Flightradar24 fans, let's discuss

[savebuckbeak]

Got a day off work so just going to mooch about and watch the planes.

Haha I do this!

I've always wondered what's the attraction? Not being goady, could you explain why you follow Flight Radar?

My husband is an aviation photographer and his geekiness has rubbed off on my daughter and I. We like to identify rare visitors to our local airports, and often spend a day or two (location permitting) at the airport on holiday.

Lanzarote is fab for this, and there's a stunning beach in Crete near Heraklion airport... now that was a great day out.

Something about aircraft is just fascinating to us. But it's like anything - you either have an interest or you don't.

Look at the Farnbotough and Surrey area. Farnborough air show is next week, lots of aircraft are arriving for ot this week. Had the Black Eagles in and practising yesterday.

Something about aircraft is just fascinating to us. But it's like anything - you either have an interest or you don't.

Very much agree..generally spotters - bird/train/aircraft/ will always "spot". once upon a time the only way was binoculars at an airport fence, nowadays you can do it virtually from anywhere.

FWIW I moved on from spotting to actually flying for more years than I care to remember and the tracker sites (when they came along) were actually quite a good way of back checking info or just an alternative way of getting info such as aircraft departure and arrival times against info from other sources. Due to things like Flightradar I often knew I was going to be late getting home hours before the company bothered ringing me up to give me the bad news.

I've now retired from flying but the interest is still there so I have the occasional look at the sites.

We are relatively close to several airports (large, small, military and heritage), so we see a lot of interesting stuff fly over. It's nice to be able to find out what they are and where they're going from/to.

I find it endlessly fascinating (sad). We are under a few different flight paths and once you start identifying each aircraft it becomes quite addictive. When the weather is good and we sit outside and watch the planes. During the first lockdown the Antonov went over - the first time I had seen it. Was ridiculously excited.

You know there are many Antonovs? Depending on where you are in the country you might be able spot all the different ones

No! I didn't know that. I really know very little about planes. I just like them.

I find it fascinating. We are under the Gatwick flight path but also see flights going to Heathrow and Stansted so I like to see where they are going and coming from. I also recognise the sound of the Hercules that come from Brize Norton. Our area is a nominated RAF training area so we get regular Chinooks and occasional very low flying fighter jets.

It was fascinating when lockdown started to see all the traffic from Brize Norton and just cargo flights in the skys. I guess I'm just a geek !

@mylittleyumyum

We fancy going to that island in the Caribbean that they land over the beach.

Dp is a huge Flightradar24 fan and i dabble. Off for a tour of former Battle of Britain airfields this weekend

Is there a way to filter it so you can just see the military?

Try military freedar

Thank you!

Saint Martin....

Never had the pleasure myself...

I remember seeing concord go over very low when we lived in South London. So glad I saw it.

I just like that there are people in a tin box* above me, living their lives. And I wonder where they are going so flight radar is great for that.

And then when I'm up in a plane I think of the people like me on the ground looking up and wondering where I'm going.

The magic of flight has never left me, I really think it is an amazing feat of human engineering.

*I know it's not!

@mylittleyumyum have you watched the live Lanzarote Airport camera on YouTube? It's really relaxing.

@gogohmm if you can't get to St Maarten, try Skiathos. Jerry from Big Jet TV went last September and filmed right under a landing aircraft. It was very funny, if slightly terrifying.

We used to live under the flight path, as it was coming in to Heathrow. I remember we'd hear it, and rush outside to see it - especially when we had visitors. I will always remember FIL standing outside with a glass of whisky waiting for it to come over, whenever they visited.

Very sad I never got to fly in it.

OMG WHAT IS THAT?! Are they allowed to be standing so close?! What if it comes in too low and smacks someone in the head with the landing gear.

Ah yes. I remember the days when Concorde used to fly over South London - always around 7pm I think.

I like finding the JANET planes. They often go off radar though

I love being able to whip my phone out, point it to the sky and see where the plane is going haha! Sometimes I look at the maps but I mostly use flight radar to identify the planes overhead.

I think a lot is down to camera angle and perspective, certainly if an aircraft was low enough to hit people in the head then the approach would have gone very wrong and it would hit the ground short of the runway.

The actual potentially dangerous bit in that video is what you see going on at the 9 minute point..people hanging onto the fence and being buffeted by the jet blast of a heavy 747 taking off...it that jet blast picks up a chunk of rubble or other hard debris then somebody could end up seriously injured.

St Maarten jet blast video...sorry about the commentary....