Hello Everyone,
Sorry if this has been documented before, I couldn’t find much in my searches.
Is there any way I can get the runway and gate information for a specific flight with FlightXML? I’m interested in the gate and runway information for Departure and Arrival (for tracking personal flights).
Thanks for the help in advance.
-flyinjer
Runway information is not available.
Gate/Terminal information can be obtained from AirlineFlightInfo once you know the faFlightID of the flight in question.
Great! Thanks bovineone. Looks like i’ll stick to the 'ol Google Maps and search for airport diagrams for runway info.
hi @bovineone , just curious is the what is the data source for Gate/Terminal information. it is not something available via ADS-B right.
ADS-B only contains position (lat, lon, alt). That hypothetically could be used to deduce gate identity if you also have accurate enough bounding boxes for every gate of every airport, and your ground ADS-B coverage for every part is the airport is very good.
However, we usually get gate identity information from airline-specific data feeds that we either pay to get access to, or have negotiated partnerships with.
We also sometimes use ACARS and datalink feeds to get indication of out/off/on/in events, but those also do not usually contain gate identity information, so we must wait for another feed to provide us with the actual gate identity.
Just out of curiosity (and slightly off-topic), how many nearby ADS-B sources would you need to accurately track where the planes are to assign them to a geographic gate box? Assuming the receivers are all able to see the airport and report positions reliably. Let’s say for an moderately-sized commercial airport like Cincinnati or Kansas City. Would you just need one local receiver that can see the whole site, or would you need to verify the reported position by MLAT or other verification?
I know gate positions can change over time, which would make keeping this up-to-date a nightmare. I’m just asking hypothetically.
ADS-B is highly line-of-sight dependent, so it may be necessary to have several receivers on or near the airport in order to be able to receive ground positions down all of the terminal alley-ways of an airport. It’s difficult to give a specific number, if that’s what you’re asking for.
You can see a heat map of our airport surface coverage by going to FlightAware ADS-B Coverage Map - FlightAware and typing in the airport you want to view in the search box. Our surface coverage is quite good at most large US airports, but we generally only rely on ADS-B positions to identify assigned runways and not gates today.
I’ll put it more simply: If you had an ADS-B receiver at the top of the ATC tower and looking down on the terminal, is that all you’d need? Or do you need additional receivers that can see the apron to check the data and make sure it’s accurate and timely?
ATC towers do not always have perfect line-of-sight down all terminal alleys either, however if you could get an ADS-B receiver on an ATC tower that would probably be “good enough” for most purposes. However, it depends greatly on the layout and configuration of the airport, where obstacles are located, and where there most important traffic you want to monitor are.
Thanks! That answers my question.