Flight Tracking

Georgia Tech researchers are teaching autonomous aircraft to interpret CTAF radio calls at non-towered airports.

A group of U.K. pilots has thrown down the gauntlet for would-be aerial flight tracking app artists with a next-level effort that pays homage to their long-serving Queen. Rather than a one-dimensional outline of a shape that resembles a person, the six aircraft and 12 crew from Henstridge, Somerset, ended up creating a striking image […]

The hobby of planespotting isn’t for everyone but on a stormy day in the U.K. last week hundreds of thousands of Brits were glued to their screens watching the telephoto compressed bob and weave of airliners trying, and mostly succeeding, to get into Heathrow Airport. We’ve all seen the videos and many of them are […]

If you’ve noticed the local forecast is a little shakier than usual, you can indirectly blame the pandemic. The drastic reduction in air traffic has curtailed the flow of information from weather sensors attached to 350 of airliners as part of their Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System or ACARS. The main role of ACARS […]

A young Canadian inventor has come up with what he says is a low-cost flight data recorder for light aircraft that requires no special installation. Ephraim Nowak, 26, says the video-based SkyVU system doesn’t need to be wired into the aircraft’s panel and systems. Instead, it uses 4K video cameras to record gauges on the […]

U.S. general aviation operators may not be able to fly in some Canadian controlled airspace and vice versa when ADS-B is fully implemented, according to Nav Canada. The not-for-profit corporation is also a major investor in Aireon, a recently activated space-based ADS-B tracking system that requires ADS-B 1090ES transmitters with antennas on the top of […]

Three occupants survived the crash of a Cessna 172 into a Long Island suburb Sunday night, according to reports in the New York Post. The 1977 Cessna 172N was on a flight from Niagara Falls, New York, to Republic Airport in Farmingdale, New York. According to FlightAware.com, the Cessna took off at 5:12 p.m. and […]

Operators who fail to have ADS-B out equipment installed by the January 2020 deadline will get a very cool reception from air traffic control according to an FAA policy statement issued yesterday. The rule, published in the Federal Register, says both scheduled and unscheduled operations with ADS-B equipment missing can receive rarely issued waivers to […]

As the government shutdown grinds on with no end in sight, calls from the aviation industry to restore funding are getting more strident and the system is starting to show some strain. Possibly the biggest concern is the furloughing of 3,000 “safety specialists,” who support air traffic control functions. Another concern is that virtually all […]