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New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a
bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/27/20 1:16 PM, wrote:
Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com Is there an app for monitoring Fat Harry's ankle bracelet? -- .. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 21:18:50 -0000 (UTC), Justan Ohlphart wrote:
On 6/27/20 1:16 PM, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com Is there an app for monitoring Fat Harry's ankle bracelet? LOL! You're a f'ing nut! -- Freedom Isn't Free! |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 21:18:50 -0000 (UTC), Justan Ohlphart
wrote: On 6/27/20 1:16 PM, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com Is there an app for monitoring Fat Harry's ankle bracelet? Why? Tracking is only interesting on moving targets. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
John wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
Justan Ohlphart wrote:
On 6/27/20 1:16 PM, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well.* About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing.* I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones.* My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com.* Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data.* We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them.* Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC.* All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon.* Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart.* With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized.* We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going.* It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on.* If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com Is there an app for monitoring Fat Harry's ankle bracelet? I missed the first post so this might have been mentioned but https://www.flightradar24.com is my go-to. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:59:38 -0400, Alex wrote:
Justan Ohlphart wrote: On 6/27/20 1:16 PM, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well.* About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing.* I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones.* My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com.* Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data.* We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them.* Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC.* All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon.* Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart.* With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized.* We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going.* It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on.* If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com Is there an app for monitoring Fat Harry's ankle bracelet? I missed the first post so this might have been mentioned but https://www.flightradar24.com is my go-to. === I didn't mention them but they are a good site if you don't have your own ADS-B receiver and tracking software. In addition to getting real-time data, I kind of enjoyed the challenge of getting my own site operational. At some point in the future I may decide to contribute my data to them the way I do with www.marinetraffic.com. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 07:48:56 -0400, RCE wrote:
On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. === I took a few lessons many years ago but never got my license for a variety of reasons. Watching my flight tracker displays, listening to the tower traffic and watching all the YouTube videos has kind of given me the itch to take some more lessons. It looks like the going rate around here is $180/hour which would start running a big tab rather quickly considering it would probably take 30 to 50 hours to get a license. It might be fun to take a few lessons just for grins however. Any thoughts? -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote:
On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed.. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/28/2020 1:23 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 07:48:56 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. === I took a few lessons many years ago but never got my license for a variety of reasons. Watching my flight tracker displays, listening to the tower traffic and watching all the YouTube videos has kind of given me the itch to take some more lessons. It looks like the going rate around here is $180/hour which would start running a big tab rather quickly considering it would probably take 30 to 50 hours to get a license. It might be fun to take a few lessons just for grins however. Any thoughts? The full curriculum includes instruction with CFI until you solo and then the second half (cross country). 30 to 50 hours might be a bit ambitious. It's been done though. You also attend ground school which is usually free if you are actively taking flight instruction. Prices have certainly gone up. I think when I first started instruction back in the mid 90's the plane was $50 per hour and the instructor another $30 or $50 IIRC. Once you solo and you just want to practice you only have to pay for the plane. I forget if there was a fee for the final checkout ride and test. There may have been but I had a lot of stuff going on at the time and I simply don't remember. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote:
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 3:19:46 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote:
On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid.. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) I agree. I love airplanes, and like to fly in small, private craft, but I never wanted to get my ticket. Too much responsibility, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it wouldn't be fun for me. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:15:07 -0400, RCE wrote:
On 6/28/2020 1:23 PM, wrote: On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 07:48:56 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. === I took a few lessons many years ago but never got my license for a variety of reasons. Watching my flight tracker displays, listening to the tower traffic and watching all the YouTube videos has kind of given me the itch to take some more lessons. It looks like the going rate around here is $180/hour which would start running a big tab rather quickly considering it would probably take 30 to 50 hours to get a license. It might be fun to take a few lessons just for grins however. Any thoughts? The full curriculum includes instruction with CFI until you solo and then the second half (cross country). 30 to 50 hours might be a bit ambitious. It's been done though. You also attend ground school which is usually free if you are actively taking flight instruction. Prices have certainly gone up. I think when I first started instruction back in the mid 90's the plane was $50 per hour and the instructor another $30 or $50 IIRC. Once you solo and you just want to practice you only have to pay for the plane. I forget if there was a fee for the final checkout ride and test. There may have been but I had a lot of stuff going on at the time and I simply don't remember. === For the very popular Cessna 172 I'm seeing hourly rates of $120/hour (including fuel), with another $60/hr for the CFI. Maybe there's a small country airport around here with lower rates but I haven't yet gotten serious enough to check around. The cost of small planes seems to have gone up astronomically, mostly because of insurance from what I understand. When I was taking lessons back in the late 60s it was possible to rent a 172 for less that $20/hour. One of my army buddies was a CFI and he'd teach me for free. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/28/2020 4:54 PM, Its Me wrote:
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 3:19:46 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) I agree. I love airplanes, and like to fly in small, private craft, but I never wanted to get my ticket. Too much responsibility, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it wouldn't be fun for me. My CFI once told me that technical types are the worst students they teach. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:48:57 -0400,
wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. One of my IBM buddies owned a plane that was tied down there. He lived in the Villas and he could get there without going out on the main drag. He thought it was cool until his maintenance bills made it too expensive for a hobby. He did fly to Tennessee a lot tho and he said that was really the only way to get there easy. When he moved to Tampa, he sold the plane. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote:
On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 18:19:16 -0400, wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. Motorcycling wins. -- Freedom Isn't Free! |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 5:39:26 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote:
On 6/28/2020 4:54 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 3:19:46 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) I agree. I love airplanes, and like to fly in small, private craft, but I never wanted to get my ticket. Too much responsibility, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it wouldn't be fun for me. My CFI once told me that technical types are the worst students they teach. Interesting. I wonder if it's because they would tend to question everything about the process? The three friends that are private pilots I have been up with are all engineers, two electrical and one chemical. I can imagine two of them being painful students. :) |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:19:54 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes.. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. That made me remember going up with a friend in the early '80s that had a Cessna 150. We took off from a cornfield runway out in the country and flew down to a small airport to check into a jump school there. That was a tiny plane. We were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. He did let me take control for a while, that was fun. He got married and sold the plane shortly after. Funny how that happens. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
Its Me wrote:
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:19:54 PM UTC-4, wrote: On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw == Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. == FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. That made me remember going up with a friend in the early '80s that had a Cessna 150. We took off from a cornfield runway out in the country and flew down to a small airport to check into a jump school there. That was a tiny plane. We were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. He did let me take control for a while, that was fun. He got married and sold the plane shortly after. Funny how that happens. I am a big guy, so I doubt a 150 would fly with me and another adult and stay in it’s weight limit. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Mon, 29 Jun 2020 07:15:41 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 5:39:26 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 4:54 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 3:19:46 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) I agree. I love airplanes, and like to fly in small, private craft, but I never wanted to get my ticket. Too much responsibility, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it wouldn't be fun for me. My CFI once told me that technical types are the worst students they teach. Interesting. I wonder if it's because they would tend to question everything about the process? The three friends that are private pilots I have been up with are all engineers, two electrical and one chemical. I can imagine two of them being painful students. :) Like a lot of things, I bet those CFIs hate answering the question "Why"? That was one thing I always had in mind when I was inspecting. I always wanted an answer to "why". I really wanted it for myself but it usually calmed down the person asking. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/29/2020 10:21 AM, Its Me wrote:
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:19:54 PM UTC-4, wrote: On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. That made me remember going up with a friend in the early '80s that had a Cessna 150. We took off from a cornfield runway out in the country and flew down to a small airport to check into a jump school there. That was a tiny plane. We were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. He did let me take control for a while, that was fun. He got married and sold the plane shortly after. Funny how that happens. The Cessna 150 with the downward drooping wingtips is often referred to as "the flying nun". I learned in 152's and 172's. First time I flew a 150 I had a hard time getting it to plant on the ground during landing. As soon as it hit ground effects it popped back up in the air. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/29/2020 10:15 AM, Its Me wrote:
On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 5:39:26 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 4:54 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 3:19:46 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) I agree. I love airplanes, and like to fly in small, private craft, but I never wanted to get my ticket. Too much responsibility, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it wouldn't be fun for me. My CFI once told me that technical types are the worst students they teach. Interesting. I wonder if it's because they would tend to question everything about the process? The three friends that are private pilots I have been up with are all engineers, two electrical and one chemical. I can imagine two of them being painful students. :) To be a good pilot requires a bit of intuitive "seat of the pants" ability along with all the formal training and procedures. Technical types tend to over-analogize everything. When I was in training my CFI asked me one day what I did for a living. When I told him I was an engineer he said he "knew it". -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 17:39:21 -0400, RCE wrote:
On 6/28/2020 4:54 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 3:19:46 PM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw === Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. === FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) I agree. I love airplanes, and like to fly in small, private craft, but I never wanted to get my ticket. Too much responsibility, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it wouldn't be fun for me. My CFI once told me that technical types are the worst students they teach. === At one time medical doctors had that reputation. I have no idea why. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 12:58:51 PM UTC-4, Bill wrote:
Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:19:54 PM UTC-4, wrote: On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw == Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. == FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. That made me remember going up with a friend in the early '80s that had a Cessna 150. We took off from a cornfield runway out in the country and flew down to a small airport to check into a jump school there. That was a tiny plane. We were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. He did let me take control for a while, that was fun. He got married and sold the plane shortly after. Funny how that happens. I am a big guy, so I doubt a 150 would fly with me and another adult and stay in it’s weight limit. Yep, I'm 6'2", and he was about 5'11", normal build. I wasn't carrying as many groceries back then as I am now, but he mentioned that we were within limits but towards the top end. I do remember using every bit of that cornfield runway. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On 6/29/2020 2:36 PM, Its Me wrote:
On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 12:58:51 PM UTC-4, Bill wrote: Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:19:54 PM UTC-4, wrote: On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw == Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. == FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. That made me remember going up with a friend in the early '80s that had a Cessna 150. We took off from a cornfield runway out in the country and flew down to a small airport to check into a jump school there. That was a tiny plane. We were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. He did let me take control for a while, that was fun. He got married and sold the plane shortly after. Funny how that happens. I am a big guy, so I doubt a 150 would fly with me and another adult and stay in it’s weight limit. Yep, I'm 6'2", and he was about 5'11", normal build. I wasn't carrying as many groceries back then as I am now, but he mentioned that we were within limits but towards the top end. I do remember using every bit of that cornfield runway. I wouldn't try it on a hot, summer's day. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:59:38 -0400, Alex wrote: Justan Ohlphart wrote: On 6/27/20 1:16 PM, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well.* About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing.* I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones.* My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com.* Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data.* We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them.* Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC.* All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon.* Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart.* With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized.* We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going.* It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on.* If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com Is there an app for monitoring Fat Harry's ankle bracelet? I missed the first post so this might have been mentioned but https://www.flightradar24.com is my go-to. === I didn't mention them but they are a good site if you don't have your own ADS-B receiver and tracking software. In addition to getting real-time data, I kind of enjoyed the challenge of getting my own site operational. At some point in the future I may decide to contribute my data to them the way I do with www.marinetraffic.com. I use that site to track incoming containers.* Got one at anchor off of Mobile right now.* Due into Miami 7/2 but it looks like that will be delayed. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
Its Me wrote:
On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 12:58:51 PM UTC-4, Bill wrote: Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:19:54 PM UTC-4, wrote: On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw == Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. == FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. That made me remember going up with a friend in the early '80s that had a Cessna 150. We took off from a cornfield runway out in the country and flew down to a small airport to check into a jump school there. That was a tiny plane. We were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. He did let me take control for a while, that was fun. He got married and sold the plane shortly after. Funny how that happens. I am a big guy, so I doubt a 150 would fly with me and another adult and stay in it’s weight limit. Yep, I'm 6'2", and he was about 5'11", normal build. I wasn't carrying as many groceries back then as I am now, but he mentioned that we were within limits but towards the top end. I do remember using every bit of that cornfield runway. I am around 6’ 4” and weigh about 235 now. When I got married in 1968 I had no fat on me and weighed 217. So a couple 200+ pounders are getting near the 500# capacity. |
New Hobby - Airplane Tracking
On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 7:55:13 PM UTC-4, Bill wrote:
Its Me wrote: On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 12:58:51 PM UTC-4, Bill wrote: Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:19:54 PM UTC-4, wrote: On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 15:19:40 -0400, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 2:06 PM, Its Me wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:49:02 AM UTC-4, RCE wrote: On 6/28/2020 12:48 AM, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote: John wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote: On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400, wrote: Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis. To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers like myself who share their data via the internet. Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed. From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came from, and where they are going. I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing, mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites. https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2 https://www.liveatc.net/ You can also listen to RSW here https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw == Yes, and FMY is he https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy OK, so what's ESW and FMY? -- Freedom Isn't Free! Airport codes. RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial 727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41. They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in 86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military used to play there, flying in from all over. FMY is all private aviation or charter now. == FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes. On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting radio instructions from the tower. We live very near Plymouth Airport (where I got my ticket years ago) and we are also on the southerly final to Boston's Logan airport. Sometimes when bored I listen on my scanner to all the traffic at both. You can easily distinguish who is a student pilot at Plymouth and the seasoned, commercial pilots landing at Boston.. Some of those conversations get funny sometimes. The founder of the company I work for was a pilot, and went through a few airplanes. He started with a Cessna 182, then a Bonanza, then a Baron, and somewhere in there a Zlin fully aerobatic airplane. I've been up in all of them except the Baron. Back when he had the 182, he wanted to fly into Atlanta to visit a prospective customer, Delta Airlines. He filed his flight plan and took off. When he got into the ATL airspace, he radio'd the tower for landing clearance. They were not happy. A 182 landing in between MD80's, L-1011's and various 7xx's? Heh. They told him to keep his speed up to max on approach and fly it down to the runway. He did, had the meeting and flew home. But that was the last time he ever flew into ATL in his private plane. One of the reasons I sorta lost interest in flying is because I never found it to be "relaxing" as others do. Flying into a controlled airport can be nerve wracking for small planes and sometimes flying at an uncontrolled airport (like Plymouth) can be just as bad. You really have to keep a keen eye on what's going on around you and an ear to the radio. Boating is a lot more relaxing. :-) That is the way I feel about it. I like the idea of flying but the reality is not as exciting. I know a lot of pilots and they seem to love the regimentation and process. I would only like it if I was somewhere in the boonies where nobody was paying that much attention to what I was doing. Unfortunately I always seem to live in rigidly controlled air space. It is ridiculous around DC, where I was, the last time I really looked into it. Hyde Field was always trying to find students and I drove by there a few times a week. That made me remember going up with a friend in the early '80s that had a Cessna 150. We took off from a cornfield runway out in the country and flew down to a small airport to check into a jump school there. That was a tiny plane. We were pretty much shoulder to shoulder. He did let me take control for a while, that was fun. He got married and sold the plane shortly after. Funny how that happens. I am a big guy, so I doubt a 150 would fly with me and another adult and stay in it’s weight limit. Yep, I'm 6'2", and he was about 5'11", normal build. I wasn't carrying as many groceries back then as I am now, but he mentioned that we were within limits but towards the top end. I do remember using every bit of that cornfield runway. I am around 6’ 4” and weigh about 235 now. When I got married in 1968 I had no fat on me and weighed 217. So a couple 200+ pounders are getting near the 500# capacity. Yup. I'd guestimate us at about 400 back then. A cool spring day, and we were fine. |
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