Confused tracks for international arrivals

#1

I really enjoy Flightaware, and use it for my work as an instructor for a charter company, so I am disappointed when things don’t work well.

I know international arrivals are a problem until hand off, but it seems to me that there is some room for improvement. For example, I have been tracking China Airlines 016 [CAL016] RCTP - KSEA (my wife is on board). Position reports are in the system, so a current position is available, but the software ties that to yesterday’s track for the continuation KSEA - KIAH. Somehow, existence of a current position report does not alert your system to the fact that today’s flight is airborne.

Perhaps you could build in a timeout function that won’t tie yesterday’s track log to today’s?

I have posted a screen capture below. Maybe a look at it would help you track down this problem.

Similarly, there is a problem when an aircraft crosses the international date line. Imagine a westbound aircraft over the Pacific in radar contact. The track will show steady progress until crossing 180W, after which a sharp turn is show indicating eastward movement to the next position. Sorry, I don’t have any screen captures for this.

http://homepage.mac.com/jimwolper/CAL016.pdf

#2

We often receive position reports for VFR flights, so without receiving a departure message we have no way of knowning that the next IFR flight has begun. Also in the case of CAL16, we’re not getting a flight plan for the RCTP-KSEA leg, which is unusual.

I think this is a bug related to our map servers assuming flights are in the western hemisphere, but I’ll look into it.

#3

We have the “yesterday’s track log for an international flight” fixed on about half of our infrastructure and will be completing the new code rollout over the next week. Until then, your odds of getting the old track are about 50/50.

The problem with the wrong origin/destination displayed on the map is likely related to not receiving a flight plan or departure for the trans-pacific segment.

You need your images to be in a traditional image format like PNG, GIF, or JPG to be included (rather than PDF).

#4

Wow! Thanks for looking into this.

#5

I am currently tracking flight KL605 EHAM-KSFO. There are various strange things with thhis one going on.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/KLM605
First, I also get yesterday’s (and even before that) data coupled to today’s. It shows the flight as having been arrived. But at the same time it also shows groundspeed and altitude and the flight in the air on the image.
Aircraft Boeing 767-300 (twin-jet) [H/B763/W]
Origin Schiphol [EHAM]
Destination San Francisco Int’l [KSFO]
Route YWG MOT BIL061157 BIL195123 PIH OAL YOSEM1
Date Wednesday, Jan 25, 2006
Duration n/a
Status Arrived! (track log)
Proposed/Assigned Actual/Estimated
Departure 19:53 GMT
Arrival 11:53 PST 13:47 PST
Groundspeed Mach .80
Altitude 32000 feet

I know for sure it is an MD11 not a 767 (which was yesterday’s flight)
I assume that the Departure 19:53 GMT refers to the time it arrived in US airspace?

Second, I get very strange tracks. Sometimes it’s OK. Just one track heading from EHAM to America. But sometimes it switches to multiple tracks out of and back to KSFO with somewhere in the clutter the real one. I have saved an image
http://www.stanford.edu/~akarssen/KL605%20flight_track_map.rvt.gif