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  • Sharing of information of rare planes

    I am doing an assignment at my university about planespotting and finding a solution to finding out when rare planes are coming to your local airport.

    When you have been a planespotter for a while, you get tired of taking pictures of the normal airline companies at your local airport. You want to find out when rare planes are coming to the airport, to avoid standing there for half a day with nothing showing up. This could be any type of plane that does not normally fly to your airport, no matter if it is civil, cargo, military etc.

    The problem as I see it, is that this information about rare planes coming to your airport is scattered all around different news sites, blogs, fora, facebook, governmental pages, twitter etc. You have to go through alot of information and be up to date all the time to know if there is anything interresting to spot.

    My solution to this problem would be to make a website/app with a calender. This solution would then include an index of all airports in the world where you can select your airport and see if there is anything interresting in the calender. The solution would work with "The network effect". Planespotters would enter information into the website/app if they have read or heard somewhere from someone about a rare plane coming by, on a specific day.

    I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, and I feel that planespotters do not share information. Or maybe I'm not a member of the right groups on social media. What I would like to know is, if this is a common problem? Is there a need for a solution to share information about rare planes and when they land. A solution that would be global, where people can plot in their information, so that all can have a look and plan their spotting activities. And first of all, would you be willing to share inforation at all, about a rare plane landing at your local airport, or keep it to yourself?

    Sorry for the long post. I hope I can get some feedback on the idea.

  • #2
    I suppose it differs per airport. In the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and to some extent Belgium there is pretty much a forum for each airport that shows expected arrivals for interesting stuff. In addition there is the scramble forum which tries to combine this all to some or more extent.

    But there are a few things to consider. For instance, my local airport of Eindhoven has the RNLAF transport wing. For local spotters these may not be that interesting. For spotters from other places they may well be the prime reason for going to EIndhoven in the first place. Another is for instance a notification when a KLM or Lufthansa charter arrives. For some this is interesting unscheduled traffic, others can't be bothered and decide to drive to AMS or DUS for an instant KL/LH overload. So what's interesting for some people, might be totally boring for others.

    Then of course there is information you may have, but that you are not allowed to share. Again taking Eindhoven as an example, some of the military charters are very interesting for spotters (An-12s, Il-76s). We are only interested in the plane, but other parties might be more interested in seeing what kind of equipment is going on mission. Thus some flight are not announced at all or at best hinted that "something might come". A lot of private jets are owned by / operated for parties that value their privacy. Being greeted by a platoon of plane spotters carrying semi-profesional camera equipment kind a defeats one of the main purposes of a private jet.
    Please visit my website! http://www.schipholspotter.com/

    Don't make me use uppercase...

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