Should a helicopter not appear on FlightRadar?

[Blue Oval84]

Random question but a large red and white helicopter just flew north past my place in Brighton, not at particularly high altitude and was deffo not the copper chopper. I decided to have a little peek on flight radar to see what it was and it isn't there on the screen.

I assumed it would have to appear on there or is that not the case for helicopters? Sorry may seem a daft question but I'm far from knowledgeable about aviation, just nosey!

[caiss4]

Flightradar shows commercial flights mainly. Try www.adsbexchange.com if you want to see most things flying. Of course not all aircraft will have working transponders and I really don't know what the rules are!

ETA: based on your description of the helicopter are you somewhere north of Brighton?
ETAA: read the original post dumbo! Transponder started around Eastbourne, followed the coast to Brighton and is now flying in a northerly direction towards Dorking

Edited by caiss4 on Sunday 26th July 11:52

Edited by caiss4 on Sunday 26th July 11:55

[Buzz84]

that would have been this one then:

https://tinyurl.com/y2zxlc6l

[The_Doc]

Small craft don't have ADS–B and are invisible to this tracking.

My brother flies Robinson R22 and R44 commercially and he never shows up.

I think it's mandatory in the USA, but not here

[Blue Oval84]

caiss4 said:

Flightradar shows commercial flights mainly. Try www.adsbexchange.com if you want to see most things flying. Of course not all aircraft will have working transponders and I really don't know what the rules are!

ETA: based on your description of the helicopter are you somewhere north of Brighton?
ETAA: read the original post dumbo! Transponder started around Eastbourne, followed the coast to Brighton and is now flying in a northerly direction towards Dorking

Useful thanks! I'll try that one next time. And yes, I'm actually in Brighton, but on the northern edge of town

Buzz84 said:

that would have been this one then:

https://tinyurl.com/y2zxlc6l

Yes, it was indeed, I'm pretty sure from looking at the pics.

[ecsrobin]

Some of the coastguard helicopters have been removed from Flightradar24 on the request of the operator/coastguard yet all the aircraft are fitted with AIS so MarineTraffic will show them. Also the NATS app shows some of the aircraft that don’t show on FR24.

[CharlieH89]

I use planefinder which shows up a lot of helicopters

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/plane-finder-flight-...

[Chocmonster]

I use Freedar.uk as well as Flightradar as I find it shows more Helicopters & Millitary stuff.

[Brother D]

The_Doc said:

Small craft don't have ADS–B and are invisible to this tracking.

My brother flies Robinson R22 and R44 commercially and he never shows up.

I think it's mandatory in the USA, but not here

Yes is mandatory since the start of the year if you do any flying in A,B,C and class E - better visual description - still thousands of aircraft without them as yet..

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/...