Every plane you see in the sky – you can now follow it from the cockpit in 3D | Hacker News Reader

Every plane you see in the sky – you can now follow it from the cockpit in 3D

flight-viz.com

393 pointscoolwulf74 comments

I'm currently flying at Mach 10 on a custom call sign, breaking all kinds of barriers on a single heading. I cannot be stopped.

https://flight-viz.com/cockpit.html?lat=40.64&lon=-73.78&alt...

If you wait long enough, it looks like things go very wrong around the poles.

yes just saw that!

did this https://flight-viz.com/cockpit.html?lat=40.64&lon=-73.78&alt... flew over Mexico then got to Antartica and it started going backwards. was hoping to get to South America. Fun!

Better call Center for your ground speed [1].

[1] https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...

Oh dear.

I think you are a little over the 250kt speed limit under 10000

Space station tracking: https://flight-viz.com/cockpit.html?lat=40.64&lon=-73.78&alt...

Creator here. I posted Flight-Viz a few days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47603966) and the feedback was great. Since then I added a cockpit mode that follows any liveflight with real 3D terrain.

How to try it: go to flight-viz.com, click any plane, then click "Cockpit" in the action buttons. You'll get a first-person view wit h real buildings, terrain, atmosphere, and a HUD showing altitude/speed/heading — all driven by live ADS-B data.

Hao

This is so cool. But on iOS, clicking the plane flashes the mini modal/popup but the it immediately disappears. There no way, on touch, to keep it open long enough to click a cockpit view button, assuming there is one.

I was able to do it on my iPhone. 1) Click on a plane on the map. 2) Click on "menu" at the bottom. 3) Scroll down to the bottom of info window and click on "cockpit."

Whoa! That was it. I expected a more prominent button for cockpit. I actually just thought those were labels. Thanks big time.

Can you make it so "exit cockpit" navigates to a route rather than execute a back on the browser, as it takes me back to the hacker news page when I push it.

Also took me about 5 minutes to find the cockpit view button after I'd selected a flight but that might be a me problem :)

i came here to comment on the exit=back too

and i'd like metric measurement too

Thank you for the suggestion and I just modified that behavior.

Exit Cockpit disabled; No parachutes available

> Also took me about 5 minutes to find the cockpit view button after I'd selected a flight

Same here. Should be more prominent for a brand new feature!

Gorgeous! I can search flights at LAX but I don't see the smaller airports around it like SNA or LGB listed. Any chance those could be added?

Also, is there by chance a way to do historical flights?

I just added smaller airport. (for now I turned off airport overlay as default since it get a little clutterd but you can turn it on. or you can search the airport code in search bar)

Thank you!

Any chance of adding real-time sky and weather effects, using satellite imagery and weather data?

Doesn't seem to work for me. I just get star field displays no matter what I do.

same

Same.

It's really cool. I'm a little unsure if the website is overloaded or my browser is not rendering it properly. If I zoom in on an area and try to click on a plane in flight, sometimes I can select a plane, but sometimes I can't. Even for a plane that I was able to select a few seconds before, if I click away and try to click again, it won't select.

You need to click on the plane icon, not the label.

Before browsers were up to this, I implemented something related, using Google Earth Plugin.

You could load up the flight data recorder data (which contains more parameters than ADS-B), and watch 3rd-person view animation of a 3D model of that aircraft's movements as it flies over terrain. With instruments, plus visual annotations of flight path over terrain.

One kludge I was proud/relieved to find: At the start of the flight, there's a zoom in to the aircraft on the ground, from the Earth view, and then a particular dance of the camera around the aircraft itself. The purpose wasn't to try to look cool at the time, but to make sure that the plugin would render the aircraft model at all, before we started to change the position or orientation of the model. (The plugin was overly aggressive about deciding some annotations weren't in the scene. Once this camera dance ritual forced the plane into the scene, it stayed in the scene, even as it moved and twisted, and as the camera moved with it.)

I saw Balint Seeber demo this at Dorkbot in Sydney, which must have been in the early 2000s, definitely before he left Sydney in about 2010.

He was using live ADS-B data from an SDR, because this was way before global ADS-B websites and APIs existed.

(I wonder what he's up to these day, he was a fascinating person and presenter, and used to be a prolific blogger on interesting subjects. I also wonder what Pia van Gelder who used to run Dorkbot Sydney is up to?)

This is so impressive, love it!

A bit of feedback: Clicking exit cockpit goes back to the previous page (in this case this HN thread).

Not sure if just me, but I really had to search hard for the actions under menu and the cockpit button.

You lucky, on Firefox mobile it does nothing.I can only see the one random flight, in this case already on the ground

Double-clicking on an airplane should send you to the cockpit view imo.

The FlightRadar24 app has had this feature for quite some time. I like your implementation though - it’s very easy on the eye.

Thanks for letting me know. I actually didn't know about this feature in FlightRadar24 app.

Paid feature though

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Pretty cool. IDK if it's international connectivity issue or rendering, but I'm looking at this from Auckland and cities are just so slow to render - there's so much aliasing(?) artifacts.

Also we overshot runway, then went back albeit lower and then overshot again - I suspect there's connectivity issue (or HN hug). Also data really well delayed compared to adsbexchange.

Also - maybe add a button to take you to a Random Cockpit view (perhaps one with most live viewers (and add a chat there)).

Also cockpit noise would make me feel like I'm in xplane again lol. Also wonder if macOS PIP can be implemented for now video feeds.

I never realized the earth actually looked like a Mode 7 SNES game from up there!

I tried to watch a plane land but the elevation/speed were wrong so it seemed like the plane went over the runway and disappeared.

Will it be possible to have a “Record” feature, say for a few minutes? Would be lovely to save videos, especially the landings.

Really cool! Is this using a Google API? How is it not costing a small fortune?

I'd love if it could tell when a plane is ascending or descending and then add the last known rate of change to the simulation. Then you could watch a plane land.

This is super cool! The cockpit view is the best feature. But I had trouble finding it again after picking a different plane. Maybe a dedicated button for that on the map?

Love it.

cockpit button is on the left side panel under flight details

This is great, smart application of graphics and public data.

Is it possible to pan?

Commands are not that handy but from someone that has the flying in his heart since he was child I must admit that it's cool to have the cockpit view

If you go hang out at your local small airport on a weekend, I guarantee someone will give you a ride. In the US, at least.

You can get "introductory" flights for pretty cheap, where they let you fly a bit.

I bought one for my father years ago as a gift, and was able to ride along. A great day.

Would be nice to pair this with something like FlightRadar where you can see relevant flights in proximity to you and select them.

I'm just seeing stars, tried a few different devices and a couple of different browsers.

It should be fixed now.

Interesting, I wonder if it would be possible to visualize the most dramatic parts of every flight -- takeoffs and landings.

This is cool. Now I can look out the cockpit of that plane that's been doing a pattern over my house for an hour.

this is interesting and how much of the rendering/logic is running in WASM vs JS?

Would be nice to look around in the cockpit view. And have city names etc.

I wish it had all the small aircraft not just commercial flights

Pretty sure it does https://flight-viz.com/cockpit.html?lat=34.026608&lon=-118.3...

It has the university trainer airplanes near me.

Perhaps this should be submitted under "Show".

Creator posted it as Show HN last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47603966

Current post is by someone else

Current post is from the creator (not that I particularly care one way or the other):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47694065

Badass! Really amazing!

it doesn't seem to show most flights or airports in africa

Limited ADS-B receiver coverage in their data network, presumably.

Is anyone actually seeing a cockpit? All I'm seeing is a moving viewpoint (no plane, no cockpit...)

I mean, it's cool, it's just not quite what I expected from "cockpit mode".

I think it is broken now, as per the console:

    Object { statusCode: 401, response: '{"code":"INVALID_TOKEN","message":"Invalid access token"}', responseHeaders: {…} }

It should be fixed now.

Very nice. It would be sweet to get some anti-aliasing.

Now you can use mouse to change the camera during the cockpit view

* except from the plane itself because wifi is broken or too expensive.

Love this. How do you modify the flight number?

If you click on a city's name, you can see a list of all flights arriving and departing. Some of the arriving ones will be in flight, and you can click on the flight number to view it, then "Cockpit" view to see (roughly) what the pilots are seeing.

Won't Elon sue?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com