Where the planes are - now you can see em!

[Izen Ears]

http://www.flightradar24.com

Come on get happy! With this, one is potentially able to stop all takes from being busted by planes... Only big jets though, probably not small planes.

You can even tell what flight pattern for the day is going on. (Y'know how some days you get all the planes and other days none?)

Apologies if someone else already posted this, I haven't been able to keep up lately sorry!

Dan Izen

[Glen Trew]

After losing many takes from airplanes on the first day of "Red State" exteriors in Whittier, California (~15 miles Northeast of Los Angeles), the producer insisted that I monitor a website similar to flightradar24.com and let them know when there would be enough time to sneak a take in. It looked cool and seemed empowering, but was actually useless.

The airplane positions depicted on the site are not actually generated by radar in real-time, and are typically delayed by about 5 minutes. That means that you have to notice when an airplane looks to be about 10 minutes away from being close enough to harm a 5 minute take, and then let the AD department know that sound will not be good in five minutes, which is already too late. And this assumes that the rendering is precise, which it isn't. It also assumes that sound mixers know the speed of the aircraft and how much noise it's going to make.

After about five minutes of trying out this plan, we gave up and proceeded with business as usual, rolling when it sounded clear, hoping for the best, usually losing, and getting pickups to replace the parts of takes boned by airplane noise.

Considering how the AD department wets their pants at the thought of waiting 30 seconds to record ambience, as one might expect, they were not willing to wait around five minutes for an airplane to show up, then leave, which may not even be on time, while other airplanes make a surprise early appearance.

Glen Trew

[Glen Trew]

But, wow, it's a great app! It might not be much help for sound on location, but it sure is fun.

gt

[MT Groove]

Whether or not it's useful for location sound, this is one hell of a cool website.

[Philip Perkins]

When I tried this I found that many planes did not have the necessary transponder aboard to show up on their system. Like hardly any.

Maybe it has improved since then-- I was told that it worked ok in Europe.

philp

[Eric Toline]

A pilot friend told me that within 15 miles of the airport and under 10k ft, speed has to be under 250 mph which is about 4 miles per minute. Take offs are noisier than landings.

Eric

[VASI]

Thessaloniki, Greece

Small traffic..

[Rick Reineke]

A cool website for sure. I been perusing Flight 24 an other like sites for a year or more. It's usefulness for us may be questionable though.

"Take offs are noisier than landings"

Depends where you are.. I recall staying at a Memphis airport hotel (a Sheraton, as I recall) which was in (relative) close proximity to a runway... Adjacent to where they engaged the thrust reversers. All night long, FedEx planes coming in every 30 seconds or so. Didn't sleep much.

[Bash]

I use Flight 24 when we are shooting in and around London, and I have found it to be both useful, and reasonably accurate. What it does do is to give me some idea of which way the planes are lining up, and also some idea of what the frequency of the flights is, and where the gaps are. I am able to see which way the flights are turning in, where they are stacked, and when there may be some kind of a gap. Sometimes the 1st AD listens and is fascinated and helpful, and other times I might as well be on Mars. However... I do usually know if the take will be shite, which helps my stress level.... and it was free!!!!

Kindest,

Simon B

[greg sextro]

Bookmarking...Thanks for sharing Dan, gonna give it a try!

[Steve Foy]

Been using both the system based and iPhone version for some time now and find it very useful here in Oz.

 

The majority of planes are visible and the accuracy is very good, take off and landing patterns are easily observed.

 

Only in paranoid America is the data delayed 5 minutes, which makes it next to useless.

[Timlin]

A pilot friend told me that within 15 miles of the airport and under 10k ft, speed has to be under 250 mph which is about 4 miles per minute. Take offs are noisier than landings.

Eric

Hey Eric

 

All aircraft fly at LESS than 250 knots when below 10,000 ASL. I believe it's an international law/agreement. Above 10k ASL, they noisy up a bit more until they reach their cruise altitude, which can be anywhere between 30k and 40k ASL in generalized terms.

 

Military and even some private aircraft fly above the 40k ASL mark if they so choose to, but below 10k ASL the air is thicker and offers too much aerodynamic drag to make flying any faster economical - plus its usually too damn noisy as well!

 

Rgd's

 

 

Andrew

[Rick Reineke]

"Only in paranoid America is the data delayed 5 minutes, which makes it next to useless"

--  The five minute delay only applies to aircraft without the newer (ADS-B Data) transponders, otherwise it's real time. (or supposed to be)

[Steve Foy]

"Only in paranoid America is the data delayed 5 minutes, which makes it next to useless"

--  The five minute delay only applies to aircraft without the newer (ADS-B Data) transponders, otherwise it's real time. (or supposed to be)

 

Not true Rick, despite a large number of aircraft in America having ADS-B transponders, the FAA deliberately delay the data.

 

From the Flightradar24 website:

 

In addition to ADS-B data, we also get data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States. This data is based on radar data and includes all commercial air traffic in US and Canadian air space (i.e. not just planes with ADS-B transponders). Unlike the ADS-B data that is presented real-time, the FAA data is delayed by roughly 5 minutes due to FAA regulations. On the Flightradar24 map, all planes based on FAA data are orange.

[Rick Reineke]

Yes but,  their FAQ in confusing.

"In addition to ADS-B data, we also display data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This data provides full coverage of the airspace above the United States and Canada. However, this data is slightly delayed (up to 5 minutes) due to FAA regulations. Because of this delay, the planes generated from FAA data are of a different color (orange)...  than the planes generated from real-time data (yellow).

If that's the case, it's even more useless than I thought. Still fun to peruse though.

[daniel]

This sounds fun if you're into plane spotting but I really don't like the idea of my job description including flight tracking. I don't choose the location - the location scouts, location manager, dop, director and producers do that. My job is to deliver good production sound by deploying and operating sound equipment/resources and monitoring/logging the recording. If I wanted to track planes for a living I would get a well paid job at air traffic control. If the under-a-flight-path location is the 'must have' for the 'look' of the film which the producers want to market then they need to employ an iOS operator to tell the AD when the window is big enough for the take (and who will take the inevitable heat when the wind changes direction and the timings change). I know this job is probably easier than it was 40 years ago but lets not pump the expectations of our employers with such high grade aviation fuel (per-lease :-)

 

dan.

[stephensharrod]

This sounds fun if you're into plane spotting but I really don't like the idea of my job description including flight tracking. I don't choose the location - the location scouts, location manager, dop, director and producers do that. My job is to deliver good production sound by deploying and operating sound equipment/resources and monitoring/logging the recording.

I agree, as cool an app as it is. It really is the location scouts job to insure the location is free or has minimal air traffic it's not our job to watch out for plans because somebody picked a poor location.

[rb1138]

That's so cool. Maybe you could use it to at least plan better locations before even visiting one. For location scouters.

It's in our best interest that the director and DP don't get married to a location before everything about it has been evaluated.

Sawrab

[daniel]

Sigh. How does one become a location scout in this industry? I'm guessing it involves more than just spending a lot of time on estate agent (realtor) websites and google maps/earth/street view. When they get the phone call from "We're The Next Big Thing Productions" do they ask for a script or ask a direct questions like:

"Is this a promo/silent film or will there be sync dialogue recording on the shoot?

 

Personally I would rather an app that told me when I was about to get a call from a clueless whatever and then anonymously emailed the imminent caller a list of the bloody obvious (to anyone who's watched a film made since the silent era), instead of me getting labelled as the guy who likes to piss on the parades of others before we even start rolling.

 

Seriously though, if I was professional location scout I would consider a photographic database of locations, tagged with all their respective qualities and issues (including flight paths and other sound concerns (maybe even a measurement of background noise levels)) a resource well worth investing in. Ie. create 1 myself or pay to have access to 1. I'm sure others have noted that even in this age of CGI when working on productions set before the age of jet travel, everyone involved is a little more concerned about where the aeroplanes are and what they doing. Just saying.

 

Dan.