Flight-Tracking Community Is Keeping Eyes On Russian Oligarchs
Newsy
Flight trackers were created for aviation enthusiasts to connect, but now they're working to create more accurate readings.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a University of Central Florida student developed a bot to track the movements of aircraft owned by Russian oligarchs. The prospect of a teen pinpointing the exact location of oligarchs’ planes may seem far-fetched, but there’s a whole community of flight trackers creating databases to keep eyes on the sky.
The Russian oligarch bot and other flight trackers use information from the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system, or ADS-B, to figure out the location of planes. These devices are installed on most U.S. aircraft and collect data, such as a plane’s speed, position and altitude, primarily to help air traffic controllers. That data is then transmitted to ADS-B receivers on the ground or on satellites.
After the messages are decoded, the data is sent to servers which process the information and display it on flight tracking websites or apps.
