As reported last year, a number of major airports in the US have installed a flight tracking system where almost-live aircraft tracks are shown graphically on their website. SCAA has continued to contact aiport officials and the leading supplier of these systems trying to encourage an installation for the Puget Sound region.

SCAA has received word there is reluctance among Sea-Tac staff to install such a system as it might re-open noise issues with the public. SCAA Director Mike Rees said "It would seem such a system would reduce the work load on the Sea-Tac Noise Abatement office, not increase it. We don't understand what the objections are."

The tracks are shown on a map of the vicinity of the airport, and are 10 minutes behind actual time. The system, sees essentially the same information that is available to the FAA air-traffic controllers. By clicking on the symbol representing the aircraft, data as to the type of aircraft, its altitude, its speed, the airline designation, etc. can be displayed. In addition, the information is stored so that playback of a flight track situation up to several months earlier can be reviewed. The live flight data is updated every 5 - 10 seconds and is delayed by 10 minutes for security purposes.

Here are some of the airports that currently have flight track displays available on the Internet (with their web address);

Los Angeles International (http://www4.passur.com/lax.html)
San Francisco (http://live.airportnetwork.com/sfo/)
New York, LaGuardia (http://www1.passur.com/lga.new.html)
Las Vegas (http://www1.passur.com/las.html)
San Jose (http://www1.passur.com/sjc.html)
Louisville (http://www1.passur.com/sdf.html)
Van Nuys (http://www1.passur.com/vny.html)

With such a system operational in the Puget Sound region, residents could quickly identify a "noisy" plane, where it was heading and whether it was within the standard noise abatement corridors. It should reduce the number of inquiries made to airport noise officers.

SCAA originally started pushing for such a system with a letter to Gina-Marie Lindsey, Sea-Tac Airport Manager, inquiring why Sea-Tac doesn't have this system available on their website, for communities impacted by aviation that operate at Sea-Tac.