On Oct 23, 7:55*am, " wrote:
On Oct 21, 10:36*am, "kirk.stant" wrote:

PowerFLARM is supposed to have the capability to detect and display
Mode S 1090ES position data on its display. *How many aircraft
(Airliners, bizjets?) currently send out 1090ES data?

This is for the US, of course.

Kirk
66

I see on average about 6-7 1090ES ADS-B aircraft with a simple rooftop
antenna in Oakland, CA, USA.
Off course, most are international carriers going in and out of SFO.

Urs
FLARM

Which also brings up another source of info on this - so called
"virtual radar", Dave Nadler and I was also talking with me about
offline about this so I thought I'd share. There are relatively low
cost ADS-B 1090ES receivers available that hook up to PCs and vendors
of those products have built closed networks based on those systems
where you can see 1090ES based traffic. Those receivers can get pretty
impressive ranges (up to hundred of miles) with a good rooftop
antenna. The momentum to do all this has been from aviation/technology
hobbyist in Europe where there has been early adoption of 1090ES data-
out by airliners. There is not full 1090ES data-out carriage
requirements in Europe yet and we are many years away from full
carriage in the USA. The network of private 1090ES monitoring
receivers in Europe is pretty impressive but relatively sparse in the
USA.

In additon to these closed networks (where you have to buy one of
their receiver boxes or at least software to join) is there are also
open-network versions of these systems including FlightRadar24 which
has sparse USA coverage. But here is what you can do with it...

o On http://www.flightradar24.com go to "Jump to Area" and select
USA.
o You will see some traffic around Washington state, Los Angeles Basin
and a few other places.
o Click on an aircraft icon to get information about the aircraft and
the carrier.

If you see the flight there it is equipped with 1090ES data-out so
this gives a feel for what airlines, aircraft and flights in the USA
are 1090ES data-out equipped. The coverage is very sparse and it is
not clear what coverage each location actually has and it is not clear
what filtering if any is applied to non-airline flights. The confusing
"Radar" labels like KLAX do *not* mean this is a feed from KLAX tower
radar, SOCAL approach etc. its just what the private owner of the
1090ES receiver called his receiver station.

Here for example are the flights I see right now over the Los Angeles
Basin.

American Airlines B737-823 (B738)
American Airlines Boeing 767-323 (B763)
Delta Airlines unknown
United Airlines Boeing 777-222 (B772)
Virgin America Airbus A319-112 (A319)
Virgin America Airbus A320-214 (A320)

We are just at the start of this. Europe has been leading with heavy
aircraft adoption (look at the Flight Radar 24 maps for Europe) but
with the 2020 ADS-B data-out mandate now the USA is finally starting
to get going. By 2020 all the airliners, private jets, turboprops,
some high performance singles and twins etc. (anybody who flies over
FL180) will be mandated to have 1090ES data-out. And I expect many
other aircraft owners will choose 1090ES data-out to meet the 2020 ADS-
B carriage mandate. I expect some domestic airliners and freight
haulers who see some early ADS-B data-out benefits in the USA will
adopt within their fleet well before 2020, its just hard to find out
exactly their plans. Personally I am very happy that PowerFLARM in the
USA gives us this ADS-B compatibility/future path.

And there is a virtual radar portal at http://radarspotters.eu/ which
links to different products etc. if you are interested in this stuff.

Darryl