Yet Another Live Air Traffic Radar Website!

Just a quick message to mention another great live air traffic radar website which I missed out in my earlier post: www.heathrow-london.co.uk (it doesn't just cover Heathrow!).

Pilots, Flying and Laser Pens!

Just last night, I picked up an aircraft inbound to Leeds Bradford working Scottish Air Traffic Control and the pilot was reporting being 'dazzled' by a laser. This seems to be an ongoing problem for pilots and I'm not sure what the answer is as they are so freely available.

I know from my own experience of night flying as a private pilot, it's essential things are kept as dark as possible in the cockpit so that the pilots can easily read the faint glow of the instruments inside the cockpit but also, they're eyes are suitably adjusted to still see out of the cockpit for any traffic etc. When a bright laser is pointed in a pilots direction it can cause temporary 'blindness' that could prove very dangerous.

Signal R535 VHF/UHF Aircraft Band Receiver

One of our readers recently asked where to get hold of one of these great airband radio scanners (besides Ebay!). I'm afraid I can't answer that question as Ebay would probably be about the only option now as they do come up for sale once in a while.

I have personally owned one of these on two different occasions now. The reception and sensitivity of this radio scanner for airband listening is well known, however, it is 20+ years old now and I honestly believe scanners such as the Yupiteru 7100 and my own current receiver, a Uniden Bearcat 3500XLT are very close if not equal to the performance of this radio.

The only limiting factor that caused me to sell mine was the fact that it had just 60 memory channels in a single memory bank. For me, this just isn't enough anymore. Do any of our readers still own this great radio? do you find 60 memory channels is enough? Please let us know.

Online Real-Time Virtual Aircraft Radar Sites

If you cannot stretch to the cost of the latest Airnav Radarbox or Kinetic SBS-1 real time radar receivers then why not try the next best alternative...

Two websites in particular provide an online real time radar display of aircraft that are transmitting ADS-B position information. The first one being RadarVirtuel.com and the second FlightRadar24.com.

Both of these sites are collating position information submitted from many different receiver owners all over the world.

My personal favourite though, has to be flightradar24.com because there are more options to customize the display. For instance, they have recently added the option to display up to three lines of information next to each aircraft displayed on the map. On the first line you can display callsign or aircraft registration, on line two, type and registration or altitude and speed or just one of any of those four options. On the third line, you have all the same options again, so over the three displayed lines you can instantly see a lot of information! 

One other point, FlightRadar24.com also provide apps for the Iphone and Google Android operating system phones - so I've now got a real time radar app on my mobile phone wherever I go! In fact, whilst I can't comment on the Iphone app, my Android phone app even has an option called 'AR view' (I think it stands for aspect ratio view) so you can switch to this option and point your phone at the sky and it will display all the relevant info on any plane that's within your 'view' although, in practice, this doesn't always work correctly.

Why not give one of them a try - you'll soon be hooked!

Waddington Air Show

I managed to attend the Waddington air show this year on the Saturday (looked like the best day of the two weatherwise too!) and had a great day.

I didn't bother last year as the display lineup looked very 'thin' with a distinct lack of foreign jet participants, but it was certainly better this year with the inclusion of a Czech Saab Gripen and a Belgian F16 along with the usual RAF participants. The role demo (and pyrotechnics) involving 2 x Tornado GR4's certainly added some interest this year.

Interestingly, they were using 121.3 as a tower frequency which has been noted previous years and they appeared to be using 132.9 (a standard air show frequency allocation) as a radar frequency for departing/arriving and holding air show related traffic.

Aircraft and The Iceland Volcanic Ash

Well, today flights seem to returning to some kind of normality but I can't help thinking that a complete 'blanket shutdown' of UK airspace was probably not necessary in the first place. I know safety has to be the primary concern but I don't think the methods employed to measure just how much ash existed and at what levels AND if it was actually dangerous to aircraft engines at the concentration levels seen over the UK was nearly accurate enough.

I do think there were quite possibly 'safe windows' of airspace to operate in during the crisis period but I'm sure that's one issue that all those involved in the industry will be debating for many months to come!

I'm also certain the airlines will be fighting for compensation for the considerable loss of revenue but it's also all the allied industries that have been seriously affected that will suffer the hardest because there's no chance of recompense for them. Businesses such as those based at the airports: car hire firms, retailers, caterers etc. - they will have lost out considerably.

To be fair, this is a new and fairly unique situation to have found ourselves having to deal with as a country and I'm sure lessons will be learned for the future...  

Vulcan XH558 - The Current Situation

I have today received a note from 'Vulcan to The Sky' that XH558 needs £200,000 by Christmas to avoid the administrators. Currently, they have secured just 25% of this figure to get her through December. They state that she then needs this amount EVERY MONTH until March to secure her future for the 2010 display season.

It has been a truly fantastic achievement to get this complex, four engined, ex-RAF aircraft airworthy again and I was ecstatic to see her perform a display at the Cosby Victory Show this year (so close to home for me), BUT (and it truly pains me to say this) I really think she is on borrowed time, in fact, she's probably been on borrowed time since that first incredible maiden flight after her restoration.

The truth is, we are in a recession, approaching the Christmas period AND no major sponsorship has been forthcoming since the project began. There has been so much publicity generated, often by hardworking volunteers that I firmly believe if major sponsorship was ever going to happen then it would have happened by now.

Much as I love this aircraft, the project seems to 'eat' money like it grows on trees, even through the overwintering period. I honestly think it is unreasonable to expect the same section of society who love and appreciate this aircraft, given the current state of things, to cough up the funds required month after month to keep this aircraft in the air (where I DO BELIEVE it belongs).

I will treasure the experience of seeing her in the summer and I really, really hope I'm wrong, but it could well have been the last time I see this wonderful aircraft in flight.

Update on Airnav Radar Box!

What can I say, wow! this is an amazing piece of kit that transforms aircraft spotting and airband listening to a whole new level! (big statement, I know, but completely true).

Airnav radar box arrived yesterday and after a few teething problems getting the drivers on the supplied CD to install correctly ( I still hate windows Vista!!) I was up and running in no time. Within seconds of connecting to my 'radar box' the lights were flashing on the front and data started to stream in, now admittedly when your using the supplied antenna indoors you cannot expect to receive aircraft from any great range. I don't want to get technical here, but the transmissions are on 1090Mhz which means it's SERIOUSLY line of sight reception, even more so than the VHF/UHF airband.

I was getting a modest 40-50 nm radius reception in most directions (just like airband though, it all depends on antenna location AND aircraft height).

I have not got the time today to go into great detail about the amazing features, but you get a 'picture' of air traffic in your area in real-time complete with a datatag very similar to what the air traffic controller would have on his radar screen giving such details as flight number, destination and departure points, ground speed, registration, altitude and whether that aircraft is climbing or descending etc. and if your connected to the net, the software will download a picture of the very aircraft your looking at which is automatically downloaded from airliners.net!

Needless to say, I'm impressed but I will post again when I have more time to discuss this amazing bit of kit further!

All the best for now, Mark.

Airnav Radar Box

After some 30 years of airband listening, I've finally taken the next step and splashed out on an Airnav Radar Box. If this bit of kit does everything it says on the tin, I'll be very impressed. The idea of being able to 'see' in real-time commercial aircraft flying through my area on a 'radar screen' providing me with all the same information an air traffic controller is seeing is an exciting prospect!

Also this particular product has the ability to 'see' traffic just about everywhere in the world by being able to connect to the Airnav network via the internet allowing you to receive the information from other Airnav Radar Box users globally! (albeit with a 5 minute delay in the interests of security and international laws).

Having looked at it's competitor, the Kinetic SBS-1 (now available as the 'er' version with built-in airband radio and more expensive) I believe the Airnav Radar Box looks a better product with it's networking ability and highly customisable interface but I'd be glad to hear from SBS-1 users who believe their product to be the better one!

Delivery is expected today so I will post again with my findings once I've had time to play with it.

Victory Show at Cosby

In the end, I didn't manage to attend any air shows this year except the victory show held at Cosby in Leicestershire. This was literally a 10 minute drive from me and when I saw that there was going to be a display by the Battle of Britain flight along with a couple of P51 mustangs, Boeing B17 'Sally B' AND not least a 'bombing run' by the Vulcan XH558, I couldn't resist.

I was not disappointed, a great day all in all and we enjoyed a flypast (not a display) by the Red Arrows but the Vulcan did a full display rather than just a single 'bombing run' as the advertising suggested (incidentally the associated pyrotechnics for the bombs going off were excellent as they were for the ground battle re-enactment).

I was surprised to find they had actually created a grass strip running north/south for visiting aircraft and there were a few light aircraft that arrived including wartime 'spotter' type planes and most noticeably a Hawker Hurricane - all of which you could get very close to on the parking line.

Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable day and one I will look forward to next year.

Btw - they were using one of the standard air show frequency allocations for the weekend of 130.625Mhz. Some pilots were having problems communicating with the air/ground operator as I believe he was only using a hand-held Icom transceiver.