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The Friendly Skies are Dammed Crowded!

By Gloria Diaz

Check out Gloria's Blog — Edge of Gloria!

Fort Wayne Reader

2015-01-15

Since I’ve had time off from school, I’ve been spending more time online. It’s a cheap form of entertainment, and if it can keep me from going out in public and spending money, that’s a good thing.

You already know about my Buzzfeed.com obsession. Buzzfeed is like a warm, fuzzy blanket of optimistic opinions about a wide range of topics: the ranking of the men on The Office, lists of things every big haired/large breasted/Hispanic/Catholic girl knows, and the quizzes about what kind of wine are you and what city should you live in. Buzzfeed is total mind candy, and even though I spent several hours online researching my engaged research paper for one of my classes, I think I’m online more than ever.

Thanks to the latest Asian airline disaster, I’ve discovered flightradar24.com. This site can be both alarming and entertaining at the same time. If you obsess over airline disasters, like I do (where in the HELL IS MH 370? At Diego Garcia? Being retooled as a terrorist airliner? It’s driving me NUTS!) you can track thousands of airplanes in the sky. They can range from Boeing seven-whatever-sevens to Cessna 750 Citation X’s. You can see their flight paths and marvel at either how straight they are, or wonder why they are zig zagging across the sky. One evening, I was concerned about Air Canada 850. I found out via flightradar24.com’s Twitter feed that it took off from Calgary, heading to London, but for some reason, made a right turn at Greenland to divert to Toronto. The flight path was a HUGE shark fin, encompassing the Northwest Territories and all of Hudson Bay. Apparently there was an electrical smell, causing some alarm. Because I have no life, I stayed online and followed the plane all the way down from super-northern Quebec, until it landed (safely) in Toronto. Who cares if it was past 5 a.m.? I didn’t have anywhere to go that day, anyway.

I’m fascinated by this site, because it will tell you all sorts of information about the planes. For example, right now I’m following American Airlines 3605, which looks like it was going to land in Hoagland, thought better of it, flew to Fort Wayne, and is now heading back to Hoagland. I wouldn’t be so concerned, but it’s only 2,700 feet off the ground, and is descending at a rate of 640 feet per minute. It’s now in Decatur, turning back towards Fort Wayne. It originated from O’Hare, but the destination is showing a question mark. A quick click on the Fort Wayne International Airport icon takes me to the arrivals board. It was due to land 50 minutes ago. OMG! What’s going on? I know the latitude and longitude, I know what kind of plane it is (Embraer ERJ 145-LR) and the radar and the squawk. Annnnd….it just disappeared a few seconds ago. I’m a little worried.

What can be even more worrisome is to look at the map and see how crowded the skies are. When you’re looking at a particular part of the map, the website will tell you how many planes you are looking at, versus how many are actually in the sky at that moment, and their altitude. The radar gives the impression that planes are either RIGHTONTOPOFEACHOTHER or, “hey look, these two planes are going to collide head on.” You can check the altitudes of planes, and maybe it’s because I’m a little paranoid, but two planes a mere thousand feet apart is enough to worry me. It also made sense that Air Asia QZ8501 wanted to climb out of the storm, but couldn’t, because there were planes above it. Right now, I am looking at 490 aircraft out of 8,701 that are currently airborne. If you have the Google Earth plug in, you can get a cockpit view of that flight. The planes are color-coded: the orange ones have FAA data, the gold ones don’t.

Since I have the app for my phone, some night when I am out walking, I’m going to see if I can spot a plane overhead, then look at my phone to see what it is. I’ll have to upgrade if I want to see the flight path, where it originated and where it’s going. I just know I’m going to upgrade eventually.

There’s also a feature where within seven days, you can plug in a flight number, and see that plane’s flight path.

I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by this site. There are certain planes which are not equipped with the computers needed to track their flight paths, according to the website’s page about how it all works. So if you’re hellbent to see “Air Force One” and where it’s going, forget it.

I guess I’m vicariously living my fascination with aviation. I’m well aware that airline travel is incredibly safe. But three airline disasters from Asian airlines in the last year freaked me out big time. I really have no desire to fly again, but if I want to visit Europe or go to Puerto Rico, I’m going to have to get on a plane. If I do, and flightradar24.com is available, I’ll be glued to the screen, watching my plane inch its way across the globe and worry endlessly about that Learjet 45 just a couple thousand feet above us. And wonder where the hell it’s going.