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A Real Flight Tracker

by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith

Type(s): Tip, Web Service, Web Site
Tags: flight tracking track flight+tracking airline airport

Tool photo.

A few weeks ago, I was preparing to leave a dinner party to pick up my sister at the airport, when Artur Bergman suggested I check Flight Aware rather than the airline website. JetBlue had her coming in at 10 p.m., but Flight Aware showed the flight somewhere over eastern Nevada. I took his word for it, and showed up at the airport closer to 11, just as her flight was landing. What a relief to find good flight info, instead of being condemned to what is surely an inner ring of hell, circling the airport indefinitely. (Artur has a great post on the O'Reilly radar here.)

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Flight Aware
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You probably know this one too, but I thought I would mention it.

From your phone, If you have a friend landing at an airport and you have to pick them up, text to: "GOOGLE" then, type in the call sign of the aircraft you are looking for. "UAL431"

After a minute you will receive several text messages outlining all the different legs of the flight, when it departed/arrived and any delays that flight encountered.

Ravek
Posted by Ravek on December 08, 2008 at 19:37:59 Pacific Time

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Now what i'd really like to see is something that can tell me what flight just went over or nearby my house at any given time.

Many a night i've stood in my backyard and looked at a plane and wondered its origins and destination.
Posted by JChabotte on October 06, 2008 at 13:51:41 Pacific Time

flight tracking
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"what flight just went over or nearby my house at any given time."

Here is an hourly snapshot of all active flights in Google Earth

http://fboweb.com/antest/ge/geALLFLIGHTS.kmz
Posted by apsteinmetz on May 06, 2009 at 07:27:29 Pacific Time