Android Mobile App

Folks, love FA, have a PiAware feeding data and occasionally run Virtual Radar Server for enhanced map, use it regularly for flight notifications but here come the BUT…

The Mobile App seems very erratic. My default screen is Near Me but couple of days back an A380 went directly overhead, probably around 7000 feet on approach to Heathrow, which is close by. At same time an A319 crossed the path of A380 and curious of altitude difference I loaded up my mobile app - No sign of the A380 on the map anywhere, the higher A319 showed. Refreshed the display a number of times as I know data can be delayed but still no sign of the A380.

I have noticed aircraft not appear to show up before but put that down to delay in ADS-B signal data reaching device, not normally noticed as mostly use SkyView or VirtualRadarServer but if away from home address must admit FlightRadar24 appears more reliable.

Geffers

On a side note check out the OL3 replacement for /usr/share/dump1090-fa/html. It’s for UK users and has a whole load more mapping layers and options as well as range plots and floating aircraft labels. Some of the layers are not fully accurate or complete but still interesting to use. You can trivially swap between OL3 and the standard SkyView having both present in /usr/share/dump1090-fa and renaming the relevant subdirectory to html.

TLDR: You must be logged into your flightaware account and turn on position only flight

The default FlightAware live map will only show scheduled flights by default. If a flight schedule was not filed or if there is a problem matching a schedule with the seen ADSB messages it will not show up on the live map by default.

You can turn on “position only flights” in your user options. Go to your user account settings and go down to the section for Position-Only Flights. This will show planes without a matching schedule.

Usually commercial planes have a filed schedule if they are flying passengers. If a plane is being positioned to a new location (without passengers) or if they are doing something with the plane that doesn’t require filing a schedule we have no way to match where they are going.

If a plane does have a schedule you will see a dashed line for the scheduled waypoints when mousing over a plane or going to the specific flight page.