Trace the plane (over Europe)

For boats there is http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ worldwide
The zoom is a bit clunky but I can even watch the little seabus crossing the harbor

 

What a great resource for terrorists.

 

The data is delayed 15mins. But anyway what kind of terrorist plan were you worried about?

Option 1:
Build robot drone capable of reaching cruise height and speed of 747, and locking onto target - guided to correct flight number by google.

Option 2:
Stand at end of runway with shoulder launched missile. Shoot at big metal bird with US flag as part of logo.

 

If you've hijacked a plane, you could check if authorities have been tipped by seeing if other planes have been diverted. Or check the status of your wingman... If this is actually based on real radar data.

 

Here's another one for the terrorists in case they can't use Google.

http://flightaware.com/"

 

What makes you think it's delayed?

As far as I can see, it's live, to within a few seconds, although a bit intermittent (not every plane shows all the time - probably depends on where receivers are situated). I just popped my head out of the door to confirm that an airliner was flying over here (near Southampton) in the direction matching the line on the map, although that could have been coincidence.

 

Somehow that terrorist thinghy is not exactly relevant when it is about weapon employment. The maximum effective altitude of light weapons, like the shoulder fired missiles is about half of the minimum cruising altitude of air liners and a terrorist would not really need air traffic control facilities like this to identify a certain aircraft in the terminal area around an airport. A simple VHF radio receiver would do the trick.

 

There used to be a little about box saying data was delayed 15mins (might have been another site).
The data is sent in the clear anyway - it's used by TCAS so it would be a bit pointless if a US and Russian aircraft were on a collision course but each's positions were encrypted from the other.

There was a complaint about the maritime one from the underwater salvage people that it gives away the position of wrecks they are investigating.

 

Wow. Fascinating. Love the one for Europe.

 

Thought I'd bump this, so PFers could see the planes not flying over northern Europe.

 

Wow, that's amazing! That volcanic ash sure is causing problems.
Noticed a KLM flight(and the ONLY flight), wonder how that got approved.

 

Surprising indeed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM_Flight_867" [Broken] the effects of volcano ash.

 

Small planes should be ok, they are well below the ash. Possibly some commuter plane that carries a beacon for some reason (this data is from TCAS transponders that only planes above a certain size need)

 

If they fly into ash no, if they are at 5000ft and the ash is at 20,000ft - yes!

 

For the record, that was an authorized test flight.

You can see the traffic increasing slowly.