Real Time for PiAware contributors?

Here’s the deal…
I bought a Raspberry Pi board and am running PiAware, feeding my datastream to FlightAware.com.
As stated in the documentation on FlightAware.com, I was automatically upgraded to an Enterprise level account for free.

But…
As i read on FlightAware.com website, “Users sending ADS-B data to FlightAware will see live(non-delayed) data.”
But that’s not what i’m seeing at all.

http://thehdpilot.com/photos/1020-333.jpg

In watching planes pass over my house, i could see that FlightAware.com was still far behind the plane actually passing over me.
So I did a test. I picked out a plane that i could see on both PiAware’s data feed, and on the FlightAware.com website.
I used a stopwatch (i almost resorted to a calendar :slight_smile: ) to timed how long it took for the target plane to on the website to reach the same
position that was on PiAware at a given point.
I was shocked, it took Six Minutes :-/
I could maybe believe that ‘real time’ means a 10 to 15 seconds delay, but 6 minutes?
What am I missing? Am I supposed to do something special on FlightAware.com to see this ‘live’ (non-delayed) data?

Here is FlightAware.com’s position of AAL1602
http://thehdpilot.com/photos/1023-222.jpg

Here’s PiAware’s position of AAL1602
(The two screen captures were done at the same moment)
It took FlightAware.com over SIX MINUTES before AAL1602
got to PiAware’s current position

http://thehdpilot.com/photos/1021-111.jpg

There’s about a 15 second processing delay on incoming data, and the position update rate is ratelimited, but otherwise you should be seeing realtime data; a 6 minute delay sounds more like a map update glitch more than anything (refreshing the map may have got you fresher data)

What was the exact time of your screenshots?

Thanks for the quick response!

I guess I should have been clear on this in the original post, but it’s not that the FA.com page finally ‘jumped’ to the position seen on piaware. I sat there watching for the whole 6 minutes as the FA.com page gradually moved along, ‘mile by mile’, until it finally reached the point piaware had been to long before.

I could only guess at the time now, judging by the first screen shot it must have been around 4:20pm on the 6th. It took me a week to get around to getting my question posted.

can you make again the same experience and in another incognito tab in flightware without login see what’s happen? how long is different from your logged in flightware to without logging? I’m really curious about

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

I sit under the NE/DC routes to FL. I use the binocular feature on the mobile app a lot. Most of the times the plane icon in the app is close to the actual plane. A good percent of the time, 25%, the app is practically on the plane, and a smaller percentage of the time, the icon is pretty far away.

Based on comparing plane to icon in the binoc mode, the stuff is getting turned around in FA pretty fast!

I did some comparisons here and the website map positions can be 60-90 seconds behind realtime. I didn’t see anything as extreme as 6 minutes.

It turns out that the website map animates towards the current position, not extrapolating past the current position, which is where most of the visual delay comes from - at time (say) T+5s, the browser gets told what the position was at T+0, but it does not draw the aircraft at that position until about T+60s ish, at which point a periodic update happens and it gets the next position. That behaviour came from a combination of “don’t show extrapolated data” and “make sure the aircraft doesn’t stop moving before the next refresh happens”. Having an option to always show the latest aircraft position (at the expense of animation) might be a good idea.

That behaviour came from a combination of “don’t show extrapolated data” and “make sure the aircraft doesn’t stop moving before the next refresh happens”.

Obj, are you saying that there are user options I could be setting? I looked around and I’m not seeing the options page.

Aside from that, I understand what you’re saying with “T+x”, but 60 to 90 seconds is a pretty huge delay from ‘live’ / ‘non-delayed’ wouldn’t you agree? Trying to watch a plane come over my house and correlating that to what is on FA.com somewhere around me up to 1-1/2 minutes away (esp at 200 to 400 kts) kind of ‘takes the fun out of it’.

Anyway, I would wholeheartedly be in favor of an option that simply ‘put the plane where it was last report’, that be great! Personally, I wouldn’t ever view FA.com in any other mode :smiley: Animation might be sexy, but accuracy wins.

*Note: I am posting this for the thread originator rv7pilot because he’s having technical problems accessing this forum. I can forward on replies but interested in this issue as well. *

No, was just explaining the requirements that lead to the current design.