Looking at this coverage lobe stretching far out to the east, I couldn’t help but wonder—if ADO74 (Boeing 737) had just flown a bit further east, would I have finally cracked the 150 NM mark?
Furthermore, if flights over the Sea of Japan to the west become safely available in the future, we might be able to expect even greater records over there too. Well, as we say in Japanese, it’s like counting your chickens before they hatch—or rather, “counting the raccoon dog’s pelt before catching it”! (Toranu tanuki no kawasanyou)
It’s always fascinating how a slight shift in a flight route can turn a regular day into a personal record attempt. Do your local flights ever tease you like this by stopping just short of your system’s sweet spot?
Just to follow up on my own post—I ran an overlay of the past 42 days of archive data on tar1090.
As you can see, even with thousands of flights, that eastern boundary is a hard limit! Still waiting for someone to finally break past that wall…
And here is the outer boundary outline extracted from those 42 days (361 outermost points total).
As you can see, both the northeast and southwest directions are cleanly sliced off. I keep on monitoring with quiet anticipation—wondering if someday, a flight will venture beyond those cut-off lines…
Speaking of the skies to the west, if the airspace over the Sea of Japan ever becomes safely open for more direct routing, routes between South Korea and North America would likely shift further north. When that happens, we can definitely expect a nice increase in traffic passing our way!
I thiink where you see planes depends on several factors. The first one is the antenna situation. Ideally you would want unobstructed views in all directions. But most of us don’t have that because the antenna is inside (attic or whatever), and has blockages in certain directions.
A second factor is you don’t see planes at certain spots because planes don’t fly there. For example at my location, I see very few planes south southwest of here. If I do see a plane there it is always military, never commercial or general aviation. So that area must have some restrictions for military only.
I notice even when a plane takes off from San Diego (KSAN airport) headed for Hawaii, it doesn’t turn left after takeoff, but rather turns right. It goes Northwest up to Catalina island, then turns left towards Hawaii. Same for coming in from Hawaii – planes fly up to Catalina Island then turn Southeast to KSAN.
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Exactly! Moving to a better hilltop or an island in the middle of the sea just for better ADS-B reception might be a bit too extreme for the family. We just have to make the most of our current “view” and keep dreaming about those uncharted routes!
