Does Flight Aware have any plans to add aircraft using VFR flight following to their site? Looks like it should be easy to add since the aircraft is in the FAA computer and being handled enroute same as a IFR flight.
Harold
The FAQ’s does not answer the question…
“Does Flight Aware have any plans to add aircraft using VFR flight following to their site? Looks like it should be easy to add since the aircraft is in the FAA computer and being handled enroute same as a IFR flight.”
The FAQs just state that some VFR flights with Flight Following are displayed… But I have yet seen one. I just make a VFR trip from Dallas to Central FL, on Flight Following the whole way, but yet… Nothing… Best I can tell, it must be IFR or nothing. Prove me wrong??? I’m making the return trip Wed. and we’ll see again.
Would really be great if VFR flights were shown!
ok, bit of and outdated post but um yeah!
Welcome to the forum Harold! 8)
FA does track VFR flights. But is does not display them. VFR flight tracking is complicated since there’s no need for a flight plan except for S&R. Also flight plans get cancelled, changed, or whatever so much that tracking VFR flights is difficult. I believe one of the FA admins answered this question in a thread I started. I’ll pull it up.
CCX
Do you guys (Daniel, Karl, David, or Mark) keep a list of useful updates or ideas suggested by FlightAware members? There have been some good ones. 
CCX
if it trakcs them why dont they display them? thats all the traffic that goes in & out of my airport. if they do do that, info on plane should say wether IFR of VFR
Here’s how you tell the difference between IFR and VFR-Flight-Following flights:
Expand an Airport-Activity small map by clicking on it. That gives you a larger more regional map on its own browser page. Look at any of the flights that are labeled. Is there an aircraft type on the top line? If there is, the flight is IFR and can be tracked by itself. FA will show the flight as ‘en-route’ from its origin to its destination point. If there is no aircraft type, then the flight is VFR-Flight-Following. Since no flight plan was filed, the origin and destination are unknown. On the Flight Tracking (History) page, FA tells you that the last flight was ‘x’ days ago. There is no independent tracking map for the flight. All you know about it is where radar tracking places the aircraft on the regional map. You can follow it in the minute-by-minute map update, but if it gets close to another flight, the label will be suppressed. Then you really have to pay attention to which plane symbol is really the flight you’re interested in. It can get very tricky. Finally, if a flight is truly VFR without Flight Following, you’ll never know it’s in the air. It’s simply not tracked by FA and is on no map.