It's been brought up a few times before, so I figured I'd put a definitive answer here for folks to reference in the future. You can track the Tech aircraft, if you find the correct sources: live ADS-B data, instead of the FAA-provided ATC feeds.
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N51VT
Cessna Citation Excel C560XL
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a66103
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N80FW
Cessna Citation Sovereign C680
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=aae016
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If the plane doesn't show up on the map, it's not currently transmitting. On the left panel you can open the History section and look at previous days (the top-most "previous" button).
For fun, I also looked up N9299E–the powered parachute–but it either doesn't have ADS-B or isn't being used... unsurprisingly.
[mod edit: updated title after going really OT, closing for now]
Comments
You know, sharing this information has to be a HIPPA violation. /s
Calling it HIPPA has to be a HIPAA violation!! /s
Looks like somebody's about to be violated by a hippo
First rule about HIPPA - don't talk about HIPPA.
So to make sure I'm clicking it right the N51VT left Richmond and is flying towards Blacksburg?
I hope not, that's not too terrible of a drive
Today's route was Blacksburg > Dulles (on the ground for 45 min) > Richmond (27 min) > Blacksburg (4 hr 39 min) > Dulles (6 min) > Richmond (27 min) > Blacksburg.
Looks like they dropped folks off in the early afternoon, then went and picked them all back up tonight.
3 hours each way vs 22 minutes in the air. Saved them 5 hours on the ground at schools.
Yup, it was a 22 minute flight.
I love ADS-B Exchange. Such a cool website to kill time on.
Years ago i got a job offer to work on that. But turned it down, which is probably better because while the job u took sucked, I'm now at a great one.
We've got enough air force and naval aviators in the group. Can't we have them track the UVa and UNC planes and intercept them or something? Or does the Corps of Cadets have stinger teams?
In case it was not obvious, no I'm not serious!
The UVA plane got stuck trying to go around Afton Mountain
I lol'd. I was also unmuted on my webex. Very awkward because no one ever laughs during the deviation reduction meeting.
That was after having to circumnavigate Piney Mountain. 😏
Thanks MattC. I'm too used to using FlightAware and other stuff that relies on the FAA data.
I love that TKP has a diverse community of nerds that bring us posts like this that wouldn't have even been on my radar on any given day. But here I am.
Not on your radar. Well played.
I prefer the Sovereign C680, more leg room
Whoa, fella! Put that thing back in your pants!
More 'leg' room.
Heh. ISWYDT
I know we can't tell who is on each of these flights but it is good to see at least one of these planes getting use to try to lock down some great commits for this next recruiting class. GO HOKIES!
Holy thread necromancy, Batman!
This is absolutely the best post ever. I am LOL in my office and my folks keep checking up on me like what the hell is going on in there. Really good shit. Thanks all.
C680 on the move
Touched down in Greenville SC
hm.
Mazeo Bennett, 4* WR?
Just a heads up, new twitter chief doesn't like publicly available information like this being shared, could you permabanned.
edit: also looks like one of them is in Richmond today
It's what's known as Free Speech [Selective] Absolutism.
These are very interesting takes and also very politically charged.
It's also interesting that this side of the political posting is largely ignored by the mods 🤔
Peculiar
It's a critique of elon musk, not a political statement
Doesn't change that it's in poor taste.
where's the line for what poor taste is acceptable? (Rhetorically) As hokie07me commented below, it's more a reference to the Zeitgeist it than it is a political statement. The same way every conversation about Liberty here in the last half decade has been hella distasteful but doesn't (always) cross into religion or politics.
I'm not beyond listening to community feedback and will lock the subthread accordingly to prevent it from spiraling
My comment was simply a warning that if you share coaches possible location on Twitter based on public info found on flight tracker sites, you might find your account suspended per new policy
Jokes about politics (or politics figured) is a gray area. They're basically pop culture references, not political arguments.
Get with the times, they're not flight tracking data anymore, they're "basically assassination coordinates"
Live footage of assassins targeting planes
Eagle noises intensifying
sad red-tailed hawk
He specifically doesn't like people tracking his plane and banned people doing it.
after specifically saying he wouldn't do that
And then banned any news reporter who reported on the story as it happened. The whole thing is a mess and a bit of a joke, to be honest.
I get it, if I were him, I wouldn't want widespread sharing of the number of times my private jet visited Epstein's island either
Yeah that's what I was gonna say but I wasn't fully confident making the claim. Glad you went there
In his defense, he did have someone stalking his vehicle just the other night. He wasn't actually in his vehicle, but his 2 year-old son was and the stalker was just following the vehicle around. Stalker blocked in the vehicle from moving and later climbed onto the hood, per Musk. So with that in mind I can see why he doesn't want his or anyone else's real-time location info doxxed like that.
Yeah, I am not sure I buy that story. There was never a police report file. I just saw the video posted but this whole thing is just weird.
Musk and weird are synonymous.
Ok, so the mod said we can weigh in.
The info on his private plane was not listed. The tail # is unlisted for privacy and security.
The guy took various pieces of info such as where he happened to be, bounced it against the tail numbers of the class and model plane that he owned until he was able to eliminate the ones that it wasn't and thus identified the tail number.
He then wrote a script to track that tail number and publish it. Real time doxing in order to evade privacy and security tactics..
That has always been against the rules.
That doxing lead to an attack on the car that had his kid in it.
I'm not a fan either but, in this case, there's lying going on about this particular item by various news sources.
For backup of my information, there are several interviews where he saw just that. Search youtube, it's there.
Yeah, that aged like milk in the middle of summer in Arizona.
Until it became a personal safety risk to his family that included an attack on his family member.
I actually support this one. It's not newsworthy info and some nut used that info directly.
He unbanned the account after getting a promise to delay this info by 24 hours so, the info is there but not actionable from a security standpoint. Seems a very good compromise.
I really can't believe this is the hill you guys want to die on.
People are definitely allowed to change their positions and I think Musk is definitely correct to do so here. But he was so defiant in his belief of "absolute free speech" that was just a silly concept to begin with. Of course there are limits to speech. And of course as a private company you can limit what you want to allow as speech.
And the fact that he says he's apolitical and then makes so many political statements is also him talking like an idiot. He's allowed to be political. And he's allowed to express it, even as a head of private social media company (but he's also the head of public companies too, but that's another topic). In any regard, saying you're apolitical and then pushing the envelope with tweets that are at the front of political issues is just another hypocritical aspect of the cacophony that emanates from Musk.
yep. Elon has stepped into this role voluntarily. And when you come out and make strong statements (politically and emotionally charged alike) and then contradict your previously (foolishly) stated stance you look like a hypocrite or idiot or both. There is a danger with absolutes and this is it. Projecting ideas as black and white when nothing is black and white backfires when someone shows you the gray. If someone makes a black and white statement or takes a black and white stance it is inevitable that someone else will find the gray that they missed. We all have blind spots. If you put yourself out there without accounting for those blind spots people are going to shred you. That is what is happening to Musk. He has blind spots and he's made some pretty strong statements that had glaring weaknesses.
My view is this. Musk has been told his whole life that he is a genius and he believes that he is actually smarter than everyone poorer than him. So he feels safe in his views because he's too arrogant to realize that he could even have blind spots. Then he looks foolish when his statements and stances get attacked (some of them pretty effectively).
Classic case of "better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt"
I think this is actually a misnomer about Musk. He was never a genius (at least in the Tech sense), but he was smart enough in tech, was savvy enough in business, and really good at finding the right people.
Musk has never been the lead engineer or inventor on anything. But he has made billions on leveraging other peoples ideas, getting a lot of shares in start ups based on those ideas, and selling them at the right time. And tbh, he was really lucky early as he almost ruined PayPal before he was ousted. He wasn't even a part of the deal of selling Paypal that made him his first $100+ million. He does deserve all the credit for recognizing the potential in a lot of ideas and making those ideas into profitable companies by finding the right people to help him.
But now everyone thinks he's this genius engineer, inventor, and business man due to some revisionist history and misbeliefs. He's just really good at persuasion and timing, and definitely had a lot of luck. And now, he just throws his money around to satisfy his whims (which is actually hurting him and all his companies financially).
His genius is being born with a silver spoon in his mouth off the back of Apartheid Era emerald mining
That too. He definitely had some advantages that allowed him to get into the tech scene in the first place.
He also has a bit of an elitist personality that takes advantage of his work force. There is definitely a lot dynamics in how he was raised, where he was raised and the local conditions, and how he treats the workers of his companies.
Person that transformed the electric car industry and lands rockets on boats is actually just a spoiled rich kid with oppression money. That's a midwit take if I've ever seen one.
He bought Tesla it already existed. He isn't an engineer and has designed zero of their sellable successful products.
The funniest part is finding out he makes being retroactively listed as a founder a term of any purchase agreement he makes for companies like Tesla and PayPal. He definitely founded SpaceX, but from everything that's been leaked about that company, the less he is involved with any project, the better the odds of that project seeing completion.
Elmo Husk is a modern day Edison, that is not a compliment
Yeah he's not the one designing these things just FYI.
Oh I totally agree. I'm not saying he's a genius or that he invented Tesla (he didn't) or anything like that. I am saying that people have called him a genius. And it's gone to his head
Might just be me, but I think one really good way to not worry about people knowing your location is to not be a massive hypocritical dick.
Also, rule #1 of having children and the Internet. NEVER tell them they can't do something because they will spend and undue amount of effort just to spite you.
Elon's jet is shown on the same page the VT planes are shown, fwiw
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af
It's always been there but until that guy evaded his PIA and doxxed his tail number, nobody could identify it as his.
As I understand it, he's applied for new identification and PIA.
It's now confirmed security risk as he rents the plane to other private users when Musk isn't using it.
If he considers people knowing what city he is in as a security threat, dude better hunker down and never be seen in public again
By his new rule, if I'm walking down the street and run into Coach Pry in Virginia Beach, and tweet "oh shit, just ran into Coach on the boardwalk", that is grounds for suspension. It's silly.
It's not the city, knowing the time and place your private plane will arrive at a relatively unsecure small airport is less secure than happenstance getting spotted walking down the street. Especially when so many people are gunning for you, literally. As demonstrated.
Every other news source in the U.S. has declared every kind of doxxing even not in real time, to be a bannable offense.
He tried being even more open until someone attacked his family and recognized that real-time here I am right now and here is where I will be later, is a little too loose. He'll allow it but it's gotta be 24 hours delayed.
It is even more loose than any other news outlet in the U.S. The others will excoriate and ban if reveal way less information.
Otherwise known as "Air Mehul"
They just sold Octo to IBM...he may be rolling in a 747 soon.
Yep- I worked for him and still stay in touch a bit. That is huge. When I was at Octo, it was less than 200 employees.
Never met the guy, but follow him on Instagram. Seems like a good, cool dude.
Came here to see where our planes were heading and ended up back on Twitter.
Yeah, this thread is like the phoenix. Dies, arises to become a glorious thing of beauty, and then bursts into flames and crashes to the ground, hopefully to die again.
Can we just rename or close this thread and start over? The other discussion can start their own or keep this one if renamed.
Or... we could try to turn this thread towards cake/pie, hot dog is/is not a sandwich, or the merits of different mayonnaise brands.
It's the time of year when we start to get pretty crazy off topic but given the volume of news related to football recruiting and our awesome basketball teams, I think I will close this one for now since there are a few comments that are close to getting things really off the rails. The mods have all been watching and I think we're OK for now but let's be safe and cut the discussion for now.