Originally Posted by
maxcichon
Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!
Have you ever wondered where that plane flying over head is going and what type of aircraft I just watched on my laptop the plane whose vapor trail I could see over head and was blown away by all the information and also the view.
You are also going to be totally blown away when you see how many aircraft are flying in your area...
I can now see why an aircraft traffic controller is one very, very busy person. You can see all the information instantly on your screen. but before clicking on the link:
ADS-B, Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast. <- it's a stupid name but that is classic FAA.
ADS-B is an aircraft to aircraft and aircraft to ground broadcast of a planes GPS position and altitude. In 2020 it was mandated to fly in any towed airport (class D, C and B) you had to have an ADS-B transmitter. The ADS-B receiver is optional. Since I fly under a CLASS-C airspace, I got a transmitter and receiver.
Here is a picture of a new ADS_B transponder before I installed it in the plane.
My avionics rack
Here is a picture of the receiver. It's burred in the avionics rack and behind that mess of cables.
Side view including ADS-B receiver
The purpose of ADS-B is to increase safety by giving pilots the relative position of targets around the aircraft. That is displayed on an I-Pad inside my aircraft. Here is a picture of the map display showing the KCAE Class C airspace by the magenta lines.
My cockpit, the working side.
The blue dot is my exact position. The GPS uses WAAS for very accurate positioning. Hence this stuff ain't cheap.
A couple of comments about the abuses of ADS-B data.
1) Data showed by flightradar is crowd sourced in exchange for greater data access. There are many private individuals with ADS-B receivers transmitting the data to various ADS-B websites. Here is a link to a flight I made testing RPM and speed combinations hence the rectangle patterns.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli...523Z/KCUB/KCUB
2) The data is being used illegally to collect landing fees.
https://avweb.com/aviation-news/peti...ads-b-billing/
3) The data is being used to publicly track famous people.
https://robbreport.com/motors/aviati...aa-1234787705/
Remember any new technology can be used for good and bad purposes.