I'm probably way behind the times on this one, but today I found out about the site
FlightAware.com.
The main jist of FlightAware is to provide you with details about all the planes in the sky right now and throughout the past. You can order by fleet (Delta, American, NetJets, FedEx, etc), by a specific plane, by airport, etc. This is really, really fun stuff.
It gets even more fun when you start combining it with Google and the public
FAA plane registry.
Here's an example: Google for
donald trump plane and the first result will give you the tail #
(VP-BDJ) of the Trump 727.
Now, go back to FlightAware and search for that, and you'll see the
flight history of Donald's plane. Looks like Donald likes to go between New York (home), Las Vegas (where he's building), Los Angeles (The Apprentice), Atlantic City (
Trump Taj Mahal), and Florida (more property). We can set up alerts and follow him around now! (BTW, I wonder what he was doing in Portland recently?)
Let's try another example: The
WSJ said that the Google's guys created a holding company for their new 767 named Blue City.
Searching the FAA records, we see the tail # for this plane is N2767. Now we'll check the
FlightAware page. This time we see:
BLUE CITY HOLDINGS LLC (OKLAHOMA CITY OK)
This flight is not available for tracking per request from the owner/operator
Apparently the Google guys don't want us sniffing around their travels. Hmm. Shady? Maybe...
Other fun examples:
DaimlerChrysler folks sure like to travel between Detroit and Stuttgart. Surprise -- who would've guessed that Eagle, CO (by Vail) would command
so many private flights?
Can you find anymore top execs planes? Or maybe just tell me who the clever person is who named the holding company for his/her plane
Acme Rocket Sleds, Inc and
likes to fly throughout the west coast?