Are you ever curious about that plane flying overhead?

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Are you ever curious about that plane flying overhead?

66 Grande guy · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

We live under an international high altitude flight path from Paris/London to Edmonton/Calgary so we used to see airplanes all the time if there was blue sky. I remember one time we were on one those flights from London to Calgary and spotted our place as we flew over it. 45 minutes later we landed in Calgary and had a 6 hour drive back home. (Would have used Edmonton but the Calgary flight was a non stop.) Sure would have been nice to be able to stop the bus and get off like we used to as we were getting a bit punchy by that time in our travel day.

Now the skies are remarkably empty.

Not sure if that's a good thing or not.

ABC123 · Uber Guru

Yes, Flight Aware is part of my working life.

Just imagine what that screen looked like a year ago.

There would have been 5 times the number of planes in the air.

Or maybe more.

In the old world, most of the time I was tracking planes but these days it's rare for one to come in late or get stuck on the tarmac due to airport volume.

-- Edited by ABC123 on Sunday 24th of January 2021 03:39:47 PM

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

I've used it to identify planes flying over PEI.

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

I remember 5 years ago, sitting outside the RV late on a super clear night in St Andrews NB, there was a literal line, one after the other, some two abreast, of big planes going by headed to Europe. I'm assuming you see exactly the same flightpath as we were looking at Todd.

Would have been neat to have identified them.

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

MarineTraffic is also a interesting toy,

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

I have the Marine Traffic ap on my phone. It's great when you're waiting for the Ferry to Nova Scotia to see exactly where it is.

66 Beau · Poncho Master!

I was using it this past summer. So few planes were going over I got curious about them. Turned out most were cargo planes going to/from Anchorage to Memphis, St. Louis, Dallas etc.

Playing around with it, I found quite a few water bombers and could track their flights.

I also found airplanes flying back & forth across Washington State. The owner was listed as Boeing and the planes flew back & forth from near Seattle, over toward Spokane, with a flight path that looked like a search & rescue grid, or sometimes like the plane was running the Indy 500 (holding pattern) for hours. Looking closer, the elevation changed, they reversed circling direction and altered speed etc during the flight. Finally figured these were 737 Max's flying test flights. Thousands of hours & miles.

I'm guessing that once traffic gets back to normal, there will be just too many planes to get curious about individual ones.

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

I like tracking the helicopters down here shuttling the Snowbirds over the border.

They make about 6 flights a day each. Yes, as we all know the border is apparently closed, but no shortage of people are flying over to meet their cars at the Niagara Falls or Buffalo airport.

4SPEED427 · A Poncho Legend!

Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!

I spend a fair bit of time tracking planes on this one. Not so much the past year of course but I love looking at those flight paths that make NO sense when they are on a flat map!

65 SD L79 · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

cdnpont wrote:
I like tracking the helicopters down here shuttling the Snowbirds over the border.
They make about 6 flights a day each. Yes, as we all know the border is apparently closed, but no shortage of people are flying over to meet their cars at the Niagara Falls or Buffalo airport.

i did not see as many helicopters today. they fly right over the house

DonSSDD · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

I see the first westjet 737 max flight had problems when a check engine light came on.

-- Edited by DonSSDD on Sunday 24th of January 2021 08:33:53 PM

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

On FlightAware, go up to the top left and click on Live flight Tracking, Browse by aircraft type, Type in B38M in the little Aircraft Type box and click the Blue "aircraft Type" button.

You'll see where the max is in service.

64PARCONUK · Addicted!

I use the site Carl mentioned in his last post above quite extensively. Mainly to keep track of our flight students flying solo. Not just to see whether they flew the correct route, because the system additionally allows you to print out historic flights for debrief and discussion. That also gives me access to their actual altitude and groundspeed. Every once in a Blue Moon someone unconnected with our Flying Club might make an accusation about one of our aircraft. The site makes it simply to prove "that aircraft wasn't even there kind sir, it was 50 nm away!"

I can use the live map to see if any flight is going to be delayed, then I can re-adjust subsequent bookings for that aircraft and/or an instructor that may be in it.

Of course the instructors don't really like it much when I ask them why they didn't go to the designated training area to do a certain exercise, but we all get on well and such questions are approached in a relaxed and respectful manner.

Every now and then it contains things like this, the last Qantas 747 departure out of Sydney:

www.flightradar24.com/blog/final-qantas-747-departure-from-australia-leaves-a-special-message/~:text=The%20final%20Qantas%20747%20departure,fleet's%2049%20years%20of%20service.

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

That reminds me of this one:

https://skiesmag.com/news/a-hug-from-above/

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

I joined FlightRadar24 as well. I like the ground maps. It does some things better than FlightAware, some less.

ABC123 · Uber Guru

cdnpont wrote:
I joined FlightRadar24 as well. I like the ground maps. It does some things better than FlightAware, some less.

I like that one !

I found planes that had the info "Blocked"

Cross reference to flight aware and the plane does not show at all.

At least with FlightRadar24 you don't have an UFO

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

ABC123 wrote:
cdnpont wrote:
I joined FlightRadar24 as well. I like the ground maps. It does some things better than FlightAware, some less.
I like that one !
I found planes that had the info "Blocked"
Cross reference to flight aware and the plane does not show at all.
At least with FlightRadar24 you don't have an UFO

I'm curious about that one too. There was a "blocked" flight locally that showed it originating from a place where there is no airport...

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

FlightRadar24 definitely has less delay than the other. More "real time".

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

70 SS ACADIAN wrote:
cdnpont wrote:
I like tracking the helicopters down here shuttling the Snowbirds over the border.
They make about 6 flights a day each. Yes, as we all know the border is apparently closed, but no shortage of people are flying over to meet their cars at the Niagara Falls or Buffalo airport.
i did not see as many helicopters today. they fly right over the house

We get a lot of helicopters and small planes flying low over our place in the Summer ... I wave at them. They are either tourists or real estate-related flights.

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

Canadian Poncho wrote:
I've used it to identify planes flying over PEI.

Does it also track brown and yellow ice chunks hurtling towards the Island? wink

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

You need to purchase the $1.99 "Pooptracker" add on.

Pontiacanada wrote:
Canadian Poncho wrote:
I've used it to identify planes flying over PEI.
Does it also track brown and yellow ice chunks hurtling towards the Island?