Flight Display 7

[tarbat]

Just a heads up, the excellent Flight Display is once again available, for those using Planeplotter.  It now does route lookups on 5 sites:
Libhomeradar
FRL
FlightStats
Flytecom
FlightAware



Although even Dave Reid's FRL service can't resolve some of these alphanumeric flights :(

The way I use this is to run Planeplotter alongside Radarbox, and then once a week I export all the routes from FD7, and import those into the Radarbox routes table.  It's a great way of gathering route data.

Download from http://sites.google.com/site/0flightdisplay/homepage
Make sure you read the readme.txt file before attempting installation.

[AirNav Development]

Do the owners of those sites know they are getting flight information from them?
It is illegal to gather information from those sites to build a third party information database - that's why we are under a paid contract with flightstats.com to get flight number/callsign information from them.

[tarbat]

Do the owners of those sites know they are getting flight information from them?

I don't know.  I guess Dave Reid should know since FD7 gets data from his Flight Route Lookup service, so presumably he has agreed to give free access to his service for FD7 users.  Maybe he will do the same for Radarbox users?

So far today FD7 has gathered 130+ route details for me.

[AirNav Development]

It would be strange to know DaveReid would be giving free access to FD7 users/SBS community and don't do the same with us. Let's wait for his position.

[bratters]

So far today FD7 has gathered 130+ route details for me.

Thanks for that Tarbat mate - really brightened up my day  :(

[viking9]

Do the owners of those sites know they are getting flight information from them?
It is illegal to gather information from those sites to build a third party information database - that's why we are under a paid contract with flightstats.com to get flight number/callsign information from them.

Surely it's the fact that you are a commercial undertaking charging for the use of the database as part of the purchase price of your product that requires you to pay for the data from flightstats.com? FD7 is a free tool for users who can normally look up the information free for their own use to automate the process. As long as they do not then sell on that information they are breaking no law.

[bratters]

FD7 is a free tool for users who can normally look up the information free for their own use to automate the process. As long as they do not then sell on that information they are breaking no law.

Does that mean that a linkup between Airnav and FD - similar to that between FD and PP (& SBS apparently) - could provide us quite legally with the same free data that Tarbat is accessing via PP?

[tarbat]

Does that mean that a linkup between Airnav and FD - similar to that between FD and PP (& SBS apparently) - could provide us quite legally with the same free data that Tarbat is accessing via PP?

I would think so.   FD7 is free to use with SBS-1.  Maybe Airnav could do a deal with Allan Bird to further develop FD7 to work with Radarbox.  After all, aren't all SBS-1 addons meant to work with Radarbox ;-)

[bratters]

Well, it sounds like it could be a step in the right direction.

We would still face the question of getting the data into our individual databases -which could be a challenge for the somewhat PC-daft amongst us.

We do need to do something about routes and I also think we must try to avoid politics,  fingerpointing and back-biting which is totally counter-productive.

[tarbat]

Turns out that FD7 can be used directly with Radarbox, no need to use Planeplotter.

1. Create an almost empty SBS-1 Basestation database, and put it in any folder you like.  I've got mine in the Radarbox folder.  It contains ONE aircraft record, for Aircraft ID = zero.  This is needed since all port 30003 output from Radarbox assigns an Aircraft ID of zero.

2. Configure FD7 to use SBS-1.


3. Once a week export the routes from FD7 and import them into your routes table.

Simples........

EDIT:  Looks like Autopopulate doesn't work using this method :(

[AirNav Development]

This is an interesting discussion and we consider all the points.

"FD7 is a free tool for users who can normally look up the information free for their own use to automate the process. As long as they do not then sell on that information they are breaking no law."

This is false. The use of automatic programmed robots to gather data from other sites is totally illegal.

Let's first wait for DaveReid's answer to:
"It would be strange to know DaveReid would be giving free access to FD7 users/SBS community and don't do the same with us."

After that we will continue our discussion.

[DaveReid]

Let's first wait for DaveReid's answer to:
"It would be strange to know DaveReid would be giving free access to FD7 users/SBS community and don't do the same with us."

After that we will continue our discussion.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
- <Flight>
  <FlightNumber>SHT9J</FlightNumber>
  <Callsign>Shuttle 9J</Callsign>
- <Leg>
- <Origin>
  <ICAOCode>EGPH</ICAOCode>
  <IATACode>EDI</IATACode>
  <AirportName>EDINBURGH/TURNHOUSE</AirportName>
  <Country>UNITED KINGDOM</Country>
  </Origin>
- <Destination>
  <ICAOCode>EGLL</ICAOCode>
  <IATACode>LHR</IATACode>
  <AirportName>LONDON/HEATHROW</AirportName>
  <Country>UNITED KINGDOM</Country>
  </Destination>
  <GCDistanceNM>288</GCDistanceNM>
  </Leg>
  </Flight>

Source: www.flightroutelookup.com

This information is hereby placed in the public domain and may be freely used without attribution by any individual or ORGANISATION.

AirNav, if you'd like to tell me what part of that statement you don't understand, I'd be delighted to explain it to you.

Having said that, don't you dare try to pass the buck to me, or indeed to any other third party, for the abysmal quality of your flight routes database and the failure of your "fix". 

We are your customers, you aren't ours.

[AirNav Development]

Dave we are just asking the following:
1- Are you providing free flight data to the FD7 application? Y/N?
2- Are you able to provide such flight data to our community too?
3- If yes how can we access your flight data script (the same way FD7 does)?

Simple questions, simple answers expected.

[DaveReid]

Simple questions, simple answers expected.

Perhaps I could get an answer first to the question I asked you over a month ago, and on other occasions since ?

You know the one I mean, of course.

[AirNav Development]

Dave please don't try to be sarcastic one more time.

Quite simple: are you providing route information to the Flight Display application (SBS community) for free? Are you able to do the same with the RadarBox community?