Miscellaneous Forum

yeah that's pretty neat, David!! GRACIAS! will need some time to figure it out better, but thought tht it interesting when it first came up that it was the map of Mexico! (where I live)

Did the same for me in Australia, so not only is aircraft being tracked, but us too. Quite scary when you think about it.

yes, I am only just getting used to having a Mexican Server; up until March, we were on a US server via Satellite. now a lot of sites comes up in Spanish and I have to figure out how the English site is accessed, etc.! AND, yes, now 'THEY' know where I am!

There are 8 scheduled flights due to land in Cape Town in the next hour, that map only shows 1 plane close enough to manage that. Their data for Africa is thus minimal and not reflecting reality.

I knew about that tracker website. casperflights.com/unified/?l... is my next favorite. PJ

Fascinating! I just zoomed in very close to the skies over West London - you can see the planes queueing up to land at Heathrow and if you click on one it shows the incoming route through the stack.

Also shows the aircraft as they taxi along the taxiways to/from the terminals. Watch the stats as the altitude comes down to zero and the speed drops. i was watching Dubai airport and could see the route taken by aircraft.

Is this supposed to be ALL airlines? For instance, I look at St. Louis and Kansas City and see NO planes. You know there are some taking off and landing. Other cities have few , if any, planes also. Any idea why??? The site is fascinating. Thanks!!

This is good stuff, thanks ;-)

Kathy, their coverage is explained by this statement from their site: "Flightradar24 have about 500 volunteers contributing with data from private receivers around the world. You can help us, to increase the coverage in your area, if you have an ADS-B receiver and start to share your data with us!"

So, if you are lookoing at this map on a flight, and suddenly your flight vanishes from the map, it would be a bad thing?

and for the train buffs, try this: http://www.swisstrains.ch/

I came to that site in a roundabout way from http://data.flight24.com/, after watching a cargo flight land at my local airport, (as being close enough to see the plane's registration letters). I wondered where the flight was from, and was astounded! The two sites fit together very comfortably, I think. It's also quite fascinating to look out of the window at home, and say "Lufthannsa 747 from Munich to Detroit, you know", or "Ryanair to Malta"

Thanks Gerald. that explains the lack of info on some cities.

It is certainly interesting although obviously imcomplete. What, pray tell, is an SDS-B receiver? I don't think london needs any further coverage from me but just out of interest.

Aircraft are starting to broadcast their own GPS data, telling anyone that cares to listen where they are, how fast they are going, how high up they are. This is more accurate than radar tracking and is very good for air traffic control. But the public can also listen in to this data streaming from some aircraft, if they have the ADS receiver (Automatic Dependent Surveillance). By 2020 they hope that all commercial aircraft will be equipped with this technology, but some aircraft will always refuse to broadcast this info to the public - eg. Airforce One.

I can understand the security aspect but it is not in place now, is that right? As well as I have managed to follow the previous posts here the website, as much fun as it is, is dependent on civvies on the ground taking in and publishng information from those 'planes who choose to share them. I am really sorry if I am being very stupid here. The idea of watching planes in the air like an ATC is absolutely fascinating. Again, thanks for the link.