Watch 5 Hours of Airplane Takeoffs in 30 Seconds

After photographer Cy Kuckenbacker saw the above photo posted over at the PetaPixel blog—a composite shot of a day's worth of airplane takeoffs at a single airport—he set out to recreate the effect on video. So you get what we have here today: 5 hours of planes taking off from San Diego, a mid-sized international airport, condensed into 30 seconds.

The result snared a Vimeo Staff Pick and viral status, and it's pretty incredible to watch. It also seems to be part of a popular YouTube subgenre that reexamines the lumbering passenger jet and the nature of air travel in general. Typically, we're inside these 747s, or we're annoyed when they drone overhead by day, or we see them in films, when they're about to crash or there are snakes on them.

Watch more over at the new Motherboard.VICE.com.