On any given day.......

Updated.

In this last century we have gone from virtually zero to several hundred thousand people being high up in the air at any given moment of the day. Astonishing when you think about it. 

Several hundred million people fly above the hard and lumpy part or the world each year.  The air above us is thick with them.  Mind you, the air can get a tad lumpy too at times and always somewhere in the world at any given moment.

You have very likely been one of those passengers in the past few years. Or a family member or a friend has been somewhere by aircraft.

You see them off at the airport and hope to hear from them soon after they land to let you know they have arrived safely.

But do you ever think about 'tracking' them? 

My beloved son went from Oz to the USA a year or two back. I followed him all the way from his plane taxiing out to it landing. I could do it on my computer.

http://www.flightradar24.com

The website, Flightradar24 allows you to see aircraft as they taxi to the runway and journey all the way to its destination.  Pretty well all places have good coverage, and some large airports even have cameras that allow you to see your loved-one's plane touching down!  There are several sites that enable you to access airport cameras.

You can even get good visual access on mobile phones. 

That is astonishing too.

All commercial aircraft carry transponders and most now carry a particular type : automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B). These send data which the site can access and display.

If a family member has need of a medical flight, even by helicopter, you can track then from remote places right to the hospital landing pad.

The site details things like altitude and speed, rate of climb / descent, flt No, callsign, aircraft type etc. All you have to do is mouse-click on an aircraft symbol. You can 'scroll-in' and out to get within a mile or less of the plane (with a landmap beneath to show exactly where it is above). 

And apart from the 'personal' you can also simply see what is happening almost anywhere in the world. For instance I was watching earlier as over 50 aircraft were going around in four seperate stacks over Dubai; and the stream of traffic passing New York, with some 'peeling off' to join a line going into J.F. Kennedy airport.  Needless to say, the traffic into an out of sleepy Tasmania is much lighter although some folk do come especially to sit in the bars of the Tavern.

Hey, it helps to pass the time and it ain't sinful.

OK 

You could find it very useful as a teaching aid for your children. Young and old !

Added:
Oh, by the way, if you want to know where boats are, try ....

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-64/centery:-4/zoom:3

Again zoom in, move the map with a held mouse, click on a symbol. Use the lagend at the side to get details of the craft.   (Something for JH here)

Pax.