Complaint to Flightradar24

[Mike]

Do think about the vouchers (could be like a giftcard / scratchcard) - there would usually be a channel like amazon, etc. that could be used to sell them that the businesses already have set as a purchase method.

Thanks! We will investigate this!

[mezzoman]

I'm confused as to what FR24 was set up for initially and what the plan is now.

I'd assumed, perhaps naively, it was a group of aviation enthusiasts providing a site for other enthusiasts to use, and to contribute to. There are plenty of enthusiast sites on the web that do this for the benefit of any hobby, not necessarily to do with aviation. Some are self-funded(altruistic), some have donations, some use advertising to get revenue.

It now seems that because corporate industry is using the site it has to change to meet their needs. Why is that?

Could someone please explain the ethos of the site and it's aims and goals.

Thanks,

Rob

[JackL]

Can't do that, this is where dongle feeders come to get their info to become premium members.

That is not true in my case. I registered for this forum after I had become a dongle feeder specifically to reply to this thread.
Perhaps feeders should have an additional private section on the forum...?

[Mike]

FR24 was created in Sweden back in 2006 as a hobby project by some enthusiasts without any employees by using outdated servers and capacity from our Swedish company running the www.flygresor.se web service. The big breakthrough was the Icelandic ash cloud back in 2010 when FR24 received millions of visitors in just one day and for the first time ever we bought a new and dedicated web server to handle all the traffic. During the first 4-5 years until the release of the first app in 2010, FR24 was 100% sponsored by the Swedish company. In January 2012 first dedicated resource was employed by FR24 and in the summer 2012 the separate Flightradar24 company was created with the goal of reaching global coverage in about 3 years time. One of the first steps to reaching the goal was taking part in the development of the MLAT FR24 receiver and we have secured orders on enough of receivers to be able to reach our global coverage goal. Since then FR24 has grown very fast. Number of feeds has increased from about 500 feeds in 2012 to 3200 today. Since the separate FR24 company was founded we have grown from 3 employees and 4 servers to 11 employees and 8 servers today.

[peterhr]

...could stop the 'flash refresh' by having a requiring human to enter simple [but varying] text info on initial display of the page (if not premium).

[9aplus]

Dear Mike & team

FR24 team have my full support like feeder (F-LSDP1) and professional within aviation / rotorcraft.
My opinion is that FR24 MLAT technology can also bring more safety to FAR/CS 27 rotorcraft
size (up to 5000 lbs/ 3175 kg) which have no FDR, some modern recent models may have some HUMS
but that is often not enough and ELT is to often of no-use... in case of any incident or post-investigation.

Within our recent helipad network development project we included some budget for FR 24 integration
and all locations are to be future FR24 feeder sites. We need to track low flying MLAT targets between
islands and therefore high density receiver network is necessary.

Therefore please continue with good work, no one decent, expects "free lunch" from this level of service...

[mezzoman]

FR24 was created in Sweden back in 2006 as a hobby project by some enthusiasts without any employees by using outdated servers and capacity from our Swedish company running the www.flygresor.se web service. The big breakthrough was the Icelandic ash cloud back in 2010 when FR24 received millions of visitors in just one day and for the first time ever we bought a new and dedicated web server to handle all the traffic. During the first 4-5 years until the release of the first app in 2010, FR24 was 100% sponsored by the Swedish company. In January 2012 first dedicated resource was employed by FR24 and in the summer 2012 the separate Flightradar24 company was created with the goal of reaching global coverage in about 3 years time. One of the first steps to reaching the goal was taking part in the development of the MLAT FR24 receiver and we have secured orders on enough of receivers to be able to reach our global coverage goal. Since then FR24 has grown very fast. Number of feeds has increased from about 500 feeds in 2012 to 3200 today. Since the separate FR24 company was founded we have grown from 3 employees and 4 servers to 11 employees and 8 servers today.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the info' on the history and goals. Having reached global coverage, what will that represent in aviation terms, what's the object of that?

Rob

[lennfeyenoord]

Now it's my favourite! what a very nice site and the app is also amazing!

Well done Sweden!

Lenn

[JackL]

FR24 was created in Sweden back in 2006 as a hobby project by some enthusiasts without any employees by using outdated servers and capacity from our Swedish company running the www.flygresor.se web service. The big breakthrough was the Icelandic ash cloud back in 2010 when FR24 received millions of visitors in just one day and for the first time ever we bought a new and dedicated web server to handle all the traffic. During the first 4-5 years until the release of the first app in 2010, FR24 was 100% sponsored by the Swedish company. In January 2012 first dedicated resource was employed by FR24 and in the summer 2012 the separate Flightradar24 company was created with the goal of reaching global coverage in about 3 years time. One of the first steps to reaching the goal was taking part in the development of the MLAT FR24 receiver and we have secured orders on enough of receivers to be able to reach our global coverage goal. Since then FR24 has grown very fast. Number of feeds has increased from about 500 feeds in 2012 to 3200 today. Since the separate FR24 company was founded we have grown from 3 employees and 4 servers to 11 employees and 8 servers today.

I want to thank you guys for creating such a great site. I am amazed at how super stable and lightweight the feeding software is. It really is unbelievable how well you guys have this working and the server lag on real time tracking is negligible at best. Bravo. Now I patiently wait for my yagi and other bits of equipment to arrive so I can face an antenna straight down the runways at FLL!

[Birdie]

And corporate users says "why should we pay for something that you offer for free?" and I can competently understand their point.

Unfortunately, it took an air disaster to push the already popular Flightradar24 into higher altitude ( puns intended ).

Nothing is free in this world - not even air.

The free service should have only limited information - want more info - pay for it.

If an Airline offers me a Free Ticket but I want 1st Class in-flight services such as wider seat, better food, etc - I have t pay for the upgrade.

[peterhr]

I want to thank you guys for creating such a great site. I am amazed at how super stable and lightweight the feeding software is. It really is unbelievable how well you guys have this working and the server lag on real time tracking is negligible at best. Bravo. Now I patiently wait for my yagi and other bits of equipment to arrive so I can face an antenna straight down the runways at FLL!

I'm curious why the yagi is required when you can get 200-400km (to the horizon) from an omni? (sorry, off topic)

[JackL]

I'm curious why the yagi is required when you can get 200-400km (to the horizon) from an omni? (sorry, off topic)

While I have a lovely sight for HF, the extremely tall and numerous trees on my property make LOS microwave communications difficult. I'm not sure if I have the height on my tower for an omni to give adequate ground performance at FLL so I'm hedging my bets. In any case, no way just one omni or receiver is going to satisfy my thirst for contacts! lol.