Discussion
My son has an aircraft tracker app on his iphone , last evening the 'phone emitted a stage signal and when he looked it had a message saying 'Squawk alert' or 'Squawk signal' he tapped the screen and was taken to his app which showed the track of an aircraft flying at 13000ft ( guess it may have said 30,000 ) over Agen ( SW France )the track showed the plane completing a circle and then landing. He then went on to the Air France website that reported that this plane had to return to the take off point because of Technical difficulties.
What is all this about ? It has never happened before and his girlfriend who has the same app did not receive the signal.
What is all this about ? It has never happened before and his girlfriend who has the same app did not receive the signal.
An aircraft transponder is something which broadcasts a 4 digit code when interrogated by radar and helps identify the aircraft. Usually, when the aircraft is in a particular piece of controlled airspace, the controller will tell the pilot what 4 digit code to dial in. When outside of controlled airspace, or when you have not been assigned a squawk code, the transponder is usually left on 7000.
If the aircraft gets into difficulty, the pilot can dial in specific internationally recognised 4 digit squawk codes to alert any radar systems to a problem:
7500 = Hijacking ("seven five - been taken alive")
7600 = Radio comms problem ("seven six - radio needs a fix")
7700 = Mayday/emergency ("seven seven - we're going to heaven")
As mentioned above, apps like FlightRadar and PlaneFinder allow you to set up alerts for emergency squawk codes.
If the aircraft gets into difficulty, the pilot can dial in specific internationally recognised 4 digit squawk codes to alert any radar systems to a problem:
7500 = Hijacking ("seven five - been taken alive")
7600 = Radio comms problem ("seven six - radio needs a fix")
7700 = Mayday/emergency ("seven seven - we're going to heaven")
As mentioned above, apps like FlightRadar and PlaneFinder allow you to set up alerts for emergency squawk codes.
Rower said:
My son has an aircraft tracker app on his iphone , last evening the 'phone emitted a stage signal and when he looked it had a message saying 'Squawk alert' or 'Squawk signal' he tapped the screen and was taken to his app which showed the track of an aircraft flying at 13000ft ( guess it may have said 30,000 ) over Agen ( SW France )the track showed the plane completing a circle and then landing. He then went on to the Air France website that reported that this plane had to return to the take off point because of Technical difficulties.
What is all this about ? It has never happened before and his girlfriend who has the same app did not receive the signal.
Skydiving operations often sqwark to warn other users that they're about to drop, and a lot of operations operate from 13,000ft.What is all this about ? It has never happened before and his girlfriend who has the same app did not receive the signal.
Quick google suggests http://www.bouloc-skydive.com/ isn't too far from Agen and operates a Pilatus according to their site which would easily drop from that altitude.
ukbabz said:
Skydiving operations often sqwark to warn other users that they're about to drop, and a lot of operations operate from 13,000ft.
Quick google suggests http://www.bouloc-skydive.com/ isn't too far from Agen and operates a Pilatus according to their site which would easily drop from that altitude.
Other users (ie aircraft) can't see another aircrafts' code so this wouldn't be much use. ATC could see it however.Quick google suggests http://www.bouloc-skydive.com/ isn't too far from Agen and operates a Pilatus according to their site which would easily drop from that altitude.
When using one of the alert type codes as described above eg 7700' 7600 etc, these automatically flag up on the ATC screens to draw immediate attention to the controller. It's possible these apps have a similar setting?
Maybe so Zulu 10. I'm a commercial pilot, we don't use anything like that in large Boeings. TCAS for collision avoidance works through the transponders which gives proximate traffic info, specifically their level relative to your own. ATC see the raw radar info and overlay the secondary radar info ie the squawk, to give A/C data, ie callsign, destination etc.
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