Decoys Used on Passur

This is very interesting. There are 2 flights AAL 630 from MCO>JFK shown yesterday on Passur around 1500. The actual flight was put into a holding pattern over New Jersey coast,while another flight, Air Force One, is shown using the exact same call-sign. How do I know? At 1541, I was at the Coney Island Pier and did not see an MD88 at that time but saw a Boeing 744-type bearing the Presidential Seal. Another clue was that there were no arrivals afterwards for about a half-hour but saw a swarm of military choppers making the VOR 13L approach. After one-half hour, normal operations resumed. I guess I was naive to believe that Passur always shows the actual flights. I am not revealing any special operations as anybody would realize that it would be impossible for 2 flights AAL 630 at the same time.I wanted to share this with members whose only interest is plane-spotting and use Passur to help locate aircraft. Good spotting and see you at Kids Day! By the way, the real AAL 6630 arrived on Rwy 22L as Rwy 13L was closed.

First rule of thumb is that you can't take anything that you see on Passur as very reliable. Plane tags can be misleading or innaccurate, and the times, directions and altitudes can also be off.

I am also sure that AF1 does not show up on any trackers, with a fake decoy or not. It just does not happen.

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Originally Posted by Phil D.

First rule of thumb is that you can't take anything that you see on Passur as very reliable. Plane tags can be misleading or innaccurate, and the times, directions and altitudes can also be off.

I am also sure that AF1 does not show up on any trackers, with a fake decoy or not. It just does not happen.

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phil you're right. no military flights show up on passur. even the stand-alone program we use at work, passur insight, is not completely accurate. sure it'll work most of the time but there are duplicate tags or the tag will bounce around on the screen from time to time.

AF1 wouldnt show up on commercial radar apps. Commercial radar apps use flight plans and or transponders to track aircraft. AF1 and any other gov sanctioned aviation operation will be invisible to the things we as non FAA civies have access too. No need to decoy AF1. Everyone knows when it's coming by common sense at the airport at least.

I just found this amusing as I spotted Air Force One from Brighton Beach on approach to the CRI VOR and found this amusing that Passur would show an incorrect aircraft as a substitute for a military aircraft. Why they chose to use AAL 630 as the decoy was my point. An MD 88 hardly resembles Air Force One. I wonder if Obama saw me waving overhead as I was sunbathing?

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Originally Posted by Speedbird1

I wonder if Obama saw me waving overhead as I was sunbathing?

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Probably not, or he would have told the pilots to break off the approach and head back to DC. :wink:

Passur didn't show a "decoy" aircraft in place of Air Force 1. Air Force 1, just like every other US military flight, does not appear on commercial flight trackers. While most flight trackers give very accurate information, there are often anomalies and inaccuracies when the information is uploaded to them. Often I've seen typos in the airline field so it appears as if some exotic foreign airline is enroute, only to find it was an error, occasionally I've seen system test data, or multiple flight listings because of cancellations, delays or schedule changes that result in duplicate flight records loaded into the trackers. Any of the free on-line trackers should be used as a guide, not the final word on scheduled traffic. And again, you will not see any US military flights listed, either as the actual flight, or as a "decoy".

Passur is also delayed by 10-15 minutes, so when you saw the AA plane, it probably had passed 15 minutes prior.