Live flight tracking

[Thorin]

I have to pick up my mother from the airport tonight, and I'd thought I'd see if I could find something that gives real up-to-date info on the flight.  Google led me to FlightAware.com.

What I really like about FlightAware is that it can show you all (or most, anyway) of the planes in the air over North America, and then gives their status in the same manner an air traffic controller sees it:

[Airline Code][Flight Number] [Airplane Type Code]
[Altitude in Hundreds of Feet] [Airspeed in Knots]
[Origin Airport Code] [Destination Airport Code]

for instance:

UAL1609 B739
360 411
KMIA KIAH

where
UAL is United Airlines
1609 is the flight number
B739 is a B737-800Q
360 is 36,000 feet
411 is the airspeed in knots
KMIA is Miami International Airport
KIAH is George Bush International Airport in Houston

And the map updates every second or so, so you can see the airplane actually moving (and if it's not on the planned route, the airplane path is marked separately from the planned route).

[Darren Dirt]

http://flightaware.com/live/airport/CYEG