This may be old news, but I just saw FlightAware for the first time. It tracks flights in the US that the FAA manages including general aviation. You find a private plane and then drill down to past flights that the plane has made. Quite amazing. I wish they could do this internationally.
via Rodney
Comment - TrackBackWhy do I reBlog this? The telemetric connection amongst objects in the sky is one of the more fascinating and satisfying aspects of air-traffic control systems. Having had the exhilirating experience of sitting in the right seat of a fully loaded Cirrus SR22 (a FlightAware-trackable vessel), an aircraft who's avionics broadcasts its whereabouts, tells where everyone else nearby sky is, warns when another aircraft gets too close, indicates where it could get to if it had to glide in for a landing, when it falls beyond fuel range of an airport suitable to handle a landing, and which comes stock with a parachute(!) to float to a landing if everything really went south, I can say that aviation has near completely transitioned to a world of gizmos. Will aviation reach a tipping point where too many parts and too many obfuscated points of failure overload the balance of maintenance and human perception? Can we track more than just the vessel, but manage the history, aches, pains and concerns of smaller scale parts? Do parts need their own tracking and control visualizer before they tell their stories on retrieved flight data recorders? With air travel growth expected to double by 2017, the industry forecasts that such growth will lead to 50 major accidents per year unless someone does something, or probably a lot of things. --JB