Aircraft Tracking

[Dave]

So as you all know, I like to know what aircraft/airlines are flying over NI. Ever since I bought my camera, I find myself spending more and more time at the airport, etc etc. It would be great to know in advance of any particular aircraft or airline that may flying into one of our small Northern Irish airports, for example, Ryanair Dreamliner 737 which flew into BHD recently but everyone missed it.

Most online flight trackers are only of US flights thus can not be used here. I know of  http://www.flytecomm.com however it looks confusing. Do any of you guys have any methods of flight tracking.

I'm thinking of investing (or wasting) £400 on a live flight tracking radarbox which plugs into your laptop and provides a radar image with live aircraft movements. Do you think this would be worth it?

[casper]

Sorry I've no experience in this but there are a lot of links here to flight tracking sites

http://www.thirtythousandfeet.com/track.htm

[vortex003]

I own a SBS box - but not all aircraft send positional data (they don't show on the 'radar' screen).You would see Ryanair and Easyjet but not Flybe,however their aircraft do show in the list beside the 'radar' screen.

Google 'SBS' and 'Airnav Radarbox' and have a good read about both products before you decide which one to buy.

[Dave]

Thanks for the reply, I have been trying one of the links within Casper's link however like most online tracking, theres a 10 minute delay so it's not actually real time, but it's fun enough.

Thanks for your replies

[vortex003]

Here are two screenshots - the first was taken about 10 minutes ago.It's great to watch aircraft on the screen and hear them on the scanner talking to ATC at the same time - all live

The second shot shows Air Force One - military aircraft can be seen in the list on the right but only aircraft with the little 'plane' icon plot their position on the 'radar' screen.You can also open the aircraft details window which will show pictures of the aircraft,and the route details for most flights appear in the bar at the top of the screen.

The pictures and route details are separate add-ons that don't come with the SBS but can be downloaded from the Kinetic site.

There is also Radarbox but i don't know much about it.

[vortex003]

I should also add that living next to the airports you would see more traffic close by - i am surrounded by hills here and don't see much below 10'000 feet,except local traffic at EGAB.

The signal is 'line of sight' - same for the scanner.Any hills,buildings or large trees will block the signal and you won't see the aircraft on the screen

[Dave]

Thanks Vortex! Looks pretty good. I like that the registrations are displayed, saves so much time trying to find out via the internet. How much did the set up cost you and do you use it often enough to justify the costs. Lastly, do you have to have internet to use the radar box?

[vortex003]

I have the box running whenever i'm at home - it's very addictive once you start using it.

Better having the internet.The registrations don't show with the SBS until you download a program which uses the 'net, and each time you receive a new aircraft it finds the data from an internet source and stores it on your system.Saves a lot of manual typing

I bought my box when they first came out,but the price has dropped since the competition started selling theirs.

There is also a program called Planeplotter which you can download for a few quid and it lets you see other peoples data without buying your own box.I've never used it myself though.

[Angry Turnip]

The Forum on BFSSpotters is dominated now by SBS and Airnav logs from some bloke in the Isle of Man.

I don`t see the point of his logs because they aren`t really relevant to BFS or BHD.

I`m sure both SBS and Airnav are very useful but they have ruined that forum-very little info sharing on it.(A bit like some of the local aviation society`s   )---Shall I get back in the knife drawer?


There was someone from Donacloney posting SBS logs which sometimes were useful if I heard something odd flying over,and wanted to see what it was,but he has stopped posting.