5 ms·

What's cool is that aviation can be so stifling at times with training, rules, regulations, etc, that it seems that certain very cool traditions are either set

What's cool is that aviation can be so stifling at times with training, rules, regulations, etc, that it seems that certain very cool traditions are either set in stone, or born and survive relatively intact. ADSB reporting, which powers these flight tracking sites that are available to the public, is (relatively speaking) a very new thing to aviation and the general public. And the fact that these maneuvers are absolutely fantastic training and aviation problem solving and you've got the perfect storm for a newly born tradition that will continue to survive and evolve.

mulmen 4y ago
Is this tradition even new? Drawing things in the sky seems to be a well established aviation tradition.
- blantonl 4y ago
  Not at this extent, and the ability for the general public to be aware of it.
  - mulmen 4y ago
    Skywriting seems visible to me? This is just an evolution of the same idea. This is a Looney Toons gimmick.
- tobinfricke 4y ago
  > Drawing things in the sky seems to be a well established aviation tradition Not really... This level of high-precision and publicly-available flight tracking is pretty new.
  - brian-armstrong 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywriting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywriting
  - asmithmd1 4y ago
    On a much smaller scale, it has been around for a long time: http://wbcnthefilm.weebly.com/film-blog/who-ever-heard-of-a-radio-station-hiring-a-skywriter-to-give-the-peace-sign-to-an-entire-city http://wbcnthefilm.weebly.com/film-blog/who-ever-heard-of-a-...
  - usrusr 4y ago
    Drawing stuff on a map with a GPS track is a rather beaten path in the world of Strava and similar [0]. Not being bound to the road network graph just makes it easier. I don't want to think about the fuel burned for this stunt, but if I were in some position that is required to sign off that flight path I'd sure congratulate whoever came up with this. Wouldn't even be all surprised if tomorrow some Airbus ferry flight would respond in the same medium with a respectful salute to the old lady. ([0] but relative to anything that would be considered a tradition in aviation, the entire concept of GPS is rather newfangled, despite it's surprising age, I'm not disagreeing)
    - mulmen 4y ago
      I don't think this uses GPS, at least not directly. This data comes from ADS-B and radar. ADS-B involves the plane itself broadcasting where it (thinks it) is. That may come from GPS onboard but is probably more sophisticated than that in a modern 747.
      - snuxoll 4y ago
        The ADS-B out data is fed from the aircraft’s ADIRU (air data inertial reference unit), which, yes, just uses GPS unless that fails for some reason. There’s a fallback based on accelerometers and laser gyros to provide shockingly accurate positioning should such a failure occur, but it does lose some accuracy (enough that you can still fly autopilot on it for an approach at max range, but it’ll be drifting by some number of meters) over long flights before it needs to be reset from GPS data on the ground.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    This particular level and visibility of sky writing is new, but "drawing things in the sky" dates back to the 1920s or so. That sort of skywriting uses oil to cause the airplane to leave a trail of white smoke, visible against the blue background of the sky. The precision we see in this route is fairly new, but, especially on proving flights for new aircraft, which needed hours and hours of flight time and would take off and land at the same airport, and even before the public could see it on a website, filing flight plans that contained (much cruder) drawings of "747" or otherwise certainly exist.
    - newaccount74 4y ago
      I'd say this is a very different type of drawing, because you only see it on a tracker. Someone watching in real live from the ground wouldn't see the pattern, because I don't think jet trails stay in the air for two hours. This seems more like people using run/cycle trackers to make drawings on a map. (Strava Art)
      - pmontra 4y ago
        Jet trails stay in the sky all the day long with the right meteo conditions. They just become wider and look like long clouds. Check the picture at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/clouds/other-clouds/contrails https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/typ... Also this paper https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/12/169 https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/12/169
      - fragmede 4y ago
        We can only see it on a tracker. My claim is that sort of flight route drawing predates modern tracking on the Internet by decades. GPS was released to the public in the 1980's.
  - mulmen 4y ago
    I don’t think it is. Boeing has been doing it for years. They did it in 2014 for sure and that wasn’t new. That was nearly a decade ago.
Aeolun 4y ago
You don’t think this is an autopilot course?
- bigiain 4y ago
  It is 100% an auto pilot flown course. (The only real alternative option is that it's spoofed ADS-B transmissions, which is way way more likely to mean jail time for whoever was involved than a few extra tons of jetfuel and an un-management-authorised mission plan uploaded to the nav hardware would result in...) (It shows on other ADS-B tracking sites, so it isn't just some FlightRadar dude having fun or getting a kickback.) (Actually, there's a _very small_ possibility it was a large enough group of pissed of ADSBExchange feeders who all collaborated to use their gear to send spoofed data to the various flight tracking services? When some guy sells out an "open community" for $20mil, trolling the entire industry isn't a super surprising result...)
  - snuxoll 4y ago
    With there being no obvious deviations from the pattern there’s no doubt it was done on autopilot. That said, a skilled pilot who wanted to deal with the nuisance of hand flying that would get pretty close just by following the flight director (But at that point you’re just manually moving the yoke on behalf of the autopilot, given the FD is essentially just showing you what the autopilot wants to do).

mulmen 4y ago

Is this tradition even new? Drawing things in the sky seems to be a well established aviation tradition.

blantonl 4y ago
Not at this extent, and the ability for the general public to be aware of it.
- mulmen 4y ago
  Skywriting seems visible to me? This is just an evolution of the same idea. This is a Looney Toons gimmick.
tobinfricke 4y ago
> Drawing things in the sky seems to be a well established aviation tradition Not really... This level of high-precision and publicly-available flight tracking is pretty new.
- brian-armstrong 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywriting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywriting
- asmithmd1 4y ago
  On a much smaller scale, it has been around for a long time: http://wbcnthefilm.weebly.com/film-blog/who-ever-heard-of-a-radio-station-hiring-a-skywriter-to-give-the-peace-sign-to-an-entire-city http://wbcnthefilm.weebly.com/film-blog/who-ever-heard-of-a-...
- usrusr 4y ago
  Drawing stuff on a map with a GPS track is a rather beaten path in the world of Strava and similar [0]. Not being bound to the road network graph just makes it easier. I don't want to think about the fuel burned for this stunt, but if I were in some position that is required to sign off that flight path I'd sure congratulate whoever came up with this. Wouldn't even be all surprised if tomorrow some Airbus ferry flight would respond in the same medium with a respectful salute to the old lady. ([0] but relative to anything that would be considered a tradition in aviation, the entire concept of GPS is rather newfangled, despite it's surprising age, I'm not disagreeing)
  - mulmen 4y ago
    I don't think this uses GPS, at least not directly. This data comes from ADS-B and radar. ADS-B involves the plane itself broadcasting where it (thinks it) is. That may come from GPS onboard but is probably more sophisticated than that in a modern 747.
    - snuxoll 4y ago
      The ADS-B out data is fed from the aircraft’s ADIRU (air data inertial reference unit), which, yes, just uses GPS unless that fails for some reason. There’s a fallback based on accelerometers and laser gyros to provide shockingly accurate positioning should such a failure occur, but it does lose some accuracy (enough that you can still fly autopilot on it for an approach at max range, but it’ll be drifting by some number of meters) over long flights before it needs to be reset from GPS data on the ground.
- fragmede 4y ago
  This particular level and visibility of sky writing is new, but "drawing things in the sky" dates back to the 1920s or so. That sort of skywriting uses oil to cause the airplane to leave a trail of white smoke, visible against the blue background of the sky. The precision we see in this route is fairly new, but, especially on proving flights for new aircraft, which needed hours and hours of flight time and would take off and land at the same airport, and even before the public could see it on a website, filing flight plans that contained (much cruder) drawings of "747" or otherwise certainly exist.
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    I'd say this is a very different type of drawing, because you only see it on a tracker. Someone watching in real live from the ground wouldn't see the pattern, because I don't think jet trails stay in the air for two hours. This seems more like people using run/cycle trackers to make drawings on a map. (Strava Art)
    - pmontra 4y ago
      Jet trails stay in the sky all the day long with the right meteo conditions. They just become wider and look like long clouds. Check the picture at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/clouds/other-clouds/contrails https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/typ... Also this paper https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/12/169 https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/12/169
    - fragmede 4y ago
      We can only see it on a tracker. My claim is that sort of flight route drawing predates modern tracking on the Internet by decades. GPS was released to the public in the 1980's.
- mulmen 4y ago
  I don’t think it is. Boeing has been doing it for years. They did it in 2014 for sure and that wasn’t new. That was nearly a decade ago.

Aeolun 4y ago

You don’t think this is an autopilot course?

bigiain 4y ago
It is 100% an auto pilot flown course. (The only real alternative option is that it's spoofed ADS-B transmissions, which is way way more likely to mean jail time for whoever was involved than a few extra tons of jetfuel and an un-management-authorised mission plan uploaded to the nav hardware would result in...) (It shows on other ADS-B tracking sites, so it isn't just some FlightRadar dude having fun or getting a kickback.) (Actually, there's a _very small_ possibility it was a large enough group of pissed of ADSBExchange feeders who all collaborated to use their gear to send spoofed data to the various flight tracking services? When some guy sells out an "open community" for $20mil, trolling the entire industry isn't a super surprising result...)
- snuxoll 4y ago
  With there being no obvious deviations from the pattern there’s no doubt it was done on autopilot. That said, a skilled pilot who wanted to deal with the nuisance of hand flying that would get pretty close just by following the flight director (But at that point you’re just manually moving the yoke on behalf of the autopilot, given the FD is essentially just showing you what the autopilot wants to do).