In case you hadn’t heard, Iceland’s volcanoes are sending tonnes of volcanic ash towards the UK right now. Yeah, so that’s not the tech story. The tech story is that courtesy of FlightRadar24 you can watch as the skies across the UK clear of aircraft.
FlightRadar24 receives information from several ADS-B receivers in real time. This is presented as airplanes on a Google-map.
You can even click on a plane and see its path and flight status, like height.
Launched in Sweden in 2007, Flightradar24’s network of hackers and geeks who have an ADS-B receiver has grown to over 100 ADS-B receivers. They receive the information from airplanes with ADS-B and send this information to a server, which then plots it on the map. Only airplanes within the coverage area of the 100 receivers are visible.
BTW, any suggestion that Iceland, an island which helped the global financial crisis kick off by creating an unsustanable banking industry, is having its revenge on the UK, which insisted it pay back the cash, is pure satire.
UPDATE: Two hours later this is what it looked like (is that a Ryan Air Plane?):
Thanks Mike Butcher.
What a mess this will be - but now at least there are more and more tools that gives the traveller a picture of what is going on. I hated not knowing. I use Tripit Pro now to follow what is going on when I fly. I often know before the crew or the ramp what is up. Does not change the delays but does take me out of the dark.
