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Author Topic: If you are at all interested in aircraft or travel.....  (Read 1875 times)

guest22972

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If you are at all interested in aircraft or travel.....
« on: October 10, 2018, 12:39:28 PM »

Was searching for some way to have my Camera directly Download pics to my camera or better still, print direct from the camera through WI-Fi. Think I got that licked but in browsing " apps"  I found something I have been playing with  today and am really stoked with.

It's an app that goes on your Tablet ( which is better so you can see what going on without going blind) or your phone.
It tracks aircraft flights the world over.
You put in your location, or move the map anywhere you want and it shows you the position of all the aircraft with a transponder  ( pretty much and twin engine up and decent chopper) and tells you what they are, who owns them, the speed the plane is doing, height, where it came from and where it's going, time it departed and when it will arrive, where it's been the last week and a lot of other info for the techno plane geek.

The accuracy of the thing is quite astonishing to me.
I loaded it up and went outside. Zoomed in on my house on the satelite view and could see the dot on the map marking my location.  It located me to virtually the meter! I went from one side of the house to the other and it showed that. Walked down the letterbox and that's where It pin pointed me.  Incredible.

I zoomed out and looked at planes heading my way. Was way too overcast to see any jets today but I sure could hear them and the map seemed spot on.
I live not far from a light airport and learned that there are some regional operations  working from there.  I was tracking a Beech baron coming in and with the map orientated, watched as it came nearer then looked up and there it was.  It went round  to land the opposite direction which is rare as they normally head for a straight in approach here but I guess the wind was turned today so he had to do a go round.  It disappeared out of sight and I kept watching on the map as it landed.  Shortly after the app said 0 altitude, I heard the thing at the airport in full reverse thrust so was pretty impressed how real time the thing tracks.

The app is called Flight Radar 24.

https://www.flightradar24.com/-34.17,148.54/6


The thing that completely blew me away more than anything else with this is seeing just how many freaking planes there are!!
There are thousands of the things in the skies at any one time. Might be naive but I had no clue there were so many goddam planes! Look over Europe and you wonder how they are not crashing into each other every day. Same with asia, the flight paths look like highways at holiday time with all the cars in a traffic jam.

Even if you don't install the app, I think everyone that frequents this place would find a look at the site very interesting and eye opening.

For me it fulfills something I have wondered about as long as I can remember. I recall as a small boy I would hear a jet and go racing out in the back yard to see it.  Right up till now I have still looked up, particularly at night and wondered where was that plane going or coming from and wondered how a motivated person could find out. thought it would be a matter of studying arrivals and departure info from the airport or something but in any case take effort and research with a fair degree of inaccuracy.

Not likely. I can pull out my tablet or, god forbid, Phone, as see where any plane is anywhere in the world and a ton of info on it. Can even search by airlines, flight numbers and type.  Got to admit, been a long time since I have been as much in awe about anything as this app.
The level of technology this puts in anyones hand astounds me. I bet this would have cost millions 10-15 years ago and not been nearly as informative.

I noticed they wanted people to put the tracking radars up.  I applied straight away. I'm near an airport so that may be of interest but I'd love to be a part of something like this.

Have a look, might be something that impresses other people here as well!

AdeV

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Re: If you are at all interested in aircraft or travel.....
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2018, 07:54:15 PM »
I've used the website a few times, but never the app. I've already got too many things wasting my time, another one would be overkill... and I'd definitely be using that one! Another way you can amuse yourself, if you're flying somewhere later on, you can use one of the other websites (I'll find a link later) which tells you exactly what plane your flight will be on, then you can track it with FlightRadar24! See where it came from, and how close to the airport it is! I'm guessing, from your description, you could probably track it right up to the gate! And if you're a bit cheeky & don't put your phone into flight mode like you're supposed to, I'd be willing to bet you could watch your own takeoff!
Cheers!
Ade.
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ajaffa1

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Re: If you are at all interested in aircraft or travel.....
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2018, 10:51:39 AM »
Well that`s just great, now any terrorist with a smart phone can work out the nationality of an aircraft and the likely nationality of the majority of passengers. Should help anyone with a surface to air missile to select which aircraft to shoot down. I wonder if this app covers military flights? Perhaps they can tell us where MH370 is.

Vladimir Putin has probably already distributed this app to all his, non existent, troops in Ukraine.

Bob