIN20 may be Finnair operating on a non-standard transponder; AMX044 the same for Aeromexico. Plausible but unconfirmed.
[C0003E] — Canadian-registered contact at cruise altitude, no callsign broadcast. Mode S active, flight ID suppressed. Unremarkable if it's a positioning flight; less so if it isn't.
Low-and-fast contacts — Seventeen aircraft flagged this period for sub-3,000 ft / 200+ knot combinations, including DAL523, JBU1115, and N313SF among others. Most are consistent with approach profiles into the Detroit/Cleveland corridor. The volume is elevated but not extraordinary.
PATTERN NOTES
Despite the anomaly log running nearly 1,000 entries, total contacts (2,746) sit 4% above the seven-day average — the traffic deviation alerts embedded in the data reflect intra-day hourly dips that recovered by end of period. Canadian traffic (WestJet, Air Canada, Jazz, Porter) is heavy, consistent with Lake Erie corridor routing. A significant number of expected domestic regulars — DAL, UAL, SWA, RPA series — did not appear today; this may reflect schedule changes or upstream ATC rerouting.
END OF DAILY AIR PICTURE