Reading Peter’s thread on Greece, I am interested in how the Rocketroute (Eurocontrol) tracking compares with ADS-B based tracking. Most tracking based on Eurocontrol seems pretty poor compared with even MLAT in flightradar24.
Flying to Augsburg tomorrow (dep 0545z) then back in the afternoon (1300z dep)
RR link – out
Link
RR – back
Link
ADS-B – both ways
Link
Here is a comparison of both systems with screenshots taken at nearly the same moment.
RR:
ADS-B
There is quite a difference. Now we have to ask Jason if he actually went over Brussels airport or north of it…
To me it looks like RR does not use CPRs (consolidated position reports) but instead the tactical flight plan as updated by Eurocontrol every few minutes. That is usually not the actual track flown but where the system expects you at a certain time for flow control / capacity management purposes. EuroFPL and autorouter use CPRs (= radar blips).
If I connect my TT31 to my 430 (for which there is now an STC) I could generate ADS-B Out…..I don’t need to, but would I be able to retrieve logs of my flights from FR24 or Eurocontrol?
Flight radar wins. RR completely wrong.
At the point in the picture we were ADKUV dct DENUT.
If I connect my TT31 to my 430 (for which there is now an STC) I could generate ADS-B Out…..I don’t need to, but would I be able to retrieve logs of my flights from FR24 or Eurocontrol?
FR24 can triangulate you even without ADS-B with impressive accuracy. The Eurocontrol logging uses radar blips, frequency depends on where you are, between once ever minute and once every 10 minutes. FR24 does not allow you to retrieve flights done by GA aircraft after the fact. If it’s for your own flights, why not log with a GPS on board?
If you radiate ADS-B, I would be thankful because should we ever get close under VFR, I would get an accurate position report of your aircraft on my PowerFLARM.
Flight radar wins. RR completely wrong.
OK, then I am now 100% sure that RR use the current tactical flight plan (CTFM). This one does not serve the purpose of locating you (although the field names are intriguing, I first looked into using that as well for our tracking), its only purpose is to manage the sector capacity and traffic flow. Providing tracking with that is rather nonsensical (and so is sending “arrived” emails and SMS when you can only guess/estimate but not know). So… if you want proper tracking, use EuroFPL or autorouter 
Bought one of these the other day for 30 euros. Range with the indoor antenna is pretty good.
It feeds FR24, but the guys have built a nice s/w to see the targets without FR. I suppose that if many of these are installed then FR MLAT will be more common. Mode-S/C are also shown as text (callsign/altitude).
Data from ADS-B out targets include nice things, such as MCP altitude, TAS/IAS, bank angle etc.
You can connect some receivers together and make a small “FR”-style network. MLAT is supported via PlanePlotter
