Real-time Silicon Valley air traffic website

April 25, 2008

Engineer Extraordinaire Alan Martin sent along a link to a website that shows the air traffic over Silicon Valley. You can hover your mouse over the plane and it will identify just like the transponders over at air-traffic control. There are also dots that show noise level. The display is delayed a few minutes, maybe five or ten, but Alan says that intent of the website is to help residents identify noisy planes so they can complain to the airport. That way when Oracle CEO Larry Ellison lands after airport closing time, violating airport rules with impunity since he is pretty much a uber-person, superior by his very nature to peons like you and me, you can turn him in. Well, at least you can get the tail number off his jet and complain, not that it will change Larry’s behavior.

Alan writes:

I’ve spent too much time the past week looking at the following Bay Area Air Traffic site. It delays about 11 or 12 minutes from actual time. (Compare the application’s clock with an accurate clock.) The original intent of the site is to allow S.J. citizens to identify planes that are bothering them with excessive noise. See the microphone noise level circle off the ends of the runway. You can play back data from previous days, also, and at faster than real time.

The following site has the scheduled arrival and departures of SJC; both in-the-air and on-the-ground; a great adjunct site.

http://flightaware.com/live/airport/KSJC

I’m sure you can find the schedules for SFO or OAK at the same site. This might be entertaining for the kids - or maybe not - (they may ask where the buttons are to shoot down the planes.) This is a great companion to using a police / aircraft scanner and Google earth. I’ve been looking up all the local helipads on Google Satellite Maps where a helicopter can land. Lo and behold, it’s hospitals! The FAA has a nice long list with GPS-L&L. (I’ve been lookin’ to find where them thar black helicopters are cumin’ frum. They’re after us, ya know?).

You out-of-towners can see what we are up to here in the Valley and maybe find similar sites in your locale. I love this site since I can see aircraft from Moffett Field, San Jose International and Reid Hillview all at a glance.

Posted by Paul Rako on April 25, 2008 | Comments (4)

May 1, 2008

In response to: Real-time Silicon Valley air traffic website
Meredith Poor commented:

I had to give it up to the -ex. She had enough houses already, so she needed it to fly between them.

April 28, 2008

In response to: Real-time Silicon Valley air traffic website
LArry M commented:

Meredith, I thought you already had one.

April 27, 2008

In response to: Real-time Silicon Valley air traffic website
Meredith Poor commented:

The website I need is one that allows me to enter my flight itinerary, and have it come back and tell me what the probabability is that I'll be late based on prior years and similar days in the current year. That way I'll know if I need my own jet.

April 25, 2008

In response to: Real-time Silicon Valley air traffic website
Moe commented:

Eww. Look what you've done, Paul: Put me in a position where I need to -ug- defend - uggggh- Larry Ellison. Short story: Ellison was right, won in court and should have. He argued that the rules were set to limit noise, but curfewed jets based on weight, rather than their noise levels. He challenged them and the city refused to appeal, using the newspapers and public opinion to make their case. He took it to court, where the judge said, "The unreasonably discriminatory nature of the city's noise program is best demonstrated by the fact that *twenty* Gulfstream V jets taking off at the same time would make less noise than one Beechjet 400, an aircraft exempt from the curfew. The stated objective of the curfew is to regulate night-time noise, not an airplane's weight." You're linking to an article (from 2001!) that talks about his court date and you just kind of overlook that the courts ruled in his favor. Tsk. Now, I think Ellison is a modern robber-baron (and not in the glamorous sense) and he's arrogant and annoying, to boot. But fair is fair, and your swipe at him ain't.

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