Cool feature!, there were 2 people on my MAD-JFK flight on Jan.3.2010! Last week!

and one on Jun.28.2007

That is very cool. I got 7 hits dating back to 1991.

I have 40 hits and I found out, that the FT user airoli was on the same OS BKK-VIE flight. Great tool ! ^

I've been checking it out for a long time, and it's a great tool to find out more about the aircraft type, the registration, etc. In my case the search brings 32 results... but 24 of these are my children's flights. :D

Thanks I hadn't spotted that. Unfortunately requires flight numbers to be entered, which I haven't. I'm not going back through about 1700 records to add flight numbers.

As I look at different participants' categorization of flights, it is clear that this exercise runs the gamut from those who are very thorough (737-200, 737-300, etc.) to those who are less so.

My goal is just to be consistent, but I don't have a good enough grasp of airplanes to know whether I am accomplishing this as I move from one airline manufacturer to another. I'm looking for opinions from those who can shed some light on the subject.

For instance, if I choose just to list a 737 as one type of aircraft, should I list an MD-81, MD-82, MD-83, MD-88, and an MD-90 as 5 additional aircraft OR rather lump all of these or most of them (MD-90 possibly unique?) into a general category of MD-80's? Should 717's get their own unique category or be grouped with one of the MD-XX categories? What about Embraer 135's and Embraer 145's? CRJ100's and CRJ200's?

I understand that this probably boils down to a matter of personal preference, but I would like to make an informed decision. To put it into automobile terms, I want to avoid a situation where I have mindless classifications such as Ford, General Motors, Honda Accord LX Coupe, Honda Accord EX Sedan, Toyota Camry, Toyota Corolla, etc. Any insight on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

My rule of thumb is that if the airline makes a distinction (e.g., 763 vs 762 on AA), then I make that same distinction in recording the aircraft. I use the generic model numbers (763-200) instead of the airline-specific ones (763-223), though, so the same models flown by different airlines will group together.

Wow, that is a neat feature, not very accurate though.

I see ansett flew QF6, except he flew it from FRA-SIN whereas I flew it SIN-SYD. Not exactly the same flight, even though we were essentially on the same plane.


Its cool to see that mjlhou was on my YUL-IAD return and probably saw me waiting in line or boarding the plane... as my sister and I were probably the last to board.


All in all 3 hits, pretty cool... although I'd prefer to know this info ahead of time so I can possibly meet the FlyerTalker at the airport at least for a quick hello and introduction prior to boarding.


--Russ

^^^cool

It is totally a matter of personal preference. My practice is to make the distinctions based on what flightaware.com records the flight as being - which is fairly specific. So, for example, a 737-300 is certainly different from a 737-900 but likewise, a MD-82 is recorded as different from an MD-83. I can't say why I do it this way other than that it makes sense to me and if I started combining, I wouldn't see any logical place to stop other than very broad categories (i.e. Boeing 737 series would all be one category, Airbus 318/319/320/321 would all be one category, and possibly even all the CRJ's (100/200/700/900) would be one category too) and I don't think that provides enough distinction for me because a flight on a CRJ-100 is a very different experience than a flight on a CRJ-900. Likewise if I were on a 737-200 today I would be pretty unhappy but a 2nd generation 737 is a nice modern plane.

I have seen people who do keep track in very broad categories - I think I have seen other's flightmemories with "Canadair" and "Airbus" as plane types - and all I can say is, to each his/her own.

I like the "find other members" feature. Alas, I have no matches on my 325 flights :(

I noticed that the "show all flights taken in the last 24h" page still showed an amount of traffic around Europe over the past few days. How does that happen, is it people entering flight in advance?

Yes. According to flightmemory, I flew LHR-FRA on Thursday afternoon.

I'll delete it as soon as my next trips are booked. I always enter flights in advance (at time of booking), so that I can have a statistics forecast. Also it's kind of nice to get my Facebook updated with "just landed at XYZ with Airline", even tho this is usually wrong due to various delays...

Another advantage is that you could (theoretically) find other members who WILL BE on your upcoming flights, rather than who has been on a flight with you.

I also enter mine as soon as booked, mainly to keep track of my plans. Sometimes I think it's the only way I can remember where I'm going, and what I've already booked and still need to book!

I have been using this site since 2006. Who cares if in English or German?? Not me, it is a wonderful tracking tool.

I got sucked into an all-out enter-my-flights blitz last week after having had the site bookmarked for a few months.

Thanks to the BTS and Heathrow/Gatwick links earlier I'm adding all the tail numbers to the domestic flights.

One question does still remain (which I've seen asked earlier in the thread) and that is... does anyone know of a site where you can access tail numbers for international flights?

Here's my map to date: http://my.flightmemory.com/sdilullo


EDIT:

I've done a little more searching and found three helpful sites...

http://www.acarsd.org/world_ACARS_reports.html

http://www.antonakis.co.uk/acars.php?page=request

http://www.libhomeradar.org/databasequery/index.php

God bless the internet! :)

Thanks a lot for the info! The first website was great for tracking some lost registration numbers. Too bad it only goes back to 2006 for now.

Another useful site for finding out the actual aircraft type, among other details, is:

http://www.airframes.org/

No problem, and thanks for the other link as well.

I see you're from Barcelona - I was just there a couple weeks ago. Great city! There's some photos and stories from the trip on my site (the 'A mile of runway...' link below) if you're interested.

Glad you enjoyed the city. And congratulations on your engagement! ;)

Was wondering how long others took to receive their poster? I ordered one last week and can't wait to get it!

On the same note, I wonder if I add new flights in now while the order is being processed, if the new flights will be added onto the poster or the cut off was when I ordered it?

I adore Flight Memory - but I only found it because I joined FlyerTalk and noticed people using it.

It's so good to see there's heaps of other people who are made plane spotters/flight collectors like me :)

Hi tfung,

Your poster was sent to the lab for physical production on the 15th, so flight added after cannot be reflected...
Depending on your whereabouts it should arrive in the coming days (US & Europe) or next week (Asia) ...

I ordered updated posters for Mrs. P and myself, and they just arrived yesterday, almost exactly 2 weeks after they were ordered.

Delays?
 

Just curious to see how you guys track time of flights with regard to delays. For example, I was on a DL Shuttle flight last night that was scheduled to depart 7pm, delayed to 8pm (arr. 935pm), then pushed back and held on the Tarmac for an hour and a half, then finally arrived in Chicago at 1040. I usually just put the scheduled times down, since I rarely remember the exact time a flight actually takes off or lands. How about you?

I do the same. All are scheduled times.

Obviously that means some of the statistics may be slightly skewed and I know I can look up US airline times/data with the BLS statistics, but I'm not THAT obsessed... :cool:

That is an interesting question. I've just let FM calculate duration for 99% of my flights. I assume that that is just the in air time, as often the scheduled gate to gate time is an hour longer, and then you have delays on top of that. FM also does not appear to adjust for the impact of the jet stream, i.e. all else being equal, an East to West flight will take longer than a West to East flight.

I just looked at the "compare" data you get with a premium FM membership. My average duration per (mostly domestic) flight is 1.713 hours, but the average for all members is 3.096. Of course, that could be not only because of more longer flights, or it could also be because a lot of people are inputting scheduled or actual times. If I had done so, I'm sure my average would be over 2 hours.

I guess it all depends on how you define "duration". Maybe somebody from FM could tell us how often people input flight times?

So do I. And any delays, etc, I write them down under "Comments".

Hi there,
regarding the delays:
Most user (85%) use the calculated datas the system generates, which of course does not include anything else than the scheduled time...
While we all know about the existance of the Jet Streams it is really not so easy to find an algorithm, that reflects it in all cases - e.g. it is not the same all year and the effect also may vary due to certain weather conditions.
So instead of opening the box of the pandora we decided to stay with our scheduled calculations until we have more ressources (which being just the two of us after 5 years, I am starting to doubt) and a way to calculate it...maybe the easiest way (for us) would be to start flagging scheduled (calculated by FM) durations in order to distinguish the actual or entered durations...

The overall average duration should be higher than that of an US user - please do not forget, we did start in Germany and Europe with our idea/site and most Europeans and Germans actually fly rather medium or long distances in comparison to the average US citizen.

Also we do have the issue of pure poster-hunters, who just enter their long haul flights in order to get their poster...and as they are not "cockpit" or "virtual" we cannot filter them out easily. This will be better in 2011 we hope, as we have just finished a mechanism that will deactivate all old accounts in terms of the stats and flights...but it will be summer until it really kicks in and even then I still think the overall average will still be above the US average in terms of duration...

Happy logging and Thanks for bearing with us all this time - we do appreciate it!

sam

Just to be safe - most of those 15% are what we call "sightseeing" which the user than has to edit because the system has no idea what to calculate (e.g. JFK-JFK flying over NY for just that and then back to destination airport...mostly with small planes or helicopters, of course). Here the duration is entered very often...

Just discovered this..... Trying to back fill an entire life of flights is not easy. I've been able to go back to summer 2008. Now only 23 more years of flights to remember/collect. :(

Good luck! When I was filling in mine, I started at 2002. I decided that would be the start of the "Frequent Flyer Era" as it's when I started keeping paper records of everything from registration numbers to departure and arrival times. Plus, that was the first year I made sure to earn mileage on every flight I took and the first year I became an elite. Maybe you can find a similar lime of demarcation in your life and add accordingly.

I had 10 international flights that I didn't have registration numbers for, so I gave these sites a try. I was only able to find one registration number, so now, I still have nine int'l flights that I don't have registration numbers for.

Are other users having as small a success rate as I am having?

Since you're American, this one may be useful:

http://www.bts.gov/xml/ontimesummary.../src/index.xml

Too bad it starts in 1995, and I'm missing several registrations from 1993.

Since I have every tail number for the last 3 years, I've been chasing those of 2005-2007, and I decided to e-mail some of the airlines, in order to get the registration from them. I knew that success would be very unlikely, but hey, SQ and KE provided the registration I was looking for. ANA and TG, on the other hand, said that too much time has elapsed to retrieve this information (I don't believe it, but at least they replied), and I've got nothing from another 3 requests.

I may try with some European airlines, but I very much doubt that they'll bother to check that out; Asian service is usually far superior.

I'm already aware of that site, and I've used it to fill in the missing information for my flights since mid-2005. It works very well for domestic flights, but it does not have data for international flights, so it is of no use to me as I try to finish off my last nine international flights.

I am also really interested in finding a way to look up older registration numbers. I have kept all my boarding passes, and wrote down the registrations since 2005. But I would really appreciate any ideas of how I can find registrations for international flights pre-2005!

I really really wish Canada kept a similar database...

I want to thank everyone for the links. You guys are awesome! ^

I usually enter the flights within a week or two of actually flying, so I look up the actual gate departure and gate arrival times on http://www.flightstats.com and use those.

Technically, the FAA's runway departure and runway arrival times would be the best, but that's another few clicks on every flight, and knock on wood, I've always taken off within a few minutes of departing the gate.

Note to shoggoth: FlightStats has an API. Perhaps you could use them to power your flight duration calculation? Not sure what the cost is, but that would be worth a Premium Subscription to me (saving me lots of time when I'm entering data)...

Hi there,

Unfortunately we have no real API, yet. We need to build one during this year, but the plans are rather for an outgoing API (stats and maps and stuff to other sites). Due to some issues we are already facing, we are a bit scared of taking data into the system...and of course, the costs need to fit what we can achieve with PremiumMemberships....i.e. most offers for external data are per transaction models and these are really hard to put on top of the PremiumMembership as it differs a lot per user...and nobody would buy a Membership that has no fixed price...
Also - all the flight data such as real duration is only available in some countries...the US seems very open with that, Germany for example is the complete opposite - its even illegal to track planes by their transponders, which services in the US and other European countries use quite often...

So there is no easy solution, yet....we will probably decide definitely on the future roadmap of FM during the next couple of months, so we will try to keep you posted...which we are bad at as well... :(
Thanks for your support - we really appreciate it!

OOPS OOPS OOPS OOPS OOPS!!

I was really tired last night when I posted.

I meant to say that FlightStats has an API and that you guys could tap into that to power your schedule data.

I would definitely pay for a FlightMemory premium membership if I could just type the date and flight number in and you automatically filled in the departure and arrival time (and as much other data as you could pull--aircraft type, etc.).

Sorry for the confusion! I've edited my post above to make more sense.