Parisien
Moderator
- Messages
- 34,927
Any Amateur Air Traffic contollers on the forum.......oh...it doesn't matter.....
- Thread starter Parisien
- Start date
Grinzzz
New Member
- Messages
- 925
Of course theres an app for that!! In fact i think theres even one where you can pretend to be an air traffic controller.
Maser Sod
Member
- Messages
- 1,965
I hit this one alot:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/
I watch the ships go by my place during the day. Better than my old office view, onto a railway line!
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/
I watch the ships go by my place during the day. Better than my old office view, onto a railway line!
Easyplan66
New Member
- Messages
- 3,358
Got the free app, interesting but it only shows about 60% of aircraft as not all have the tech
midlifecrisis
Member
- Messages
- 16,285
The reason why they state 60% of aircraft is because only 60% of aircraft have MODE-S transponders. These are the 'new-tech' the old tech is MODE A/C.
The system relies on having third party receivers dotted around the world.
The receivers also rely and their being an 'interrogator' (A Secondary Surveillance Radar or similar) nearby (within 250nm) that will interrogate the aircraft. The interrogator ask various questions, identity, height (Mode A and C) being the basic questions but other questions include aircraft chassis number, flight identity, selected altitude, Climb rate, direction and position etc (or Mode S). An Interrogating radar will calculate where the aircraft is by the direction of its antenna (to within 0.09 of a degree), however, flight radar's system relies on the aircraft's internal GPS if the aircraft is equipped with GPS and a Mode-S transponder.
So now you know, and why do I know, well it's what I do!
If you ever want to know more about an aircraft from it registration you can go here for UK aircraft (G -registered) http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=60&pagetype=65&appid=1
or here for any other aircraft http://www.gatwickaviationsociety.org.uk/modeslookup.asp
The system relies on having third party receivers dotted around the world.
The receivers also rely and their being an 'interrogator' (A Secondary Surveillance Radar or similar) nearby (within 250nm) that will interrogate the aircraft. The interrogator ask various questions, identity, height (Mode A and C) being the basic questions but other questions include aircraft chassis number, flight identity, selected altitude, Climb rate, direction and position etc (or Mode S). An Interrogating radar will calculate where the aircraft is by the direction of its antenna (to within 0.09 of a degree), however, flight radar's system relies on the aircraft's internal GPS if the aircraft is equipped with GPS and a Mode-S transponder.
So now you know, and why do I know, well it's what I do!
If you ever want to know more about an aircraft from it registration you can go here for UK aircraft (G -registered) http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=60&pagetype=65&appid=1
or here for any other aircraft http://www.gatwickaviationsociety.org.uk/modeslookup.asp
Last edited:
midlifecrisis
Member
- Messages
- 16,285
Also the older technology of MODE A and C (Identity and Height) was supposed to be switched off at the end of this year but this has been put back till the 31st March 2012 (for now!) Think of this as a big digital switch over. Why is the switchover happening and how will it affect self loading freight, sorry , passengers? It won't but will allow more aircraft to fly in a given area (continent) as the number of MODE A addresses was limited to 4096 individual codes (7777 in octal) whereas the new technology will allow 16,777,214 individual addresses, currently there are around 600,000 various type of aircraft able to fly so it's reasonably future proof.
Need to know more? Come to Bournemouth Airport and I'll bore you even more!
Need to know more? Come to Bournemouth Airport and I'll bore you even more!
Yeti
Junior Member
- Messages
- 635
Use the above with this and you can watch the ships in "almost" real time
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html
Yeti
Junior Member
- Messages
- 635
I had them all working earlier when I posted the link, but lost them shortly afterwards. They have been know to turn them off when US Navy stuff transits the canal. They used to post pics after the event but I don;t even see them doing that now, maybe the Yanks got too twitchy.
Yeti
Junior Member
- Messages
- 635
Have already got that one in the book from my RAF days when we used to go on detachment Norway and Canada. Quite amazing to see and sometimes so bright we could work on the aircraft by their light.