- Due to a worldwide transponder system, you’ll be able to track U.S. military aircraft.
- The system, often called ADS-B, permits you to quickly look up what’s flying in your vicinity, and even on the opposite side of the world.
- The system not only lends itself to greater aviation safety, but helps you get to know your military.
Back within the 2000s, I used to commute from San Francisco to Marin, California. On the way in which home from work, I ceaselessly saw a dark jet fighter fly overhead around 5 p.m. It looked like an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet, however it was all the time too high overhead to get a very good glimpse at it. I used to call it the “Five O’Clock Hornet,” and would occasionally see it over the Bay Area, though not all the time within the early evening.
The plane itself was a type of low-level mystery: I had no idea where it got here from, or why it kept such a routine. Even stranger was the undeniable fact that the “Hornet” appeared dark gray or black, not the sunshine gray that U.S. Navy fighters are typically painted. It was particularly common within the North Bay, rarely sighted south of the north end of San Francisco. This was odd considering Navy jets would more likely come up from the south, from Naval Air Station Lemoore near Fresno or NAS North Island in San Diego.
Greater than a decade later, I discovered the Hornet’s true origin: the planes were actually T-38 Talon jet trainers flown from Beale Air Force Base. Known by the call sign ROPER, the flights were piloted by U-2 pilots maintaining their flight proficiency when not flying the high-altitude spy aircraft. The flights originated near Sacramento, and sometimes dipped down into the San Francisco Bay Area. The aircraft were painted the identical dark gray color because the U-2.
I’ve been watching planes this manner for a long time, but being on the surface of the military-industrial complex, it’s difficult to know what you’re , where the planes got here from, and where they’re going. Nevertheless, armed with a smartphone and one website particularly, I can find all that and more—and so are you able to.
A Global Surveillance Network
Civil aviation authorities around the globe began rolling out the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) within the early aughts. ADS-B is a system of transponders mounted on aircraft that transmits a wide range of information in real time, including the plane’s location, speed, direction, and a transponder code unique to each aircraft. This information, plotted on a map, gives pilots and ground controllers the power to quickly get a way of their local airspace (or the airspace of most places on Earth.)
💡 Who Uses ADS-B? As of 2021, ADS-B transponders are mandated within the U.S., Europe, Australia, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Latest Zealand, Papua Latest Guinea, South Africa, Taiwan and Vietnam, and the system is being implemented in China, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.
The data isn’t just available to the aviation community. The web site ADS-B Exchange collates aircraft tracking data and makes it available in real time, allowing anyone to observe aerial traffic anywhere the system is working.
It was shortly after I began using the positioning that I noticed T-38 flights regularly over Northern California. These flights all originated near Marysville, California, and infrequently dipped down into the north Bay Area. The T-38 Talon is analogous in appearance to the F/A-18 Hornet, but with a pointier nose and one vertical stabilizer as a substitute of two. Viewed from a distance below, it was easy to confuse the 2. Five O’Clock Hornet’s identity had finally been revealed.
The Exchange
ADS-B Exchange merges ADS-B data with other publicly known data about military and civilian aircraft, worldwide. Individual aircraft are plotted to OpenStreetMap—a free geographic database of the world—represented by icons which can be color-coded in line with altitude. The icons range from single-person autogyros and Cessna 182s to Boeing 747s and Airbus A380 four-engine civilian airliners. Military icons include U-2s, KC-135 Stratotankers, C-17 Globemaster IIIs, C-5M Super Galaxies, V-22 Ospreys, and so forth, though fighter jets are sometimes represented by a more generic swept-wing, stubby-nosed icon. A click on the icon includes spatial information, including ground speed, altitude, and site, ADS-B signal strength, and other data. It also includes the aircraft registration, country of registration, and helpfully adds a photograph or thumbnail of the aircraft when possible.
All of which means, with the clicking of a button, you’ll be able to immediately discover what’s flying near you. I typically scan what’s occurring over Northern California two or thrice a day. The night I began this text, I heard a deep rumbling noise and the windows of my house shook. It was dark outside and I wouldn’t have been capable of see the aircraft had I gone outside to look, but a fast scan at ADS-B Exchange revealed it was a V-22 Osprey that had just overflown my house.
Vanishing Aircraft
Military aircraft routinely broadcast their ADS-B data, but have the choice of turning it off when needed. The Pentagon is well aware that aviation enthusiasts—and potential adversaries—monitor ADS-B data, and that aircraft turn the transponders off once they don’t want anyone watching them. Several times, I’ve followed aircraft only to have them abruptly disappear from the map.
While writing this piece, I noticed a C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft that was nearing the San Francisco Bay Area. Using ADS-B Exchange, I tracked the flight all the way in which back to its start line on the Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, the house of the 167th Airlift Wing. I expected the plane to land at Travis Air Force Base, an Air Mobility Command hub on the West Coast, however the transport flew past the bottom, to the Pacific Ocean, and just kept on flying. At 150 miles off the coast, it vanished from the system.
In mid-November, something latest happened: a U.S. aircraft involved in combat apparently left its ADS-B on, and did so intentionally. An AC-130J Ghostrider gunship carried out an airstrike on a goal that had launched a missile attack on U.S. forces at Al Assad Airbase, Iraq. The AC-130 gunship mounts a wide range of weapons, including 30mm and 105mm guns, and precision guided bombs and missiles, and typically flies lazy circles above its goal, pouring firepower down on targets below. Within the Al Assad retaliation airstrike, in line with The Aviationist, the Ghostrider involved apparently kept its transponder on all the time, drawing large circles on the ADS-B map.
The Takeaway
When you’re a fan of military aircraft, or identical to knowing what’s going while you hear the roar of airplane engines overhead, ADS-B is a free and reliable tool that it is best to use for tracking and identifying planes. Watching fighters, spy planes, and transports come and go can enable you get to know your armed forces. Just remember that, at the very least in relation to military flights, you’re only going to see what the military wants you to see.