AIR PICTURE — CHAGRIN FALLS, OH — 2026-09-17
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Unusually quiet day over the Falls — traffic running 70% below the seven-day average, with the skies populated mostly by corporate iron and the usual coast-to-coast airline stream.
NOTABLE TRAFFIC
N507TS [A655AB] — topped out at 45,000 ft eastbound at 542 kts. Fastest contact of the day. Nobody told him to hurry, but he's hurrying.
UAL2652 [A10E8B] — caught at a mere 450 ft and 142 kts on a heading of 050°. Plausible approach profile near 41.40°N, 81.87°W; flagged but probably routine.
EDV4646 [AC74F9] — similarly down at 500 ft, 137 kts, same general area. Two Endeavour contacts threading in close together at low altitude.
EJA fleet — Executive Jet (NetJets) had a solid day: EJA598, EJA823, EJA836, and EJA918 all overhead, ranging 41,000–43,000 ft. Corporate America was apparently on the move even if the airlines weren't.
DAL1407 [A35E49] — descending through 15,825 ft on heading 305°, likely on approach to CLE. UPS5442 also caught climbing through 9,500 ft northbound — cargo keeps its own schedule.
ANOMALIES
FORGE63 [AE118A] — US military hex. No altitude or speed data in the traffic feed. It was here. That's all we're saying.
UNKNOWN HEX contacts — Three squitters with unallocated ICAO codes: EIN9AR, EIN9LT (both broadcasting hex 4CABD2 — same transponder, two callsigns, which is its own problem), and WIN1201 [0D0F5A]. None traceable to a known national registry. Logged and forwarded.
Foreign registrations — A notable Canadian contingent today: JZA, ROU, CJT, and ACA family flights transiting overhead, all with Canadian ICAO prefixes. Additionally, BAW224U and BAW242 from the UK, EVE816 from Spain, BOX387 and BCS378 from Germany, and DHK058 from the UK. Europe checked in; we acknowledged.
LOW-AND-FAST contacts — Five aircraft flagged below 2,900 ft above 200 kts: N78TC, N100FK, EJA480, LXJ665, N941KA, and JIA5413. Mix of bizjets and regionals — most likely altitude data artifacts, but noted.
PATTERN NOTES
Traffic volume collapsed to 485 contacts against a seven-day average of 1,597 — the lowest proportion recorded this week, finishing 70% below baseline. No single obvious cause in the data. Over 200 expected regulars failed to appear across all hours, including reliable fixtures such as AAL1823, FFT4036, THY91J, and KAL093. The eastbound flow (headings 83°–104°) dominated at cruise altitudes, consistent with normal jet-stream routing. Westbound returns were present but thin.
END OF DAILY AIR PICTURE