Flightradar24 Interesting Finds

[MossRoad]

This answers a lot of questions about flightradar24, and why some aircraft do not show up. Most likely is they don't have their transponder turned on, or, they don't have the proper transponder at all.

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

The world’s most popular flight tracker. Track planes in real-time on our flight tracker map and get up-to-date flight status & airport information.

www.flightradar24.com

 

[/pine]

This was a first for me...anyone else seen a "high altitude balloon" on the display?...privately owned at that...?

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

View flight on Flightradar24

fr24.com

 

[MossRoad]

This was a first for me...anyone else seen a "high altitude balloon" on the display?...privately owned at that...?

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

View flight on Flightradar24

fr24.com

Yes. I saw a couple of them several months ago. Pretty neat!

 

[MossRoad]

It was May 31. First time I saw them so I took a couple screen shots.

 

[cqaigy2]

First for me.

 

[rontaki]

It's one of the few apps I pay for - I pay so I can get alerts, which I set up for particular calfire planes & copters in this area.
I find that the first clue that I've got that there's a fire nearby is #A230 buzzing by, and then I can almost pinpoint it on the map by seeing where the plane is circling.

We get a U2 out of Beale fairly often - shakes the world - but it never shows up on the map. The T38 trainer flights out of there often do, though.

View attachment 728946

I'm really late to this thread. I live near the Nevada County Airport, used for the Grass Valley Air Attack Base. In fire season I often hear CalFire aircraft headed to somewhere, and I want to know where the fire is. FR24 lets me know the location by where they go in circles.
Around here it's usually T88, T89 and A230.
On a recent fire I didn't need to track them via FR24, nor did I have time to, as we were evacuating for the so-called Pleasant Fire less than half a mile away from us. Did get some real close-up glimpses of the tankers. Here's what started that one -

 

[MossRoad]

Another Antonov leaving Indianapolis for who knows where...

 

[MossRoad]

Heard and odd sounding craft above the clouds the other day.

 

[RobertN]

Heard and odd sounding craft above the clouds the other day.

View attachment 766192

We get all kinds of interesting aircraft with odd names, as well as no name, in the greater Sacramento, Ca region.

A lot of fighters/trainers fly out of Fallon USN and come across the Sierras to the old Mather AFB; there's still military activity there.
To the north is Beale AFB; Fighter/trainers as well as U2's and other surveillance planes fly out of there.
Travis AFB is just to the west; lots of activity there. A lot of Heavies like C5, C17 fly out of there.

Would have been interesting to have FlightRadar back when Mather and McClellan AFB were still military... Mather was a B52 SAC base.

 

[bcp]

The President is in Portland this weekend. Tanker flying circles, and F15's patrolling, but with transponders off.

Bruce

 

[MossRoad]

Busy night last night...

 

[MossRoad]

How'd you like to be the pilot covering a college football game?

I'd get sick.

 

[RobertN]

How'd you like to be the pilot covering a college football game?

I'd get sick.

View attachment 767185

Air Command on wild fires circle for hours, although they follow the perimeters of the fire. Very common to see a similar pattern though on the big fires we have out west.

 

[California]

We get all kinds of interesting aircraft with odd names, as well as no name, in the greater Sacramento, Ca region.

... Travis AFB is just to the west; lots of activity there. A lot of Heavies like C5, C17 fly out of there.

We drive down I-80 nearly weekly between home and ranch. More often than not we see huge aircraft heading east from Travis AFB (@ Fairfield) at moderate altitude then make a U-turn within 10~20 miles. Sometimes turning over Travis and repeating the same pattern. Never reaching cruise altitude. This has to be crew keeping up their flight hours, no?

 

[MossRoad]

We drive down I-80 nearly weekly between home and ranch. More often than not we see huge aircraft heading east from Travis AFB (@ Fairfield) at moderate altitude then make a U-turn within 10~20 miles. Sometimes turning over Travis and repeating the same pattern. Never reaching cruise altitude. This has to be crew keeping up their flight hours, no?

You know, it really is a small world.

I could hear I-80 truck traffic from my childhood bedroom for the first 24 years of my life. I lived maybe 1/4 -1/2 mile from it. Moved about 2.5 miles from it for the next 11 years. Now I'm back to about 1.5 miles from it, and can hear it in the distance on cool, damp nights.

I've also lived within earshot of our local airport my entire life, and as I've mentioned before, grew up around a lot of people with airplanes, which led me to work at airports for about 6 years right after high school and it's how I paid for my schooling and first house. Hence, my interest in Flightradar24.

 

[MossRoad]

We drive down I-80 nearly weekly between home and ranch. More often than not we see huge aircraft heading east from Travis AFB (@ Fairfield) at moderate altitude then make a U-turn within 10~20 miles. Sometimes turning over Travis and repeating the same pattern. Never reaching cruise altitude. This has to be crew keeping up their flight hours, no?

Yes, they're staying proficient. Grissom Air Reserve Base (used to be Bunker Hill) in Peru, IN had a bunch of B-58 Hustlers, and KC-135 tankers when I was a kid. A-10s for a while, now it's air force reserve base with the largest group of KC-135s in the reserves. It's quit common to see them doing touch and goes for hours down there. Just flying endless ovals. Once in a while they'll fly up here and do approaches over and over. What's interesting about those is that they'll do them from all directions, I'm guessing to get proficient at different wind conditions. Headwind, tailwind, left and right crosswind. They only have 1 runway at Grissom, and here we have two at 90 degree angles, so they can get all of the experiences in one session and we're only about 70 miles north, and not as busy as Chicago or Indy.

Grissom Air Reserve Base - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MossRoad]

Heard an odd one. Looked up. Charter flight.

Embraer ERJ-190

Probably bringing in Clemson to face ND tomorrow night would be my guess.

 

[MossRoad]

These are odd sounding birds as well. Pusher prop. Just heard this one while out in the yard.

Piaggio P.180 Avanti - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BravoXray]

These are odd sounding birds as well. Pusher prop. Just heard this one while out in the yard.

Piaggio P.180 Avanti - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 768991

There was one of those used in the movie Wind, with Mathew Modine and Jennifer Gray.
Cool movie about the Americas Cup sailboats.
Ever see a Beech Starship?
There used to be one based at Muncie.
Beech eventually bought all of them back, except for one or two that the owners wouldn't let go of.

 

[MossRoad]

There was one of those used in the movie Wind, with Mathew Modine and Jennifer Gray.
Cool movie about the Americas Cup sailboats.
Ever see a Beech Starship?
There used to be one based at Muncie.
Beech eventually bought all of them back, except for one or two that the owners wouldn't let go of.

Yes. I saw the first one that was made. I knew a man that did a lot of the design on the props and wings. He lived here in South Bend and they flew him here in it. I met him when I worked at the airport in the late 70's-late 80's. When he heard my last name, which is quite unique, he asked if I was related to XXXXXX, and I said yes. He started laughing and told me his mom and my grandmother were 1st cousins. Part of his compensation for his work on the Starship was they gave him a Duchess, which I cared for for several years.

He worked with Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites on many projects, and designed the wing mast for the Stars and Stripes America's Cup sailboat in the late 80s.

I had a standing order that anytime a strange looking aircraft came to our FBO, I was to call him. He'd then come out and take photos and measurements of the props and wings.

Very interesting guy. I haven't seen him for more than 30 years. His wiki page says he's still alive.