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Visit to the Mound

by | Sep 29, 2024 | Airport News, Spotting, Spotting Locations, Spotting News

Prestwick Mound

A quick vist to the mound yesterday, for a couple of pictures of the Colombian ATR42. There were a few people about, the weather was kind and the ATR42 was coloutful as you can see from the photograph above.

What else was there, there were a couple of Australian C-130’s, an RAAF C-17 arrived – the usual contingent of RCAF C-130’s was there along with a USAF C-5. Although everything except the ATR42 was old, it was not bad weather wise and there were lull’s in the heat haze so there was a chance for some reasonable photo’s.

The Global Airlines A-380 was being worked on, so guessing that it will be heading to Dresden soon. Global Airlines are still aiming for an early 2025 service, not really sure what early means here. But there is it would seem some progress on that front, not sure if it will just be an on the day departure or if there will be advanced warning on that front.

 

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Missing Aircraft Data

by | Aug 12, 2024 | Aviation News, Electronic Identity, Online Logging, Spotting, Spotting Locations, Spotting News, Visible Markings

Hidden Data – may be more apt!

Since the recent visit to Prestwick of the unmarked KC-135, there has been a bit of a hullabaloo on the social media groups and forums used by plane spotters. So in an attempt to explain where we are I’m going to create a couple of posts here, this first post will cover off some of the basics and I’ll get into the detail in subsequent posts,

Some History.

Plane spotters have always been a resourceful group, many spotters work in the aviation industry and have historically been able to access data and disseminate it quickly to other spotters. Even in the 1960’s (before there was any dedicated technology) it wasn’t uncommon to see crowds turn up at some out of the way place if there were unusual movements.

By the 1970’s you could track aircraft listening to Short Wave radio, if you had the right (fairly expensive) equipment. In the late 1970’s along came the ACARS system, where the aircraft identity and some telemetary was transmitted using a a varsion of Teletype data. This system is still in use today, although it doesn’t have the convenience of the newer systems from a spotters perspective.

Latterly the vast majority of aircraft tracking has moved to ADSB and it’s off shoots. So now anyone with a reasonably modern phone can track aircraft, no matter where they are provided they have data coverage.

So what is being hidden?

There are two Federal Aviation Authority programmes that are in operations at the moment, one Limiting Aircraft Displayed Data (LADD) has global reach and in truth just slightly anoying from a spotting perspective. This service is an FAA service and should apply only in US Air Space, but affects anyone taking data from the FAA sources – so if the aircraft is in the LADD programme – that’s the data displayed by third parties taking the FAA feed so aircraft are displayed minus certain pieces of data.

The easiest way to see what data is hidden is to compare an aircraft on Flight Radar 24 and ADSB Global, as you will be able to see there is quite a lot missing but you can still identify the aircraft on the latter site.

The other the Privacy ICAO Address programme (PIA) is currently limited in scope, covering only FAA regulated air space. But there is provision in the latest FAA rules, signed into law in May this year that would allow this to be extended globally with the agreement of other nations. This is a real pain for the spotter, as the aircraft is allowed to electronically hide it’s true identity and broadcast a completely fake identity – there are currently some 55,000 hexcode/registration allocations for these. You can do your own detective work on ADSB global, where you can see that all that is displayed is a call sign and a fake hexcode/registration.

With both of the above programmes, the physical registration must still be displayed – so the Mk 1 eyball still defeats the objective.

What about the military?

So there have been a number of recent reports of unmarked military aircraft, along with some misconceptions about the why. The reason given for the military aircraft flying without any markings other than national insignia (that’s all that’s required by law) is, Operational Security (OPSEC). Currently as far as I’m aware only aircraft operated by the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command (AMC) are in scope for the removal of aircraft identification marks and when time allows I will provide a list of these.

But in the meantime, here is a list of the units that fall into the scope of being painted in the new scheme – with no identifying marks.

AIR BASE WINGS
87th Air Base Wing | Joint Base Mcguire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey

628th Air Base Wing | Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina

AIR MOBILITY WINGS AND GROUPS
43rd Air Mobility Group | Pope Army Airfield, North Carolina

60th Air Mobility Wing | Travis Air Force Base, California

305th Air Mobility Wing | Joint Base Mcguire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey

375th Air Mobility Wing | Scott Air Force Base, Illinois

AIR MOBILITY OPERATIONS WINGS
515th Air Mobility Operations Wing | Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii

521st Air Mobility Operations Wing | Ramstein Air Base, Germany

AIRLIFT WINGS
19th Airlift Wing | Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas

62nd Airlift Wing | Joint Base Lewis-Mcchord, Washington

89th Airlift Wing | Joint Base Andrews, Maryland

317th Airlift Wing | Dyess Air Force Base, Texas

436th Airlift Wing | Dover Air Force Base, Delaware

437th Airlift Wing | Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina

AIR REFUELING WINGS
6th Air Refueling Wing | Macdill Air Force Base, Florida

22nd Air Refueling Wing | Mcconnell Air Force Base, Kansas

92nd Air Refueling Wing | Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington

NUMBERED AIR FORCE
18th Air Force | Scott Air Force Base, Illinois

The list of types operated by the above units is quite extensive, but I don’t have knowledge of them all – although I’m putting the list together. But it does include some aircraft from the following types – KC-46, KC-135, KC-10, VC-135, V-22, C-20, C-21, C-32, C-37, C-5, C-130, C-17 – probably some others. But it should be noted that at the moment, the removal of visible identification marks applies only to Air Mobility Command aircraft – that of course could change.

Already reported by spotters as being used without any visible marks are, the following types – KC-46, KC-135, V-22, C-32, C-37 and C-130.

Now as a plane spotter I’m a bit hacked off with this whole thing, but there’s not a lot that can be done about it – if anyone wants to contribute to this then feel free I’ve covered the LADD and the PIA stuff in earlier posts but not the Air Mobility Command stuff yet as I’m still doing a bit of research.

 

Support this site.

It does take some time and effort to create these downloads, also there are a number of costs associated with running the site. So if you can consider supporting this site with a donation it would be helpful, if you find the site useful then why not treat me to a doughnut – or even a doughnut and a coffee if you’re feeling really flush.

But regardless of whether you donate or not, I hope that the contents of the files are of some use, also bear in mind that the files are as dated in the bar graph on the down load page – I will try and produce a new data set every month or more frequently if time allows.

Please note these files are provided for personal use, if you want to use them for any other purpose or if you want to make them available through your own site – get in touch first.

 

 

Serial Number Missing!

by | Aug 8, 2024 | Aviation News, Online Logging, Spotting, Spotting Locations, Spotting News

No Number Visible!

I recently visited Prestwick, to see a couple of Australian C-130’s and have a quick look at some other stuff that was in. There was a KC-135R sitting over on the North side, the only discernable marking was the US Flag on the tail. There was no serial number visible, this is in line with the new Air Mobility Command policy – but is not a great help to a plane spotter.

I had watched it on ADSB as it came over the western approaches, watched as it did a quick pirouette and then landed at Prestwick. It’s transponder code matched the known code for 62-3553, but from the mound there was nothing visible on the aircraft to confirm that. Today I loaded the pictures I had taken to have a look for the Data Block, it was not visible anywhere on the port side of the aircraft – even with the photographs zoomed in to 200%.

Plane spotters have known that the removal of the visible serial numbers was happening, however I for one was unaware that the data block would be removed or relocated to somewhere that it wasn’t visible.

So when the next one comes in, I’ll need to try and be there when it arrives and when it departs – just to try and find the data block. Without a visible serial, the plane spotter is effectively in the dark as to the true identity of the aircraft. The transponder can be set to transmit pretty much any code, which could equate to any aircraft – the loss of the ability to use the Mk I eyeball to confirm the ID is pretty catastrophic.

I have known that this would happen for 15 years, as back in 2009 Lockheed, Boeing and the USAF started the project for the use of RFID tracking of Aircraft and Parts. The original news article is here, there are quite a few others around one of the most informative is this one here.

So spotters will have to become a bit more creative about how they get the actual numbers, or they just have to trust that the Hex Code is correct – not that easy to do when you remember that in the past there have been USAF aircraft with a different serial on each side of the tail!

 

Support this site.

It does take some time and effort to create these downloads, also there are a number of costs associated with running the site. So if you can consider supporting this site with a donation it would be helpful, if you find the site useful then why not treat me to a doughnut – or even a doughnut and a coffee if you’re feeling really flush.

But regardless of whether you donate or not, I hope that the contents of the files are of some use, also bear in mind that the files are as dated in the bar graph on the down load page – I will try and produce a new data set every month or more frequently if time allows.

Please note these files are provided for personal use, if you want to use them for any other purpose or if you want to make them available through your own site – get in touch first.

 

 

PIA Traffic is it increasing?

by | Jul 16, 2024 | Aviation News, Online Logging, Spotting, Spotting Locations, Spotting News

Is PIA traffic increasing?

I’d say that it most certainly is, since President Biden signed the new FAA legislation on the 16th of May 2024 there seems to be an increas in the visible traffic on ADSB Global.

What is PIA, it’s short for Privacy ICAO Address. Without delving into it too much, it’s a method that the US Government provides through it’s FAA, that can be used by any private individual to hide their private flying habits from the general public. The ICAO part is short for the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Why bother about the fact that someone wants to hide, actually I’m not that bothered. I am a little iritated about the fact that a number of the individuals who want to obfuscate the fact that they are zooming around in private jets, are in some cases the people who would have you believe that they are in favour of a greener sustainable future.

Or in other cases people who have cultivated a public following, then decided that they want to cherry pick what the public sees of their lifestyle. I understand the security concerns that these people may have, infact I can sympathise with them on that point – not from any personal perspective, but for the reason that being famouse doesn’t give anyone an excuse to bother you.

My issue with the privacy codes comes from my interest in plane spotting, I don’t actually care who is on the aeroplane – I really only want to know if I’ve seen the plane before or not. As a plane spotter it is pretty annoying, I’m still looking for aircraft identities from many years ago. And as far as this PIA program goes I wasn’t bothered by it until I discovered that it may be used internationally.

There are many problems associated with people knowing where you are and are going, but in truth trying to hide the identity of your private Jet isn’t very effective – see the article from Forbes here and the lack of effectiveness becomes obvious. The chances of hiding from the spotting community are slim in the short term and pretty well impossible in the long term. Hiding from others not interested enough to use all the services and tecnology available might be easier, but in many cases these may well be the people that you want to cultivate.

As a footnote I would like to point out that the PIA program is free and available to any one, the FAA have assigned more than 50,000 ICAO codes to the program. As of now only a few hundred of these have been allocated, in reality to be effective, the codes have to be changed every few flights at least – but the logistics of that are quite difficult. So at the moment, the PIA program is enjoying very limited success.

 

Support this site.

It does take some time and effort to create these downloads, also there are a number of costs associated with running the site. So if you can consider supporting this site with a donation it would be helpful, if you find the site useful then why not treat me to a doughnut – or even a doughnut and a coffee if you’re feeling really flush.

But regardless of whether you donate or not, I hope that the contents of the files are of some use, also bear in mind that the files are all from the 24th of June 2024 – I will try and produce a new data set every month or more frequently if time allows.

 

 

How can I identify a PIA aircraft?

by | Nov 22, 2023 | Aviation News, Database, Online Logging, Optical Enhancement, Radio, Spotting, Spotting Locations, Spotting News

Well this is a bit of a conundrum, you see a plane look it up on one of the tracking sites and all there is is a ICAO code and a call sign. Everything else, registration, type, origin, destination and many other spotter friendly features are not displayed.

How then do you find out the actual identity of the aircraft and whatever other information that you like to collect?

Well the truth is you won’t get the information without some effort, it’s unlikely that you’ll find out the information without the help of other spotters. The only certain way of identifying these aircraft is a physical sighting, at either end of the flight – so if you can’t be at the airport when it lands then other spotter groups would probably be the place to start.

Typically a week day view of US air space will show thousands of aircraft, and the vast majority of these are readily identifiable using applications or web sites like flightradar24 or in this case globe.adsbexchange.com.

So in most cases looking up and seeing an aircraft, will if you know where you are – make the identification fairly straight forward, a quick look at the app or website and you have everything you need.

In the begining tracking flights was more technical, there were tools like ACARS – but you needed certain technical skills to use that to track aircraft. But along came flightradar24, this was an absolute boon to the spotters.

Lack of privacy was seen to be a problem, so along came the FAA’s LADD (Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed) – which is a filter that the FAA puts in place for anyone taking a data feed from them – the image is LADD subscribed aircraft.

Just to be clear, these three screen shots were taken within a few minutes of each other the bottom shot is filtered by PIA subscribed aircraft.

As you can see, there aren’t that many aircraft in the view. But what I can say is that there is literally no information that would interest a spotter, the navigational information is there but little else is available.

In the next post I’ll go over the options and list some of the ways that you can try and find out the aircraft identity. But in the mean time consider this, both the LADD and the PIA services are free – so it’s likely that people using the LADD service will move to the PIA service.

Flying from Loch Lomond

by | Mar 26, 2023 | Spotting, Spotting Locations, Trip Reports

If you’re looking for a unique way to experience the beauty of Scotland, then Loch Lomond Seaplanes is an experience you won’t want to miss. Offering stunning aerial views of the Scottish countryside, this seaplane tour provides a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is sure to leave you with memories that last a lifetime.

One of the most striking things about Loch Lomond Seaplanes is the level of service that they offer. From the moment you arrive, you’ll be treated to a first-class experience that is designed to make you feel comfortable and relaxed. The staff are friendly and welcoming, and they go out of their way to ensure that you have everything you need for a comfortable and enjoyable flight.

The planes themselves are modern and well-maintained, with comfortable seating and large windows that provide breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. The pilots are experienced and knowledgeable, and they are more than happy to answer any questions you may have about the area and the history of the region.

But what really sets Loch Lomond Seaplanes apart is the sheer beauty of the flights themselves. From the air, you’ll be able to see the stunning scenery of Loch Lomond and the surrounding area in a way that is simply impossible from the ground. The water sparkles in the sunlight, the hills roll away in every direction, and the wildlife and flora are all visible from your bird’s eye vantage point.

Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or someone who is just looking for a unique experience, Loch Lomond Seaplanes is a must-see destination. The level of service is exceptional, the planes are comfortable and well-maintained, and the views are simply breathtaking. If you’re looking for a way to see Scotland in all its glory, then look no further than Loch Lomond Seaplanes.