Why do I only get an X in the top left corner, no map?
Roger
Looking into it.
Roger,
We didn’t receive any radar position reports for this flight and the origin is the same as the destination, so the map servers don’t have anything to map. It’s a bug that it displays an x although even if we resolved that bug, you wouldn’t be able to see anything of interest. The nature of the bug is that it doesn’t know how far to zoom around the area of interest since there is only one point to scale around.
dbaker,
It was an IFR practice flight in IMC with a number of approaches at HLG and AFJ, started at AFJ, ended at AFJ.
I wanted to preserve the track to review with my bi-ennial instructor in a couple of weeks. What should I do next time?
Thanks,
Roger
It depends on your local facilities. I’ve seen some problems tracking “local” IFR flights. I’d ask local pilots in your area what local routes/practice flying has shown up successfully on FlightAware.
An invaluable source for reviewing your tracks is a hand held GPS. Many current models have the ability to record your track and plot them out after the flight. And they record the points with far greater resolution than the FAA radars!
BTaylor,
Yes, I have the hardware and software to do that and have done it in the past…
However, since Flightaware has shown me how much the FAA stores about our flights, I became interested in making sure they have sufficient tracks on my flights to demonstrate IFR currency, should some unexpected/unfortunate event result in a review of the archives by the FAA or insurance company.
What I have learned here is that Flightaware has difficulty with recording short range origin to origin IFR flights. So I will need to file out and back separate IFR flight plans and go somewhat further.
Big brother is watching…keep him happy!
Roger Bock
Even if they have the tracks your airplane was flown, they don’t know who was flying it at the time or what the conditions of your flight were so it wouldn’t help in a post-incident investigation.
I’ve never heard of historical tracks being used for anything and I presume they do the same thing with them that they do with the tower tapes, and that’s erase them after a short period (a week in one location I know of) if there has not been an incident. But I could be wrong.
My guess is that they will look at your log books and pull your pilot cert and medical files. You would be better covered if a family member or friend could offer up your GPS plots to prove currency.
I agree that “Big Brother is watching”, but I think he’s watching in real-time and faced with information overload, so unless something I do raises immediate attention, he won’t be reviewing my actions after the fact to see if I did anything he missed earlier.
Anybody else know if investigators use historical radar data for anything, other than the last track from the incident flight? Does the FAA even have the capability to research historical tracks? How long do they keep them?
BTaylor,
Your last paragraph is key…Maybe someone from ATC can be definitive:
“Anybody else (ATC) know if investigators use historical radar data for anything, other than the last track from the incident flight? Does the FAA even have the capability to research historical tracks? How long do they keep them?”
I my case I am the owner and only pilot…so all of it’s flight hours are mine. Weather data may also be archived and retrievable. So anything is possible.
Paranoid,
Roger