Tweet
There was a time when some aircraft flying within the coverage area of FAA (North America, North Pacific and Atlantic) showed up twice on FR24 - as orange for the FAA and yellow for ADS-B if the plane was so equipped. The orange plane was always behind the yellow because of the 5 minute delay in FAA data. An update to FR24 some time ago largely corrected this and now only the yellow ADS-B plane appears where both are available.
But not always. Air Canada ACA33 flies daily from Toronto to Sydney via Vancouver. Today planes of both colours appeared, yellow ahead of orange as in the old days but with one difference. They were two different aircraft! The orange plane, C-FIUJ, was actually on the ground, engines off, in Sydney at the time I took the screen shots of it supposedly near Winnipeg. What does it mean? Not a hell of a lot really other than you shouldn't believe everything you see on a computer screen!
But not always. Air Canada ACA33 flies daily from Toronto to Sydney via Vancouver. Today planes of both colours appeared, yellow ahead of orange as in the old days but with one difference. They were two different aircraft! The orange plane, C-FIUJ, was actually on the ground, engines off, in Sydney at the time I took the screen shots of it supposedly near Winnipeg. What does it mean? Not a hell of a lot really other than you shouldn't believe everything you see on a computer screen!