Okay everyone, here's "the scoop":
The founder is named Daniel Baker, and he's a pretty young guy. I'd say mid to late twenties, if I had to guess. They currently have about 12 employees, and they have their main headquarters here in Houston, with an office in NYC for ad sales. They have about 250,000 registered users, and they get about 6 million requests for flight tracks per day. Every flight that they get from their FAA data feed gets archived, and they have about 60 million flights archived.
Back in 2004, Daniel was looking for a free flight tracker on the internet, and couldn't find one. He saw that the technology existed from seeing the pay service that some FBO's had, but there wasn't anything free. So he, being a web developer and having some web developer friends, set out to develop a tracking site for himself. He called up the FAA to see if they would give him the data feed for free, and they wouldn't. But they did give him a list of subscribers, so he started calling down the list until he found a company that would give him access to their feed for free. He and his friends started out and made a basic site that they put up in March of 2005.
They tried to keep it a secret at first, through the first couple of revisions, but then of course, being on the internet, the secret eventually got out and it became an overnight success. There was a story on CNN and several local stations and they suddenly saw a couple hundred thousand hits. Seeing this, they decided that they better ramp up their power and bandwidth, so they sunk some of their own money into it and got set up with Google Ads for some kind of revenue stream (however small). They then got approached by Boeing, who needed an independent third party to verify the radar tracks they were getting with their new AWACS. Then calls started pouring in with offers to pay them for doing a whole slew of custom queries and reports on their data.
All this time they were doing this on the side, after they finished a full day of work at their regular jobs, and they were up at the data center until 3am some nights before getting up the next morning to go back to their paying jobs. They finally came to the realization that this could be their actual job, so then they formed it into a real company. So now, in addition to the free flight tracking service, they offer some other free services:
-Weather information (they are currently a legal pre-flight briefing site for Part 91 ops - they expect the FAA to certify them for Part 121 and Part 135 ops in the next couple of weeks)
-Airport information (including FBO info and fuel prices)
Also, their pay services include entire fleet tracking solutions for FBO's, charter operations, and other air carriers, data mining and reporting, and consulting. He told us a story of how a large nationwide charter operation contracted with them to review all of the flights for the past couple of years and provided them with the purpose for each flight. They found that there were several repositioning flights that didn't need to have taken place, as there was already another available aircraft at a closer airport, and that there were several flights that the charter company didn't even know about. So it helped this company improve their dispatch service and save a boat-load of money in the process.
So, here are the answers to your (and my) questions:
Right now, I plan on asking them why VFR flights on Flight Following do not appear on the tracker and why many flights seem to have been "dropped" while en-route recently.
He said that they are limited by the info that they get from the FAA. A lot of the TRACON radar systems do not feed info into the national system unless it's an IFR flight that's going to be transitioning to Center. It has to do with the transponder codes too. Also, when an IFR flight plan is filed, the FAA will send over all of the info about that flight, including routing, equipment type, altitude, airspeed, etc. VFR Flight following does not do this. Basically, he said that he puts everything he gets from the FAA on the site, so if the FAA data is spotty and inconsistent WRT VFR flights, that's what will be on the site.
it seems that they only get a feed from Center radar. when im flying in Des Moines radar area it doesnt show up on flight aware. Ive always wondered whats up with that
That's pretty much correct - if you're on a local radar, that doesn't feed into the national system unless you're going to be moved into Center. His feed comes from the national system. He said that part of the problem is that it was never designed to facilitate a nationwide view like this... it was designed to keep plane A from running into plane B or terrain in the next 4 seconds.
Stealth...
Yeah I was wondering that too, and I echo the VFR question. fboweb.com seemed to track VFR flight following flights, last I used it in 2006; it's been awhile. But I didn't use it much for that purpose so I don't know if it just happened that my VFR flight was on there or everyone's VFR flights (w/ flight following).
Couple weeks ago when I took the Seminole to MSN, I was on VFR FF from start to finish... got my transponder code while taxiing. That flight showed up on Flight Aware but with no green line drawn. It did have the times though. Why no radar track then? And why my VFR flight and not so many others?
Once again, it's the data from the FAA... they may have sent basic info about your flight over, but being a VFR, the FAA never updated your radar position.
Ask them why their flight tracks often stop before destination even when IFR is not cancelled.
Sometimes when you're switched to a local radar controller near your destination, that radar position is not updated to the national system, thus it isn't updated on FA.
Ask them when they plan to start charging us for this service.
Never. His whole model is based on providing it and all of the other free information for free.
I may be remembering wrong but it seems like I used to be able to track a flight live (i.e. the screen showed flight progress without me doing anything). Now, I get a static snap shot and have to keep refreshing. Has a setting changed on me or am I remembering it wrong?
He said that right now they're on a 5 minute delay from the feed, and the screen refreshes every 30 seconds or one minute when you're looking at it. He said that they have the option to do a live feed from the FAA, but there is too much liability and other safeguards that they'd have to do on their end with that, so they take the 5 monute delay. He said that his customers, even the ones that pay him, are fine with that.
Yup, but sometimes those codes assigned from the Center host computer still don't show up on FlightAware for VFR FF aircraft. For example, I wanted to shoot a few practice approaches at a nearby airport on Sunday, so I called clearance for a squawk and departure frequency. The controller gave me a 4210 beacon code which is not within the N90 LGA area VFR code bank (0201-0277) which went through the ZNY host computer; however, it didn't show up on FA.
It could very well have to do with the flight plan structure, and since VFR flight plans are completely independent of ATC, most VFR FF does not show up. IFR, on the other hand, have a definite flight plan that goes through the center host computer. In any event, I'm looking forward to hearing the answer from the FA folks.
Right, it's the VFR FP structure, and the lack of updates from the FAA of VFR radar positions.
What is their revenue model? Are they solely using ad-based revenue, or do they have some pay-for-service features? (aka, "how long will it continue to be free", as someone else asked).
About 50% of their revenue comes from ads. They've moved away from the Google Ads (since they give you the money 30 days after the ad hits your page) and now sell advertising to aviation-related companies. In addition to that, they sell a lot of usage reports to airports, aviation companies, and even the FAA. They sell advanced tracking solutions and consulting services to corporate flight departments, charter companies, and other air carriers. They will be selling the Part 121 weather info soon, and they also still get contracted to do special projects for various companies. Basically, what is free now will stay free.
Now, before I go to bed, here's the cool tip of the day. They have a section on there (under Resources) where you can enter a departure and destination airport, and it will come back with a list of aircraft that have flown between those airports that day, along with their ASSIGNED (not filed) route. So, you can go on there and find out what routes people are being assigned (by altitude) so you now what to file. I'll even do you one better... you can set up an Alert on your Tail # for when a flight plan is filed. You then go on to DUATS and file Direct, then when the FP hits the system, you'll be sent a text message with your assigned route so that you already have your clearance. You can just verify it when the Clearance Delivery controller reads it to you.
If you all have any follow-up questions, I'll be glad to answer them tomorrow. For now, good night everyone!
Oh, BTW, I was able to meet Brandon tonight (bqmassey). He might be able to fill in some gaps I may have left out. No pics, because we just saw their lobby and conference room, which just showed a screen of flights being tracked... nothing you can't see on the web site.
)
