China, FlightAware, and You

Posted on 29 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There is an online resource for tracking airline flights: Flightaware.   It is fascinating to see the planes move in real time.  You get a sense of how important air travel and freight is for all of us.

You also get a sense of how many flights are still going to and leaving China right now.

Today I read that British Airways has ceased direct flights to China.   I’m sure that’s partly due to those flights now being mostly empty.

Wanna go to China, anyone?

I checked FlightAware just now.   It’s night there, of course, so the rhythm of flights from the Left Coast of these USA hasn’t started to beat yet, and more is head to China than coming at this hour.   Still, note the concentrations around Hong Kong, Bangkok, etc.

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About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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4 Responses to China, FlightAware, and You

  1. Semper Gumby says:
    29 January 2020 at 12:38 PM

    Various aviation enthusiasts on social media track, and speculate, on civilian and military aircraft, posting a flight tracking software screenshot to begin a discussion.

    Some tracking websites also display helicopters.

    Here’s another resource:
    https://www.flightradar24.com

    In the screenshot above, DAL is Delta Airlines, here’s some military callsigns from 2016:

    http://c-aviation.net/military-callsigns/

  2. jackhaefner says:
    29 January 2020 at 12:46 PM

    Free Flightaware enterprise accounts are available to users that build their own ADS-B ground station running on RaspberryPi. Ground stations democratize the data inputs into Flightaware for improved performance. Very easy and satisfying to build. See
    https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build

    Jack
    NG2E

  3. acardnal says:
    29 January 2020 at 2:01 PM

    For those on Twitter like myself, there are several good military radar tracking sites or those that include radar tracks in some of their Tweets depending on subj matter. Just put an @ sign in front of each of the below sites to Follow on Twitter: MiddleEastGuy (he uses flightradar24,
    mentioned above by Semper, quite often), aircraftspots, intel_sky, ELINTNews, ImageSat Intl, flightradar24, air_intel, IntelCrab, etc.

  4. chantgirl says:
    29 January 2020 at 8:20 PM

    As far as infection reports go, I have found the South China Morning Post to be the earliest updated. Even though the SCMP is accused of being pro-regime, they have been breaking new reports of cases far before other sites. Their widget is currently reporting 7892 cases, with 170 confirmed deaths while many western outlets are still reporting cases around 6000 and 130 deaths.

    https://multimedia.scmp.com/widgets/china/wuhanvirus/#

    Also helpful is the Johns Hopkins map, which gives more details but is updated less quickly than the SCMP.

    https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

    Of very little help is the CDC, which is giving almost no information. They are reporting 165 US patients under investigation in 36! states but decline to tell which states are monitoring patients.

    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

    I understand the CDC is trying to prevent hysteria and economic damage, but people should be told which states or cities have patients being monitored.

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