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How To: Check For Planes Before Beaming

IsaacT

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It is not always easy to spot planes and differentiate between them and stars immediately. Also on cloudy nights it can be nigh on impossible.
 





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Well, stars don't flash at regular intervals or make a low rumbling noise. On a cloudy night, I don't think your laser is going to reach them.
 
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This is a great idea. Does it cover every flight, or just commercial? What about military, RFDS, etc. etc.?
 

IsaacT

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Every flight. There are even small biplane thingies. Crop dusters and whatnot.
 
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Well, stars don't flash at regular intervals or make a low rumbling noise. On a cloudy night, I don't think your laser is going to reach them.

This is true, however, where I live at least, planes are not easy to spot straight away, even on a perfectly clear night. Very rarely will the 'low rumbling' noise be audible unless the plane is landing nearby and is at a relatively low altitude.
 
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Checked out both sites, good stuff. I never knew planes flew so far south of Australia!? I do know though that there are two major flight paths I need to watch for. The main one being 80km South of me. I always have a look before I go beaming just in case but I am not sure that fro 35,000 feet and 80km away how much they would actually see. Certainly not enough to be any sort of threat but it pays to look just the same!
Thanks for the site reference, have it bookmarked now!
 

Joed

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I live near a flight path that seems to change a bit from time to time. Sometimes it is right over my house and sometimes it can be a bit west and yet other times quite a bit east of me. To be honest I'm afraid to point the thing in the sky if anything is even near me. One quick look at this app tells me what is going on up there.

Plus it is a neat thing to have if someone you know is flying in or leaving. I know there are other ways to track a flight but it is kind of amazing being able to hold your phone up and see the flight number of that plane flying over your head. Ten years ago you would never even think things like this would be possible let alone possible for $3.
 
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Yea I don't point skyward
Risk not worth it
Just pop balloons and burn stuff
 
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Airforce one? Lol

I find it hard to believe every single aircraft is tracked in real time by that site.
Either way, it's still helpful...
 
D

Deleted member 16589

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Ok so about 30 minutes ago I was outside and a plane flew over really low and banking hard.
So I immediately went inside to see if I could find it. Well 5 minutes later one of the orange 5 minute delay planes went right over my house on the map.
well after that I decided to look around on the map.

Look at this crazy path of this one plane i found
wackyflight_zps59c3a89d.jpg


BTW in case your curios The plane near dead center below sandston was the plane i saw over my house. Pretty neat :D
 

Rifter

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I use this all the time to make sure my 300mw 660nm doesn't interfere with any aircraft
 
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Every flight. There are even small biplane thingies. Crop dusters and whatnot.

Not true. Military (and possibly other government) flights are not tracked on either site. All commercial flights *should* be listed on both of those sites but not all GA flights are. On any given day I can listen to local ATC traffic and hear GA flights arriving/departing that aren't on FlightAware. Small GA planes without certain transponders will not appear on FlightRadar24 either.

They're good tools but not 100% perfect.


edit: In case you couldn't tell I'm somewhat of an aviation enthusiast as well ;)
 
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IsaacT

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Yeah until the storm blows over with the guy who pointed at a helicopter in my city and is facing jail time my beams stay below the horizon.
 

SN P

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This is really useful as it is hard to spot planes when using the laser to point at distances further out that aren't directly above
 
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Are there any numbers you can call in US if you plan to have a laser shoot. IE every one aiming at a certain point such as the 4th of july fireworks? Or to let pilots know to avoid that part of the sky.
 




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