Slashdot Mirror
How Flight Tracking Works: a Global Network of Volunteers
An anonymous reader writes If a website can show the flight path and all those little yellow planes in real time, how can they not know where Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went down? Answering that involves understanding a little about how flight-tracking sites work, where they get their data, and the limitations of existing technologies. It also involves appreciating a relatively new approach that the two large flight-tracking companies, Texas-based FlightAware and Sweden-based Flightradar24 are rushing to expand, a global sensor system known as ADS-B, which broadcasts updates of aircraft GPS data in real time. ADS-B is slowly superseding the ground-based radar systems that have been used for decades, becoming central not only to flight tracking but also to the future of flight safety. And it's powered, in part, by thousands of dedicated aviation hobbyists around the globe.
I live in the middle of nowhere in the USA, and provide ADS-B data. Its fun.
If you lived in a populated area like California or New York, there are already hundreds of people in your area doing this, and so its probably not necessary.
ADS-B is not powered (in whole or in part) by aviation hobbyists. They are just piggybacking with receivers for flight tracking.
The ADS-B system itself was designed for plane-to-plane communications to improve situational awareness. Ground-based ATC or hobbyists are not required to make the system work.
Source: I worked on an ADS-B product at Garmin.