This is one of the most amazing uses for Google Earth that I have found. You can track any airplanes position in Google Earth, updated every minute. This is quite freaky and seems a little dangerous, if used by the wrong people… but is very entertaining if you have friends and family flying from time to time and are designated to collect them from the airport on arrival.

Mark - you can track my flight from Denver to London (BA218) on the 27 March, and London to Cape Town (BA059) on the 28 March. No excuses for being late now….
While on the airport theme, you can also get a birds eye view of the activity at a few US airports here. Its pretty interesting to see how busy they can get and you get a feel for the stress of being a airport controller.

If anyone out there wants to port this data to Google Maps, here is a great tutorial on how the Google Maps Api can be used.

Then, when you are tired of viewing real live airports, whip out some lego and build an aircraft carrier like this guy did.