Aircraft tracking.

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May 7, 2020
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Location
Ames, IA
I’m not sure how many use the Flightradar24 app, but it’s accuracy is astounding.

We had two T-38’s do a flyover for the Iowa State v. Arizona game here, and my house is always in the flight path since it lines up 5 miles straight North of the stadium. I really wanted to see them, so as we sat down for supper, I popped the app on.

As they approached, I excused myself and stepped outside to watch the planes, and was in a minute or so later to finish eating.

It’s a fun app to play with.

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My wife Sue is a flightradar dork.

You want to see something truly bizarre, watch the air traffic patterns from the American East Coast to Europe. Most times it's pretty much a one way traffic pattern. There are times when 90% of the traffic is flying east and other times 90% of the traffic is flying west. The time of day this happens is consistent. Check it out. Kind of bizarre to see.

Scott
 
My wife Sue is a flightradar dork.

You want to see something truly bizarre, watch the air traffic patterns from the American East Coast to Europe. Most times it's pretty much a one way traffic pattern. There are times when 90% of the traffic is flying east and other times 90% of the traffic is flying west. The time of day this happens is consistent. Check it out. Kind of bizarre to see.

Scott

Kind of the same thing with westbound flights into Asia from mainland over KANC. It's a production line...
 
Use-
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/
If you want to see aircraft whose information is blocked on flightradar24.
I'm about 80 miles west of Dulles. My house is under one of the approaches from the west. The planes are around 15k altitude in their descent to Dulles. They have 3 large Mountain ranges to clear before landing. With FlightAware I can ID the plane and all its details as it goes over my house. Passengers etc, etc. A guy I went to high school with was a VP of security for UPS. They didn't like these flight tracking apps at all. He even testified to Congress against them. Sometimes those planes are loud due to how quiet it is around here.
 
I’ve been using this app for the last 2 years or so although I find the actual “bookmarked on desktop” web page better than the iOS app.

This was the app that lead to my discovery of the Pilatus PC-12. “Oh that would be a nice little plane.. (proceeds to google them and they are about 4.5 millions.) Yeah no. Lol.”
 
Kind of the same thing with westbound flights into Asia from mainland over KANC. It's a production line...
If you want to hear the flight communications while tracking the inbound/outbound flight liveatc website is a great listen. I would listen while working overnights at a hotel. I was able to hear a China Airlines flight land at DIA and have a difficult time understanding the ground control. I think he circled one of the terminals once or twice before finding the correct gate. Someone posted a liveatc audio recording where a pilot at LAX or SFO I think was in a hurry. Airforce One landed and he was told to wait as Airforce One has the right away apparently.
 
Which kit are you using exactly? This?

I saw your post and went down the rabbit hole. Thanks.

This is fascinating.
https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/flightfeeder/

I'm actually just using a generic SDR and the nice FlightAware antenna plugged into a Pi4

https://flightaware.store/products/antenna-1090mhz

https://www.amazon.com/RTL-SDR-Blog-RTL2832U-Software-Defined/dp/B0CD745394

But, that kit would be a good starting point. You'll get the bug and want a better antenna when you start picking up planes
 
I’m not sure how many use the Flightradar24 app, but it’s accuracy is astounding.

We had two T-38’s do a flyover for the Iowa State v. Arizona game here, and my house is always in the flight path since it lines up 5 miles straight North of the stadium. I really wanted to see them, so as we sat down for supper, I popped the app on.

As they approached, I excused myself and stepped outside to watch the planes, and was in a minute or so later to finish eating.

It’s a fun app to play with.

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Funny, I used this app last week while flying from Reno, NV to Lexington, KY to track the progress of the flight. It was quite accurate along the way.
 
Funny, I used this app last week while flying from Reno, NV to Lexington, KY to track the progress of the flight. It was quite accurate along the way.
My son and I will open it up and call out airplanes before they arrive over our house and watch them fly by. Oddly fun.....
 
Flightaware is similar. But it's interesting tracking the 777-300ER that United flies each year in the San Francisco Fleet Week air show. It goes in a holding pattern over the Farallon Islands before the show starts, does one show, takes a few laps around the Farallon Islands again, and then does another show before the Blue Angels are scheduled. But the flight profile is kind of fun. I think this was captured during the first show.

 
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