55
votes
Accepted
Why do Air Force planes regularly fly in circles?
Generally speaking, Air Force (and military in general), aircraft will "orbit" (fly in circles around a given point) when the mission calls for them to be "on station" (nearby and ...
- 4,372
54
votes
Accepted
Why don't most planes fly in a straight path?
In short
This is counterintuitive. Ignoring Earth curvature not shown on maps, the routes which appear curved on the screenshots are actually nearly straight. Compare these two different projections:
...
- 80.9k
27
votes
Why do Air Force planes regularly fly in circles?
That is a tanker. Flying gas station. It will orbit for several hours, specified time and track. Various other aircraft (fighters, AWACS, JSTARS) will come up and refuel as needed.
While you see the ...
- 9,901
23
votes
Accepted
Why did this aircraft fly in this pattern over Southern Italy?
That flight pattern is almost certainly aerial surveying / mapping work and it's quite common all over the world. Companies like Google, Bing, etc pay for low to medium altitude photography and ...
- 75.1k
20
votes
Does the FlightRadar24 pose a risk to aviation security?
The data FlightRadar uses is provided by volunteers using commercially available ADS-B receivers. All it does is save the terrorist a couple of bucks buying an ADS-B receiver.
- 6,166
19
votes
Accepted
Why is this plane flying a circular track?
A recent article in Aviation Week showed a modified Bombardier Global 6000 with a "canoe" type fairing underneath the fuselage which typically houses a variety of radar or electronic intelligence (...
- 417
19
votes
Why don't most planes fly in a straight path?
That is a straight path. It is the map projection being used that is curved.
This is because Earth is a round planet, not a flat surface, and creating accurate maps have always been a problem.
Take a ...
- 37.9k
19
votes
Accepted
Why would a plane fly in circles?
The likely explanation is that the pilot was just making room for another aircraft. If a plane stops in the air, it stalls and falls, so planes can't (shouldn't in normal operation at least) stop in ...
- 1,325
17
votes
Accepted
Why do I often see bunches of medical helicopters hovering in clusters in various locations
Why do bank robbers rob banks? Because that's where the money is.
Why do airplanes cluster at airports? Because that's where the runways and terminals are.
Why do medevac helicopters cluster in ...
- 17k
15
votes
Accepted
How can a helicopter show up at 29000ft, 547kts at Flightradar24?
@mins answer contains good information, however the conclusion that the mistake is in the Flightradar 24 database is not correct.
It is not Flightradar 24 that has a database error:
30040D IS I-...
- 84.5k
13
votes
Accepted
Does the FlightRadar24 pose a risk to aviation security?
The short answer is yes it does. In reality, the amount of benefit Flight Radar gives to those that would exploit it for evil is negligible compared to the amount of good the technology provides.
The ...
- 16.6k
13
votes
Why wouldn't a plane start its take-off run from the very beginning of the runway to keep the option to utilize the full runway if necessary?
Short answer:
Operational efficiency - significantly, you have saved time, and you might also save fuel from an unnecessary longer taxi.
Long Answer:
1. Operational Efficiency:
As discussed above, ...
- 3,323
12
votes
Accepted
Is this a very sloppy holding pattern or something else?
It does indeed look like they are not correcting for wind. The current wind over Belarus at 10km altitude looks like this:
(screenshot from windy.com)
That is consistent with the direction in which ...
- 58.3k
11
votes
Accepted
Is this route of a airforce jet on flightradar faked?
No, that has not been faked.
Flightradar is updated with a low frequency (from that screenshot I'd estimate once per 10 seconds, maybe more). This is done to reduce the computational demands on both ...
- 10.3k
11
votes
Why doesn't flightradar show many flights going over China?
From the Flighradar How it works page:
Flightradar24 relies on volunteers around the world for the majority
of our coverage
Note it implies:
There are people willing to contribute
These people ...
- 268
11
votes
Accepted
Would a flight of F-35s from Texas to Denmark have their transponders searchable on e.g. flightradar24.com?
It's not always possible to search for military planes by tail number on Flightradar24, and you just have to look for them. And as mentioned in another answer, you might have a better chance of them ...
- 1,322
10
votes
How can a helicopter show up at 29000ft, 547kts at Flightradar24?
Based on this discussion at FR24, mode S transponder addresses 0x30047D and 0x30040D were not associated with the correct airframes (as @Ralph early suggested).
30040D IS I-PTFT it is NOT I-MOFI ...
- 80.9k
10
votes
My N number showed up on another plane's flight on FlightRadar24. How does that happen?
FR24 may not actually receive any N-number from the aircraft. It's not unlikely that it only receives the Mode-S transponder code and cross-references that with a database to your N-number.
So the ...
- 13.7k
10
votes
Why don't most planes fly in a straight path?
As you know, Earth is not flat, but is rather close to a sphere.
So "the shortest path between two points is a straight line" does not actually work. The straight line between those two ...
- 2,301
9
votes
Why is this Jordan–Afghanistan flight avoiding airspaces in the Middle East despite being used by other flights?
State aircraft - especially Military - do not have the ICAO freedoms of the air. They must apply for diplomatic clearance to transit the airspace of a foreign country. Often this takes days or ...
- 1,122
8
votes
Would a flight of F-35s from Texas to Denmark have their transponders searchable on e.g. flightradar24.com?
It is unlikely that the F-35s transmit ADS-B data, so Flight Radar 24 can only track them if the aircraft are in range of a number of ground stations so that multilateration is possible. This means ...
- 84.5k
7
votes
Why doesn't flightradar show many flights going over China?
Your observation is somewhat correct. Plenty of flights land at hundreds of Chinese airports every day. The main reason why it always seems so empty on FR24 (technological issues aside addressed by ...
- 14.6k
7
votes
My N number showed up on another plane's flight on FlightRadar24. How does that happen?
Flight tracking sites like FR24 use both ADSB data and official radar tracks.
The first possibility is that someone misconfigured their ADSB to use your hex code/tail number. This seems unlikely since ...
- 27.9k
7
votes
Why would a plane fly in circles?
IFR holding patterns, whether waiting for a runway or waiting for other traffic to clear when en route, tend to be ovals, although they can be distorted by wind. The standard holding pattern is ...
- 171
7
votes
Why wouldn't a plane start its take-off run from the very beginning of the runway to keep the option to utilize the full runway if necessary?
As an example:
I did my flight training at Boeing Field (KBFI), which has two runways: a GA runway that is 3,700 feet long, and a commercial runway over 10,000 feet.
My flight school was near the ...
- 31k
6
votes
Do private jets ever fly at FL510? If so, at what occasion?
Generally when you run right at service ceiling you are near the edge of the operating envelope with little energy margin if things go off the rails, so you are in a relatively dangerous place (also, ...
- 136k
6
votes
Why is this Jordan–Afghanistan flight avoiding airspaces in the Middle East despite being used by other flights?
Thanks to @Arkhem for suggesting a government flight. Upvote him/her post if you wish, it contains the exact reason for not flying over certain areas, I'm just adding a complement to this answer.
It'...
- 80.9k
6
votes
Why do Air Force planes regularly fly in circles?
Taking off and climbing to altitude takes time. Having planes already in the air facilitates defense from a hypothetical attack and may deter that attack altogether when the attacker anticipates a ...
5
votes
Does the FlightRadar24 pose a risk to aviation security?
Plane movements are, for the most part, planned well in advance. Not only that, an airline actually has to publicize those times in order for customers to be able to book tickets. Want to find what ...
- 2,424
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible