Flight radar app

am1958 wrote:
Sorry for the "graphic" lesson.

No apology needed. We are all adults here.

Totally get what you said. I think that is fine and dandy as far as military operations are concerned. However, the government taking that technology and using it against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil is something that goes too far.

1984 indeed.

-Eric

Eric&Lisa wrote:
Imagine if you had cop cars driving around the same couple blocks in your neighborhood for hours every night - same thing. Lights & sirens are one thing, but if a cop kept driving by and spying in your windows hoping to catch you doing something wrong.... Unnerving, but I guess that is the state of our surveillance society.

-Eric

As an ex-military helicopter crewman, (airborne first but changed trades), I can assure you that you have no idea what they can see. Back in 1984 it was made clear to me while watching a surveillance video of a know IRA terrorist with his girlfriend in a car in what they thought was a "secret" lover's lane. The aircraft was five miles away and 5,000 feet up when the video was taken so neither party had a clue they were being watched.

After much bouncing of the car the door opened and the image, (infra-red), showed the female, almost full screen, get out, lift her skirt and pee on the ground. The puddle of pee spread gently away from her shoes - luckily, because she got back in and the car started, inexplicably, bouncing around again.

That was 1984, (a year that an entire book was written about). I've been in technology since about 1990 - you have no idea what they can see now but I'll bet that, if she wasn't a "shaver" you could count the hairs with today's technology..

Sorry for the "graphic" lesson.

CavemanCharlie wrote:
Thanks for the links. It will give me something to do on a day this winter when I'm bored.

Check out flightaware.com. I feed data in to it with PiAware on a Raspberry Pi (details). It was a fun project to set up. It is not too technical, but just enough to keep me on my toes. Once it was running it is fire and forget.

Veebyes wrote:
...You start paying for the details that most of us don't want....

The cool thing about FlightAware is if you are a contributor, they give you a free Enterprise account.

Veebyes wrote:
You never know what you might stumble upon. While looking for my son's PHL to SEA flt last night I clicked on one that turned out to be a NASA 747 over Idaho. Wonder what they were doing?

I see that all the time! There is a lot of stuff that appears on my PiAware that does NOT appear on other apps like FlightRadar24 on my phone. I pick up military flights like refueling tankers out of Moses Lake on a regular basis.

Even more interesting is picking up the state patrol plane circling the hills at night. They fly up from the Medford airport (SW Oregon) to NW Oregon. Round & round & round and round for 4-5 hours at a time until 1am. Refuel in Longview, WA and circle a few more hours before heading back to their base. I am guessing they are looking for poachers, but who knows??? A bit unnerving having cops circling my area. Imagine if you had cop cars driving around the same couple blocks in your neighborhood for hours every night - same thing. Lights & sirens are one thing, but if a cop kept driving by and spying in your windows hoping to catch you doing something wrong.... Unnerving, but I guess that is the state of our surveillance society.

-Eric

CavemanCharlie wrote:
Thanks for the links. It will give me something to do on a day this winter when I'm board.

You never know what you might stumble upon. While looking for my son's PHL to SEA flt last night I clicked on one that turned out to be a NASA 747 over Idaho. Wonder what they were doing?

Thanks for the links. It will give me something to do on a day this winter when I'm board.

If you have an Iphone just ask siri to which planes are above you.

jplante4 wrote:

DutchmenSport wrote:
It did lag time about 2 minutes though, or at least, it use to.

For planes under ATC radar control, the FAA delays the position reports. For planes with the newer satellite surveillance transponders (ADS-B), it's real time. Planes not talking to ATC and with the old 4096 code transponders don't show up.

We have this running in the lobby at the airport for the entertainment of the people waiting for a table at the restaurant. I was watching an A380 going overhead on FR24 and stepped outside and looked up as it went by.

I watched the plane my wife was on as it was coming into the airport. I thought it was the greatest thing ever until she texted "we landed" and the app showed the plane wouldn't land for another 10 minutes. I was still on the shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal. Now I know why. I'll check out the FR24 app. It sounds like it's becoming popular.

There are a bunch of free sites out there. You start paying for the details that most of us don't want.

They can be fun to use though. Yesterday my son did a trip from Bermuda to Seattle via Philadelphia. I use this site.

Not much traffic to & from Bermuda each day but depending on time of day or night there is a mess of it passing overhead to & from Europe from Miami & points further south.

DutchmenSport wrote:
It did lag time about 2 minutes though, or at least, it use to.

For planes under ATC radar control, the FAA delays the position reports. For planes with the newer satellite surveillance transponders (ADS-B), it's real time. Planes not talking to ATC and with the old 4096 code transponders don't show up.

We have this running in the lobby at the airport for the entertainment of the people waiting for a table at the restaurant. I was watching an A380 going overhead on FR24 and stepped outside and looked up as it went by.

Had the App on my previous phone but lost it when I switched phones. I used it, not so much when camping, but my house is located under a flight path. After sundown, you can see the blinking lights, way, way up there, one passing over about every minute. I was curious where they were all going or coming from.

It did lag time about 2 minutes though, or at least, it use to.

If you are into this type of thing, it's a pretty cool app.