Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: neilep on 24/08/2009 19:34:27

Title: How Does This Site Know How Many Planes Are Airborne Right Now ?
Post by: neilep on 24/08/2009 19:34:27
Dearest TNS Peeps Of IQ high And Achiement Grandeur,

As a sheepy I of course luff to lay on my back and look at Airomobiles !..Airomobiles are my all time favourite long car things with wings,

I of course can also fly..here I am as a lamb taking my first flight !


 [ Invalid Attachment ]
Me Flying As A Lamb (I Landed In A Cow Pat..poo !!)


My son pointed me in the direction of this site http://flightaware.com/    ...it's actually really quite kewl !..at this time of posting it is currently
 tracking 5,325 airborne aircraft (303 VFR) with 93,919,344 total flights in the database.
FlightAware has tracked 48,116 arrivals in the last 24 hours.

How does this site know all of this ?...is the information collated available in the public domain ?..where does it get the information from ?

I want to know because it's something I want to know about. I like knowing stuff so that I can appear klevur to my brats kids !

hugs et shmishes


mwah mwah mwah !!



Neil
Ground Control To Major Tom
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




Title: How Does This Site Know How Many Planes Are Airborne Right Now ?
Post by: lyner on 24/08/2009 21:39:25
Did you not know that all sheep have extremely good vision and they each have a radio communicator buried in their woolen coats?
When you think that they are just standing there, looking incredibly dozy, they are, in fact, observing every plane that passes overhead and relaying its markings back to their headquarters in Baaahsildon.
Title: How Does This Site Know How Many Planes Are Airborne Right Now ?
Post by: LeeE on 25/08/2009 14:21:39
I'm not sure how they do it.  All the aircraft flying in the U.S. Airways system (like a road network in the sky) are directed by ground control, so their flight details will be recorded somewhere and could form the basis of such a system.  I don't think this would include the VFR (Visual Flight Rules i.e. you navigate and watch out for other aircraft by using your eyes) stuff though.  It's possible in the U.S. that all flights, from GA (General Aviation i.e. light aircraft) upwards need a flight plan to be filed before making a flight and these flight plans, when combined with the "FlightAware's proprietary flight arrival time algorithms" could be used for flight tracking.

Alternatively, it could be radar based, but that wouldn't cover all VFR flights all of the time as some would likely dip below radar from time to time.

The most likely solution is that it's flight plan based, but like I say, I'm not sure.