Data is a valuable commodity. It can be used to create artificial intelligence solutions, to analyze trends, or predict if your flight will depart on time. In the world of aviation, flight data describes the movement of an aircraft from departure to arrival.
Where does Flight Data Come from?
It comes from several sources. Public data, Private data and semi-private data.
Public data is from the civilian aviation authorities like the Federal Aviation Administrator (FAA) or Eurocontrol. It is collected from ground-based radar, air traffic controllers and data filed with the authorities.
Private data is from the airlines or the operators of the aircraft. It is collected from onboard sensors on the aircraft, messages sent from the aircraft to the ground, airline schedules and flight planning software.
Semi-private data is the newest form. It is collected from private companies which can read the sensors on aircraft and collect it from it from public sources. The companies redistribute the data to subscribers or app users. Flight Aware and Flight Radar 24 both have apps where you can see this data on your phone.
What is the Flight Data?
Flight data describes the movement of an aircraft from the departure gate to the arrival gate. The types of data used to describe the movement are:
Flight Schedule – Airlines set the Flight schedule months in advance of when the flight will operate. This allows passengers to buy tickets and thus define the revenue stream for th airline. The flight schedule defines the departure and arrival airport, the date of the flight, and the time the flight will depart and arrive.
Flight Plan – Created by a flight planning system a day or a few hours before the flight. It creates the plan the flight will flight. It uses weather and airspace traffic to determine the most efficient route to take. It includes the amount of fuel needed to complete the flight based on the weight of the cargo and passengers. The flight plan is filed with the civilian airspace authrories so the flight can be tracked in the airspace.
Flight Movement – This defines the change of the flight’s state. The states tracked are Out of gate, Off the ground, On the ground and In the gate. It is also referred to as OOOI states for Out, Off, On and In. Between Off and On the flight is considered “enroute”.
Position Report – This defines where an aircraft is located while it is enroute. At a minimum it includes the identification of the aircraft and the aircraft’s location defined in Latitude and Longitude. It can also include the aircrafts altitude (height off the ground), speed, fuel readings, temperature outside the aircraft and wind speed.
Flight data is most useful when it is correlated. All the data from a single flight is correlated together to describe the flight from schedule, to plan, to departure to arrival. It is a challenge to match the data as different sources and data types will describe the flight differently. Some sources use tail number, others use the call sign, departure airport and departure date.
Next time you step on to an airplane to fly away for your vacation, think about all the data which goes into scheduling, planning and tracking your trip.