Plane Finder – Live Flight Status Tracker

Plane Finder – Live Flight Status Tracker



It is 1050 hrs on Monday 3rd November  and just look at the number of planes in the skis over Europe Canada and America.   I take my hat off to all of the Air Traffic Controllers.When I was in secondary school I considered,briefly,being a pilot.

 I had two uncles who both died in plane crashes. One was flying with BEA as it then was and died in a Comet while taking off,in a snowstorm from Ankara in Turkey. It was proved that the altimeter was giving a higher reading than the true height and they hit a mountain. Another was an instructor in the RAF. He went up with a student in a glider.  They got into difficulties and the cover jumped and could not open. He died but the student lived. Whether to instill confidence or for some other reason, my uncle had changed positions with the student. The controls were identical. He was up front. So that was pilot finished. In truth I could not make the exam grades anyway.

A guy,in my class,was up to becoming an Air Traffic Controller,which he later did. Indeed he became an instructor and was based at airports all over the World. I thought about it and then decided that I would never take a job in which an error,by me, could endanger and possibly kill hundreds of people. I went into offices and then back to college and ended up as an Accountant.  So I carried out my pledge.

I check out www.planefinder.net now and again. It is amazing to watch planes being juggled round in the skies prior to landing. They stack them up over London. Some go round and round at  10,000 to 12,000 feet with a lower stack at 5,000 to 7,000 feet.  The Controllers bring 4 or 5 into line to land from the lower stack and then bring others down from the upper stack until everybody land. One error could result in a mid air stack crash,but it don't happen. I have seen a few close calls at times.

There is supposed to b a 1,000 ft cube round every aircraft. Quite a few times I have seen planes 1,250 apart or ,1500 feet of space.Yesterday, I watched two planes running parallel to land at Heathrow. Now I doubt if there was 1,000 feet between them as the flew in.

If you click on a particular plane, on the site, you gt data on ownership,height,speed,direction and the airport that it left and where it is going to.  When the box appears on the left hand side, if you click flight,yo are transferred to real time on Google Earth and can watch the plane on route passing over named towns.As you get more adept you can be following one while watching others higher and lower to you,in flight. Great for little and big kids to watch !!!