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[Jimbob]

What do people think the best plane tracking / identification all (for iOS) is?

Note really interested in monitoring passenger flights, ie enter a flight number and see where it is.//

More interested in "whats that noise / plane overhead" as we get a fair few unusal things overhead here being so close to Hawarden airfield.

tried a few free ones, but they seem a bit limited, so dont mind paying a few quid for one.

[Doctor Gollum]

Use flight radar 24 here... Apps only work on aircraft with transponders, but nowadays that should be all of them...

Picks up all sorts of weird and wonderful aircraft 

Doesn't always give a destination, but track should be able to give you a clue

[zirk]

I fits Military they wont always appear on Flight Radar, try the link below, has various sections and some handy links on each page.

http://www.planeflighttracker.com/2014/03/military-aircraft-tracker.html

[LC0112G]

You have to understand what an aircraft transponder does to understand the answers.

Mode A/C -Virtually all aircraft (including B1, B2, B52, F-22, F-35 etc) carry Mode A/C transponders. These work by a ground radar station pinging the aircraft, and the aircraft replies with a 4 digit (Squawk) code and/or an altitude. The Squawk is allocated by the controlling ground radar station, and the pilot dials in the code on the transponder. There is no tracking information transmitted by the aircraft.

Mode S : Most aircraft carry these - including all UK military types, European based F-15 & F-16's, C-17's, C-130's, KC-135's etc. These work by a ground radar station pinging the aircraft, and the aircraft replies with unique 6 digit hex code, plus stuff like speed, altitude etc. The hex code is unique to that aircraft on that day. Civil aircraft keep the same hex code for ever. Military aircraft tend to keep the same codes for a while, but some types 'rotate' codes from a pool of reserved ones (Lakenheath F-15's do this). There is no tracking information transmitted by the aircraft.

Mode S+ADS/B : Most civil types (airliners, biz jets), but very few military types carry these. Military types which do have the capability (RAF Voyagers, USAF KC-10's) often turn it off to avoid being tracked.  With ADSB the aircraft does transmit it's Latitude and Longitude and so it's position can be plotted on a map.

Most of the tracking apps rely on ADS/B, so very few military types show up on them. The tracking apps also get forced to screen out certain types by the authorities if they want to use official ATC feeds. Air Force 1 is fully ADSB, but won't show on most tracking software.

It is possible to 'triangulate' Mode S only aircraft though. This works by groups of users all receiving the Mode S hex codes using their own recievers, and precicely timing the arrival of the signals (to sub-microsecond resolution). Then, given you know the speed of light, you can work out the relative distance of the aircraft from the ground stations. From that you can plot a series of arcs, and where the arcs intersect is the position of the aircraft. This technique is called MLAT.

IMHO the best app that supports MLAT is Planeplotter. There are others - ADSB exchange is one. However, the coverage relies on users contributing their own receivers input into the sharer system, so numbers of subscribers is critical.

AFAIK there are currently no apps that can track Mode A/C aircraft reliably. So B1/2/52's are a work in progress  

[Migalot]

I use FR24. Best app around I think. You can get 3D views as well so you can "see" what the pax/pilots see. Followed my daughter's flight right down to the runway in Stockholm the other day. 

https://www.flightradar24.com   

[LC0112G]

I use FR24. Best app around I think. You can get 3D views as well so you can "see" what the pax/pilots see. Followed my daughter's flight right down to the runway in Stockholm the other day. 

https://www.flightradar24.com

Great for airliners. Useless for just about everything else.

Currently showing on my screen (21:55L) are a RAF C-17, a Belgian AF C-130, a French Navy Falcon 50, and a couple of French Air Force Falcon. None of these show on FR24. When they're up, I can also see Kevins in their balsa wood death traps (FLARM).

Try PP (Planeplotter) and VR (Virtual Radar Server) or ADSB Exchange.

[Migalot]

I use FR24. Best app around I think. You can get 3D views as well so you can "see" what the pax/pilots see. Followed my daughter's flight right down to the runway in Stockholm the other day. 

https://www.flightradar24.com

Great for airliners. Useless for just about everything else.

Currently showing on my screen (21:55L) are a RAF C-17, a Belgian AF C-130, a French Navy Falcon 50, and a couple of French Air Force Falcon. None of these show on FR24. When they're up, I can also see Kevins in their balsa wood death traps (FLARM).

Try PP (Planeplotter) and VR (Virtual Radar Server) or ADSB Exchange.

Yes, but Jimbob said "...really interested in monitoring passenger flights, ie enter a flight number and see where it is." 

[LC0112G]

Yes, but Jimbob said "...really interested in monitoring passenger flights, ie enter a flight number and see where it is." 

What Jimbob wrote was "Note really interested in monitoring passenger flights, ie enter a flight number and see where it is."

I took that to be a typo for "Not really interested in monitoring passenger flights...."

I agree FR24 is probably the best for (most) airliners, but if you want unrestriricted access to everything then the things I listed are the best. Hawarden isn't a commercial airport, and most of the things that operate into/out of there will either be non ADSB, or blocked on FR24.

The bigger issue for Jimbob is his IOS operating system requirement. Why do people agree to be limited to what Apple will allow?

[Migalot]

Yes, but Jimbob said "...really interested in monitoring passenger flights, ie enter a flight number and see where it is." 

What Jimbob wrote was "Note really interested in monitoring passenger flights, ie enter a flight number and see where it is."

I took that to be a typo for "Not really interested in monitoring passenger flights...."

I agree FR24 is probably the best for (most) airliners, but if you want unrestriricted access to everything then the things I listed are the best. Hawarden isn't a commercial airport, and most of the things that operate into/out of there will either be non ADSB, or blocked on FR24.

The bigger issue for Jimbob is his IOS operating system requirement. Why do people agree to be limited to what Apple will allow?

I assumed it wasn't a typo, but you may be right.

[Doctor Gollum]

You say that...

FR might not give departure or arrival points, but if it's squawking, it tells you what it is

[Kevin Wood]

I use FR24. Best app around I think. You can get 3D views as well so you can "see" what the pax/pilots see. Followed my daughter's flight right down to the runway in Stockholm the other day. 

https://www.flightradar24.com

Great for airliners. Useless for just about everything else.

Currently showing on my screen (21:55L) are a RAF C-17, a Belgian AF C-130, a French Navy Falcon 50, and a couple of French Air Force Falcon. None of these show on FR24. When they're up, I can also see Kevins in their balsa wood death traps (FLARM).

Try PP (Planeplotter) and VR (Virtual Radar Server) or ADSB Exchange.

I'll have you know that mine's plastic.

Still a lot of private flying is without transponders, or without them being turned on, at any rate.

[LC0112G]

You say that...

FR might not give departure or arrival points, but if it's squawking, it tells you what it is

Nope. Squawk is a Mode A/C term. Nothing commercially available can plot that reliably (yet).

FR will plot anything ADSB and some Mode-S that isn't masked out by their "security filter". That filter includes most military, and many biz jets.

[Doctor Gollum]

You say that...

FR might not give departure or arrival points, but if it's "squawking", it tells you what it is

Nope. Squawk is a Mode A/C term. Nothing commercially available can plot that reliably (yet).

FR will plot anything ADSB and some Mode-S that isn't masked out by their "security filter". That filter includes most military, and many biz jets.

Ok fixed for pedantry

When I typed my earlier post I was watching an Embraer 300 biz jet leave Brize heading towards the Belgian coast... At that point I got bored had more productive things to do...

Quite often see the RAF Airbuses end route to/from Ascension etc on it too

[LC0112G]

Quite often see the RAF Airbuses end route to/from Ascension etc on it too

These are 'civilian' flights operated by Airtanker under a contract to the MOD using a "TOW" callsign (part of the PFI initiative). They use two of the RAF's Voyagers which are registered with the CAA as civilian (G-VOYG/VOYJ). Outbounds are Sunday and Wednesday night, returns are (usually) Tuesday and Friday.

What you won't usually see are the RAF flights - whilst you were watching did you see RRR2301 (Voyager ZZ338) arrive from Cyprus?

[Doctor Gollum]

I didn't but I must admit that I wasn't looking... I tend to use it purely to keep tabs on our inbounds only to get sidetracked by random things like the Midlands Air Ambulance...

Brize isn't always visible either, which is a bit bizarre seeing as the village is clearly marked on the FR map 

Apparently the UN operate a B767-300...