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FlightAware doesn't track my N#

Ed_Wischmeyer

Well Known Member
I'm wondering if some previous owner blocked the N#, or the blockage comes from a previous plane with the same N#, or what.

I'm clue free on this one. Anybody got any ideas on what happened, or how to undo it?

Ed
 
Could be. Are you looking when you have been entered into the system? IFR? You will show up if you are ADSB-Out equipped.
 
I am ADS-B In/Out equipped and have never shown up on Flightware.
I've had No IFR or flight following in the 3 years I've had N20DL.

Last reported flight was from the previous registration owner back in 2006.
 
vfr flight tracking

There was a thread on this a while back. An ATC guy (R.I.P.) said that you have to be put in the system. So here in Los Angeles that means either IFR or flight following out of area. If you stay within the LA area, I learned that you have to request to be put in the system. I think this means no tower to tower flight following. Before take off, I have asked the tower controller for the flight following freq after I was out of his class d airspace, and I also requested he "put me in the system". He said no problem, and I got flight following as soon as I left the tower controller. Later, my flight showed up on flight aware. Another time I was coming back from santa ynez to hawthorne and got caught in the smoke from a brush fire, got cleared thru class bravo at my discretion (no joke). This flight showed up on flight aware, but started at Point Mugu; I guess I wasn't "in the system" until I found the smoke.
 
I asked FlightAware

Me>
My flights no longer show up. The last flight that shows up was in Oct.
I recently installed ADS-B out and my flights do show up in the past
history on FlightRadar24
Would like to also see them in Flightaware.
N857BH
Just got back from Sun-n-Fun!

FlightAware>
Thank you for writing in regarding your flight not being tracked. After looking into the issue, we have determined that there was an undocumented change made by the FAA in January that may have prevented some VFR data from being received by FlightAware. FlightAware has not made any changes in the way we handle VFR flights, however, since the FAA update, there has been an increase in VFR flights not displaying. We are currently looking at ways to make more VFR data available. It has long been the policy of the FAA that VFR flights are not distributed to the public, however, there have been times where this data has been shown. Thank you for your patience while we look at alternatives for providing the data.

Me>
I understand. I have added ADS-B out and now my flights do show
up on FlightRadar24. Any plans to get ADS-B flight to show up in Flight
Aware? Thanks!

FlighAware>
Thanks for your reply, yes this is something that our developers are working on.
We hope they'll be able to roll something out to the website in the coming months.
They haven't promised an exact delivery date, as there are a few ongoing projects, but it's on the list.
 
Check planefinder.net I have had much better luck with seeing my ADSB tracks on there than on flight aware.

Steve
RV-4
Bearhawk 4PL
 
Thanks, Bobby.

On this most recent flight, I had flight following on the entire trip plus UAT ADS-B out. And on previous flights in other airplanes, I always showed up using flight following.

Ed
 
I can provide some extra context on this, since this happens to concern my employer. :)

At a super-duper-high level, FlightAware has historically only tracked flights for which we had a flight plan of some kind. The reason for this is that without the "context" provided by a flight plan, it becomes a lot more difficult to string together arbitrary position reports in a meaningful way.

Example: N12345 files IFR from KLVJ to KNEW, departing 1700Z. When the flight plan is filed, we get that data and store it. 1700Z rolls around, and at 1702Z we get a position for N123, just off KLVJ and climbing. Since we have the flight plan, we can be reasonably assured that this position will be followed by more positions, and that all these positions can be combined into a "flight." Furthermore, if at some point mod-flight we don't get positions for a few minutes, we can assume that those positions will resume in short order, and when they do, we keep assigning them to that flight.

VFR flight following essentially worked the same way for us. You didn't file IFR, but when you got flight following ATC might put your flight data into the national airspace system, which meant that we received it just as if you'd filed IFR, and it was basically identical to the above scenario. This is where the local vs. "national" (I dunno the technical term) squawk code issue came in. In the former case, you didn't end up in the NAS, in the latter, you did.

Without the context of a flight plan, it becomes a lot tougher to make sense of position data when it comes in. It's one of those tasks that seems relatively easy for a human, but is challenging to express programmatically.

The change that the FAA made earlier this year was to essentially stop providing flight plan data at all for VFR flights, even if they were entered into the NAS. So where we used to semi-reliably get flight pan data when you got flight following, now we get diddly squat. The result, from your perspective, is that VFR flights no longer appear. Unfortunately, it's out of our hands.

There is, however, a solution on the horizon. We've put a substantial amount of work into solving the problem of tracking what we call "position-only" flights - that is, flights without a flight plan. This feature is somewhat functional, but still not 100% reliable, not to the point that it's ready for the public. When it works, it looks nice, but when it doesn't the results can be pretty comically misleading.

When position-only tracking is released to the public, you'll be able to track your flights even more reliably than before. Unfortunately, though, there's no real timeline for when that will happen.
 
Wow, I thought most of us do not want to be tracked! Will we be able to opt out of this nonsense (realizing that in this day and age opting into something is probably out of the question)?

For IFR flights there should also be a "no tracking" option for anyone, not just the rich and famous.

It costs absolutely nothing to ask the FAA not to share data on your aircraft if you wish: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_or...s/ato/service_units/systemops/data_mgmt/barr/

While FlightAware gets data from sources other than the FAA (for example, ADS-B), if you're on the FAA block list, we will respect your wishes and not share your information, regardless of the source.
 
Partial quote from your link:

"..........and whether the requestor desires ASDI blocking at the (a) the FAA data source or at the (b) ASDI subscriber level."

What is the difference between the two methods of blocking?

Thanks......
 
I'm not ADS-B capable. I'm not IFR certified, but I've been tracked on Flight Aware. It usually happens when I BOTH file a flight plan AND pick up flight following.

Personally, I don't mind being tracked. It's one reason I put APRS in the plane.

That way people can see where I'm making chemtrails and put on the appropriate tin hat.
 
Wow, I thought most of us do not want to be tracked! Will we be able to opt out of this nonsense (realizing that in this day and age opting into something is probably out of the question)?

For IFR flights there should also be a "no tracking" option for anyone, not just the rich and famous.
Yea, with you on this one. It's creepy enough having the airplane photo brigades taking your pic and posting your trips and personal info on the web.
 
Partial quote from your link:

"..........and whether the requestor desires ASDI blocking at the (a) the FAA data source or at the (b) ASDI subscriber level."

What is the difference between the two methods of blocking?

Thanks......

To my knowledge, option A means that the FAA does not share any position data about the blocked aircraft in its data feed products. That is, we at FA would never know you were in the air. Option B, on the other hand, means that the FAA shares the position data, but separately gives us the monthly list of blocked tails, and it's our job internally to prevent that data from being shown to the public.

So A is kind of the nuclear option. Option B underpins some of our B2B services like selective unblocking - that is, you block your aircraft from the public, but tell us that we can show the tracking to a small subset of users (ie employees). For this reason, we take blocking pretty seriously, because it's a big trust issue with our clients.
 
I am ADS-B In/Out equipped and have never shown up on Flightware.
I've had No IFR or flight following in the 3 years I've had N20DL.

Last reported flight was from the previous registration owner back in 2006.

Flew to treasure cay abacos this past weekend on a dvfr flight plan.
Still no entry into flightaware.
 
tower to tower

It looks like you went from Bahamas to Florida. I cant understand why you weren't in the system, unless your N number is on the do not report list.
Maybe some ATC experts can chime in here.
 
To my knowledge, option A means that the FAA does not share any position data about the blocked aircraft in its data feed products. That is, we at FA would never know you were in the air. Option B, on the other hand, means that the FAA shares the position data, but separately gives us the monthly list of blocked tails, and it's our job internally to prevent that data from being shown to the public.

So A is kind of the nuclear option. Option B underpins some of our B2B services like selective unblocking - that is, you block your aircraft from the public, but tell us that we can show the tracking to a small subset of users (ie employees). For this reason, we take blocking pretty seriously, because it's a big trust issue with our clients.

What's amusing to me is that the ADS-B format mandated by the FAA broadcasts unencrypted clear text--anyone with a few bucks for a receiver, antenna, and computer can pick up anything nearby. Now everyone (including the FAA) questions the security of the system and the ease of spoofing it.

What I want to know is:

- Why are aircraft registrations and pilot certificate info public knowledge, but motor vehicle and driver's license info is not?

- Why is aircraft tracking data considered public knowledge, but anyone proposing ground vehicle tracking (let alone making all of it public) is rightly viewed with what can be massively understated as "suspicion"?

If I were king, ADS-B would be phased in to a secure encrypted system, with anonymity to the FAA for all VFR flights (I think the latter is included for UAT but not 1090 right now). The pilot and aircraft databases would immediately become need-to-know info only and the FAA feed of traffic info would cut off immediately (sorry FA folks).

Oh, and TFRs and third-class medicals would go away.
 
Yes, I don't mind not being "in the system".
Right now, my ADS-B is non-stealth. But, my nature is to be "stealth".
It was a fun experiment, I will be back into ADS-B stealth soon.
:D
 
I was reading this thread because I was wondering why I showed on flight aware after a cross country flight from Pueblo last year but not the last several flights. The last flight to and from Gulf Shores was VFR flight follow all the way and no Flight plan. I had reserved A rental car and the FBO brings the car out to your plane when they see you coming on flight aware! They didnt see me on it and so I was marshalled to a temp parking spot (one without tie down rings) and the car was quite a walk and hassel to get to. Needless to say I was upset! However, Now i know to either call ahead on the radio to let them know im coming in. Cant assume the flight will be shown on whatever system they are using.
 
FlightAware can now track VFR again

I got an email from FlightAware a few weeks ago. You can now track your VFR flights again, but you have to make a change in your account.

Go to your account, scroll down to item #6 and change it to show position only flight, then save the settings. I'm not positive that all your VFR flight will show but I have ADS-B out now and my flights were not showing up until I made the change above and now they are there even past flights that were not there before.

Let us know if VFR flights show without ADS-B out.
 
Last edited:
Yup - Just saw my flights from the last week. They're all private, though, so I'll have to tell my friends about the secret decoder ring so that they can track me.

The RV-9A has UAT ADS-B out, but it was inop on those flights. I did have flight following on all those flights, though.

Thanks!

Ed
 
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