[php] [/php]

Aircraft Tracking Sites

by | Aug 21, 2024 | Electronic Identity, Online Logging, Spotting, Visible Markings

Tracking Sites

There are a number of tracking sites, from the ubiquitous Flight Radar 24 all the way to the somewhat concerning JetSpy. For the average person with an interest in aviation, the sites like Flight Radar 24 are generally good enough.

Other sites have advantages, like they don’t take the FAA SWIM feed – so can display all the data that the aircraft transmits. This bypasses the restrictions placed on sites like Flight Radar 24. A typical example would be an aircraft not showing the departure and arrival airport, or some other information. In the screenshot below, you can see that there is little information available, this aircraft is subscribed to the LADD programme so the data displayed on FR24 is restricted.

To view these images at full resolution (they are simple screen shots), right click on the image and select open in a new tab.

 

 

If we now look at the same aircraft on ADSB, we can see that there is more information. Which is why when I’m looking at these web sites I will normally use the following site “globe.adsbexchange.com”, none of the tracking sites are perfect – there are sometimes reasons for using more than one at a time.

 

 

The above two sites are the basic sites that will suit most peoples needs, another site that I use that is a little more difficult to navigate and has slightly more restricted graphical interface is “opensky-network.org” which unlike the other sites does require you to create an account for access. When all three sites are used in conjunction, it is generally possible to find all the information that I require.

 

 

All of these sites will be affected by the PIA programme, as the actual aircraft will broadcast a fake identity – they will display only the data based on tracking the temporary ICAO Hex code. But for aircraft other than these they deliver sufficient information to identify the aircraft and its routing.

In my next post I will cover the sites that concentrate on tracking the private arcraft of the wealthy.

 

The Private Jet Trackers

by | Aug 21, 2024 | Electronic Identity, Online Logging, Spotting, Visible Markings

Tracking the Aircraft not the Person.

I’m pretty sure that most of us would feel uncomfortable if we were tracked, it is something that few of us think about – but potentially everytime we pay for something, drive past an ANPR camera or walk through pretty much any town center we are tracked. Online we are tracked, what sites we visit, where we were when we accessed the site, what time it was and we all agree to having tracking cookies and terms and conditions that mean that the data can be shared or sold. Sometimes by companies owned by the very people who are shouting loudly that they shouldn’t be tracked when flying in their private aircraft.

Many of the wealthy that have supported hiding the identity of their private aircraft are the same people who need the general public to follow them, which seems to be a bit ironic really. They have cited various concerns (mainly security) to sway the argument in their favour and they have effectively achieved their goal in the United States at least.

People like Jack Sweeny who seemed to have a fascination with people like Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg along with others and the Fleet of Government Jets used to ferry people like the President, Vice President and Secretary of State around contributed to the pressure for individual anonymity in no small measure. And the publicity that they garnered may well have been an infulencing factor in the decision making process, which is a bit of a pain for plane spotters.

In general, unless you see a person boarding a plane – there is actually no way of telling unless a characteristic like the aircraft call sign changes. Many people know that when the President is aboard any United States Air Force flight, the callsign used by that aircraft is “Air Force One” and Air Force Two” for the VP but you wouldn’t know otherwise.

Elon Musk has a personal fleet of five jets, again you are not certain he’s actually on any of them unless you saw him board. And to be honest who is going to stand at some perimeter fence for that, probably not most plane spotters. Most of us just want to say that one is new or it is old, I can never recall in conversation any of my spotting friends and aquaintances saying that they went to see an aeroplane because someone was on it unless it was family leaving or arriving.

 

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.

 

 

Tracking Hidden Aircraft

by | Aug 20, 2024 | Database, Electronic Identity, Spotting, Visible Markings

Tracking Hidden Aircraft

Over the past few years, most plane spotters have used Flight Radar or ADSB to identify aircraft. Some use tools like “Have I Seen It” that show only aircraft or scrapes that you haven’t seen. But with some of the worlds entitled wealth and the Military “opting out”, these tools are likely to become less useful in the future.

With the advent of the LADD, PIA and now the removal of visible markings from all Air Mobility Command aircraft, the plane spotting world is becoming a less friendly space for spotters to be in. The FAA’s LADD and PIA programs are annoying, but don’t defeat the Mk1 eyeball, however there is the possibility for the AMC change to cause spotters a real problem as there is no certainty that the ADS-C information can be confirmed.

Here is a typical example of how the PIA programme obfuscates an aircraft identity and with it the owner, the picture above shows an aircraft track from ASDB over the United States. You will notice that there is no registration displayed, just a call sign, a Hex code and a DB flag of PIA.

So lets look at some stuff about the data displayed, firstly the aircraft icon which indicates a single engine propeller driven aircraft. Not unusual at all, however when you look at the altitude and speed things don’t seem to add up – it is flying at 45,000ft at over 400kts. Although it could be a single engine prop driven aircraft, there are very few that would be capable of being in that envelope.

What else can we discern from the data, well the Hex code A4E954 is the next clue. This code equates to N4132C, a check of my database shows this to have been a Stinson 108 now de-registered – these do not fly at 45,000ft or at 400kts. There is no entry in the active file for that registration, but a check on the reserved registration file shows that the registration is reserved by the SBS Program Office – there are more more than 50,000 rgistrations with that reservation.

The only way of positively identifying this aircraft, would have been to be at the departure or the arival airport – or be in contact with spotters at each end.

 

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.

 

 

Visible Serials – the Future

by | Aug 16, 2024 | Aviation News, Electronic Identity, Online Logging, Spotting, Spotting News, Visible Markings

Aicraft Serial Numbers – the future.

We all know about the serial number or registration on aircraft, it’s generally the primary reference point for all plane spotters. There are exceptions to this where the manufacturers serial number is the primary reference point, but in the main it’s the tail number or serial number. This is particularly true of military aircraft, but it’s probably the first thing we look for when we see any aircraft.

The Air Mobility Command component of the USAF has already announced it’s intention to remove all visible identification marks from it’s fleet of aircraft, there have been a number of sightings of aircraft with no visible identification markings – other than those required by international law. It is impossible to ascertain which partcular aircraft you are seeing, although in general there will be a known aircraft associated with the Hex code that the aircraft is likely broadcasting – the USAF have been increasing their use of tactical Hex codes of late.

The USN have used these codes for some time – they are easy to sort out as the aircraft still carry a serial number, this will not be the case with the Air Mobility Command aircraft. 

Removing Serials

by | Aug 13, 2024 | Application, Aviation News, Electronic Identity, Online Logging, Spotting, Spotting News, Visible Markings

Moving forward.

As I’ve already posted there are a number of aircraft types in scope to have the visible serial numbers removed, at the moment anything in the Air Mobility Command inventory is a candidate. Obviously there is the potential for other commands to follow suit, removing all identifiable markings is not the problem it would have been fifty or sixty years ago.

The United States Air Force approved the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) on all aircraft in 2010, this is a technology that allows for the tracking of any data parameter of an asset. The asset could be a spare part, a vehicle or an aircraft, the tags are small and are inexpensive. A fully active RFID tag suitable for use on an aircraft costs $20 and is effective at ranges of more than 200 meters, so to pinpoint any aircraft or vehicles on an airbase is not that expensive. Passive RFID tags are extremely cheap at around $0.20 each, everybody has seen them – most supermarkets use them in some form. In fact once the infrastructure is installed on the ground, it is probably cheaper to install a few of the active tags than it is to paint the serial number on the aircraft.

The United States Air Force already has the Real Time Location System (RLTS), when combined these systems allow for the accurate recording of positional data for any asset that has a tag – using UHF RFID will also allow satelite tracking of aircraft. There are a number of bases already equiped with the ground tracking technology, many of the aircraft are already equiped with the technology.

So having done some research into this I would say that in the medium term, it is likely that other commands will certainly follow Air Mobility Command in removing the identifying marks from air assets as they are no longer needed. There are no significant technical challenged to be overcome, there are infrastructure challenges – but as they have already deployed the required infrastructure at Hill AFB, Tinker AFB and AMARC at Davis Monthan and these are the ones that I’ve found.

I would venture the opinion that it is only a matter of time before the whole United States Air Force aircraft inventory will not carry any visible serial number information, there is simply no need – a sad day for the plane spotters indeed.

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.