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Hi! I made this. A few points I wanted to make, specific to the HN context (and a lot of this is in the "nerd mode" donation page at https://skycircl.es/donate
by jjwiseman 6y ago
Hi! I made this.
A few points I wanted to make, specific to the HN context (and a lot
of this is in the "nerd mode" donation page at
https://skycircl.es/donate-nerd-mode/ https://skycircl.es/donate-nerd-mode/):
1. This seems like a classic "low effort, high impact" project. It's
super easy to detect aircraft flying in circles, in real-time, and
post it to twitter. But it turns out to be an entry-point into a
"strangely interesting" (according to pg) world of aircraft activity.
The current #1 comment sadly only gets to see general aviation pilots
practicing, but my bots have tweeted military aerial refueling, STOL
practice in the wilderness, float-planes practicing on rivers and
lakes, military drones flying over the desert, planes dropping sterile
fruit flies as a way to reduce the fruit fly population, news
helicopters following a highway pursuit, U.S. Forest Service AH-1Z
Viper attack helicopters fighting fires, helicopters dropping mosquito
pesticide, aerial tankers over Manhattan for the president's combat
air patrol, FBI surveillance planes registered to front companies,
Coast Guard helicopters doing search & rescue, crop dusters,
scientists observing sea life over the ocean, planes doing Gorgon
Stare-style persistent surveillance over Baltimore, sheriff's
helicopters rescuing hikers, power line inspections, pipeline
inspections, military aircraft doing surveillance over protestors,
stealth jet test flights, a Grumman HU-16 Albatross seaplane that
belongs to the USAF over the Mojave desert, a U-2 test flight, and a
B-29. That is not even close to a complete list.
2. All the code is open source. See
https://gitlab.com/jjwiseman/advisory-circular/ https://gitlab.com/jjwiseman/advisory-circular/ and
https://gitlab.com/jjwiseman/whatsoverhead https://gitlab.com/jjwiseman/whatsoverhead
3. As far as I know, this comment on HN is the first time anyone
published any significant detail about the FBI's secret aerial
surveillance program: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9508812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9508812
- Apylon777 6y agoThank you so much for making this. I was constantly checking it to determine what was flying above our house in Minneapolis during the recent civil unrest. I took comfort in at least know what was buzzing us and why it might be doing it.
- DaftDank 6y agoThank you for your work! We need MORE information about what our government is doing at all levels, not less.
- schmookeeg 6y agoThe FAA uses the term "advisory circular" to share information with pilots and aircraft operators, using "circular" in the way of "bulletin" or "newsletter" [1] I was really confused at first by your use of the phrase. I also think it is pretty funny if you didn't intend it. I would have thought what you're doing is better described as a "circular advisory" rather than "advisory circular". Cool project :) [1] https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/advisory_circulars/ https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/advisory_circulars/
- mirimir 6y agoThank you. This is crucial information.
- vosper 6y ago> my bots have tweeted [...] U.S. Forest Service AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters fighting fires I had to Google that. I'll await a correction from a more knowledgeable HNer, but as far as I can tell the US Forest Service does not have AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters. I don't care enough to dig deeply into it, but it seems that basically there is a very long line of Bell helicopters called "AH-1", going all the way back to the original AH-1 Cobra in 1965. There have been many variants over the decades, and two of these have been been retrofitted into "FireWatch" helicopters for the US Forest Service, after being retired from military service. The AH-1Z Viper is a modern attack helicopter, a variant of the SuperCobra, itself based on the AH-1 Cobra. It went into service in 2000, whereas the USFS two FireWatch Cobra's were originally built in 1969 and 1983: https://wildfiretoday.com/2010/06/27/firewatch-cobra-helicopter/ https://wildfiretoday.com/2010/06/27/firewatch-cobra-helicop...
- jjwiseman 6y agoSorry, I keep getting the exact designation confused, you're right, they have two of the AH-1F Cobra variant, not the later AH-1Z Viper version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Y6XhQ0774 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Y6XhQ0774 gives a closeup look at one.
- ohtwenty 6y agoHi! This may be a really dumb question but why is it limited to certain areas?
- jjwiseman 6y agoI could make a bot that covered the whole world, but it would be a firehose that nobody would bother following.
- neop1x 6y agoInteresting project, thanks! But it is also important to mention AdsbExchange as the data source. They have quite a big expenses on AWS to keep it running and unlike FlightRadar24 or similar they doesn't censor any aircraft or take blocking requests by aircraft owners which is reasonable considering this data is public an anyone with sdr-compatible dvb-t dongle can receive them.
- Traubenfuchs 6y agoDid you ever got contacted by a government agency?