Any app developers here for a plane spotting challenge?

I don't know if this is at all possible, but I was recently using the Google/Droid constellations application (http://www.google.com/mobile/skymap/), which if you haven't seen it maps the heavenly bodies you are pointing the phone at as you stand beneath the stars at night. Very cool.

It would seem to be a plane spotter's dream to use the same GPS backbone of that application and match the data with the (semi) real-time radar data that seems to be available on the Internet.

The resulting app, in my mind's imagination, would allow the user to look up at an airplane flying above, hold the phone up to the sky with the view screen pointed toward your face, and on the view screen would appear all the available information about the plane flying overhead (ala "AA flt. 123, 24000 ft, LGA-FLL").

Possible?

The "semi" real-time is the killer here. The data feed is delayed by 6 minutes, so you can't really point and hope on a position extrapolated from 6 minutes ago. Back when I lived in Washington, I knew that when I saw a trail over my roof, to look on the Flightaware "real-time" map at whatever was just NE of Baltimore, and that would be my tie-up.

sorry but with the level of security surrounding aviation these days it's just not gonna happen. you best bet is to get passur on your phone if you want to know what went by a few min ago, but you won't get real-time info.

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Originally Posted by cancidas

sorry but with the level of security surrounding aviation these days it's just not gonna happen. you best bet is to get passur on your phone if you want to know what went by a few min ago, but you won't get real-time info.

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There is some real time info, but it is sporadic and unofficial, powered by random folks with ADS-B receivers in their homes.

The app "Flightwise Tracker" for the iPhone that has the ability to show you what is near you, but the user has to have some knowledge of planes and able to determine the airline to be the most effective at determining what flight it is specifically.

-Tad

Thank you for your feedback. I thought the latency of air traffic data would make it impossible. Though, I suppose it would be possible to have the app predict what you are looking at based on the aircraft's position 6 minutes prior. It would work only with en route traffic where there is a steady and predictable flight path, but still pretty cool.