Tracking the Skies
Before I joined FAMPARC and became an amateur, I was collecting data transmitted by aircraft. Specifically, it’s called ADS-B, and it’s the data that organisations such as FlightRadar24 and FlightAware use to populate their web sites. These sites are freely available for people globally to use to track aircraft. That’s not its sole purpose, but it’s the usage most recognised by most people.
Why was this interesting for me? It perfectly blended me being a career-long IT professional, an aviation enthusiast (it’s not co-incidence I live about a kilometre from Moorabbin Airport) and a radio geek. It also provides me with a free, top-tier FlightRadar24 subscription – just what every aviation geek needs.
I’ve been promising Craig for a couple of months that I’d pull together a presentation for FAMPARC members. I took the lazy option – I got Microsoft’s AI tool, Co-Pilot, to do it for me. I just tweaked the output.
The result is amazingly good (well to me anyway) and I hope people will find the subject interesting. I’d be happy to present it at a future club meeting if anyone is keen.
Hi Paul,
That sounds really interesting. I'm looking forward to hearing about it :-)
Ian.