Record Breaking: How A Modified Boeing 737 Became The Most Tracked Plane Of All Time

[@touchofgrayphotos]

I'm a silver user, and I work at a Regional airport in Australia (YMAV/AVV) and I use Flight Radar to track the flights in and out of our airport, as well as keeping an eye on traffic around us, as we are a diversion field for YMML/MEL, as we can handle anything including A380's, plus we're used as a transfer site for medical flights. I couldn't keep track of anything cause I was kicked off Flight Radar by the Spar19 flight. I had had a quick look out of interest when I started my shift, and then all hell broke loose, and I couldn't log in or track anything for work till the flight landed. Was a absoulte headache for people like me who use it as a work tool.

[@commerce-usa]

Helpful share, designing in multiple data facilities and user priorities should be part of a scalable system. Will be using your input in our own longer term project development.

[@JxH]

"...who use it as a work tool." Castles built on sand.

[@ayushghosh1155]

I dont know how I was able to witness it enter Taiwan and land, that too as a free user when everyone who was a free user had to end up on the waiting list

[@brkitdwn]

Why are you using "Flight Radar"? Your country and/or airport should have its own tracking software.

[@touchofgrayphotos]

@@brkitdwn you'll find that a lot of people connected to an airport will use Flight Radar, we use it in the Customer Service team for flight tracking and delays, the airline staff use to track the flights and even the bus company drivers and taxi drivers all use flight radar, even the hire car desk staff. Is it the perfect work tool? No, but it does a reasonable job of giving us information in pretty much real time. We're just a small airport, only one airline since Covid, although we are getting a second soon (Bonza Airlines) and small fields like us can't justify our own tracking software, so we all use Flight Radar and works fairly well.

[@h_gordy]

I didn’t track this flight and i had no idea it happened at all because I was asleep! 😅

[@ecclestonsangel]

Me neither, for the same reason!

[@alienter7517]

I was out with my family 😅

[@squidsdakid]

same

[@nomore-constipation]

@SamuelWrightA350XWB There was SPAR20 flying too. I think both made it to South Korea to visit the military base

[@themanwhospeaksinaviation3539]

Same:(

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

It's a shame people didn't track my flight from Pyongyang to Singapore on an Air China 747 borrowed from Xi when I went down there for my first summit with Trump back in 2018. One of the reasons why I decided to go to my summits by train from then on.

[@uzidayo]

hey daddy

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

C-40C: I'm the most tracked plane of all-time The 737s of Ryanair's fleet: ...that's rough, buddy Ryanair's been real quiet since a 737 made the spotlight because of tensions. It's insane just how many were tracking it

[@AzovAzza]

Haha. That’s awesome! I was tracking it but, had no idea how many others were. This channel, as well as 3-4 others, have gotten me absolutely obsessed with aviation. Kind of big since just 8 months ago I was terrified of flying. Now, I can’t wait until my next flight! Thanks guys, for such awesome content!!

[@filgiupo4853]

Same

[@vondahe]

In case anyone else wondered which version the Spar19 is/was before the conversion, it’s a 737-700BBJ. I thought it looked smaller but that’s what it is.

[@theharper1]

BBJ? Boeing Business Jet.

[@vondahe]

@@theharper1 Yes, I missed a letter which is now corrected. Thanks!

[@inomad]

I haven’t seen or read any news in 5 months. It’s a better way to live.

[@morrish044]

I live in Taiwan and am a Taiwanese. I biked to a planespotting location near RCSS/TSA to watch Pelosi's plane land at around 22:40 local time. The next day, at 18:30, I watched her plane takeoff. It was extremely crowded, but people were also supporting and cheering the plane as it landed. Things like these make me feel patriotic for some reason, knowing that amid China threatening military action, Pelosi still decided to land.

[@commerce-usa]

It should be a message that regardless of party, America supports the people of Taiwan. Stay safe and strong.

[@rocketdyneF1]

I like to refer to China as, West Taiwan

[@AirLHY]

佩巫婆=攪屎棍

[@MDLC424]

Armchair general but I honestly think the Mainland is doing this to have a boogeyman they can blame their faults on. “US is going to Taiwan? That’s why you’re suffering.”

[@jiajianhou426]

You know some people had posters saying “American get out.” 胳膊肘子往外拐。美國和你再好，你也是外人。中國才是你的親人。

[@owenmergliano8160]

Man the waiting room SUCKED!!!

[@youp9546]

Let's admit it, Taiwan is a separate country

[@neosj3003]

It always have been. CCP has never conquered Taiwan island in the history.

[@hoodedmirror1051]

Same case as East and West Germany, or North and South Korea. A democratic, and an authoritarian state, 2 countries, 1 ethnicity.

[@hoodedmirror1051]

If they stay seperated long enough, they will be more culturally diverse, and eventually be considered a different people.

[@Wick9876]

Unless you count the Nationalist refugees as the legitimate government of China, Taiwan hasn't been part of China since 1874.

[@quinndenver4075]

@@hoodedmirror1051 China has multiple ethnic groups

[@philippgabler5835]

If someone rebuilds the AN-225, her maiden flight will be the most tracked flight in history!

[@Ryu1478]

Yep. But as times goes on, it won't be the most tracked plane ever. Just like memes, they died out when time passes.

[@fvngvsxx798]

an225 is overrated, shut up already

[@hoodedmirror1051]

Probably right

[@vinching926]

Not attractive to the political netizens though.

[@BubbaBearsFriend]

It'll be popular, but probably not as much as Pelosi's flight since the AN-225 is of less interest to non-aviation buffs and there's no threat of it being shot down... people, for some odd reason, like to watch potential disasters in the making (or the potential start of WW III.) 😲

[@I.amthatrealJuan]

I was actually quite lucky as I was able to track the flight. Only after refreshing it was I put on a waitlist of around 20 minutes. Many people posting screenshots on Twitter definitely made it a quick secondhand source.

[@lokeshsaivarma3024]

I went for plane spotting and had no clue when does each flight arrives and was alert all the time to get some good shot. For 4 hours I was spotting without know what would arrive next

[@CoolguyTECHNO]

Hey hey simply flying I tracked this same flight back in February over Norway.

[@LegoSM737]

I think the C-40C is a Boeing 737-700 or a -700ER. Nice plane.

[@cdocker3070]

Bbj

[@cdocker3070]

@@aydoyt all c-40s are Boeing business jets never said extended range

[@LegoSM737]

Hmm,true.You’re probably right.

[@bignessgta5]

What's the registration and why is it on the map?

[@indielixir100]

Back in January 2021 i was able to snatch a photo in Phoenix and i remember taxiing next to it in a crj and we took off before them

[@Supragt]

I tracked this plane when it was about to land

[@speckkatze]

Tracked it on fr24 in the beginning, switched to adsb exchange once fr24 stopped working

[@thereal757_ap]

Gold subscriber. The crash was wild.

[@Corrruptscheelsey]

I tried to get on, I was placed in the waiting room at 18 minutes.

[@fecardona]

Great that the comments section is purely aviation and not political.

[@someguy4915]

Until you felt the need to mention that, makes you wonder why someone feels the need to not only always think about politics but then even point it out.

[@japaszzjpeg]

I haven't tracked the flight but, I just saw Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways flying to Surakarta

[@sheetaljejani]

You have to make a video on Akasa air . Today was their first flight

[@tylerstuart6169]

I was tracking SPAR19 and I am a basic user, my waiting time was 3000 minutes

[@MahendraVidyarthi]

Yeah I did and got message that I am in a queue waiting for 6 hours

[@AirLHY]

Had to use ADSB exchange to track SPAR19 whilst FR24 was down.🙃

[@Thiscooldude123]

I was one of those people placed in the queue my wait time was luckily only 3 minutes : )

[@emypena]

I just followed the flight through a youtube live stream.

[@mohamedalqedra2718]

I tracked but not the whole flight at that time when I was tracking it was 43 000 people was tracking as well

[@KETCHUP_GAMER]

i was tracking my brothers flight on the 2nd and then the website crashed

[@grantbrad]

I wasn’t tracking this flight. But on FlightAware I was tracking a flight called SOUP48

[@JxckSweeney]

ADSBEXCHANGE didn’t crash ;)

[@KayH6]

7 hrs from SZB?

[@devonc2867]

SMH. 😞😞😞 I hope this doesn't turn into WWIII.

[@danharold3087]

Agreed. Thing is China has enough internal problems that it may see war as the only thing left to them. Give the people something to hate instead of their government. Time honored technique. Hearing a lot about ending "American Hegemony" in the propaganda. Having said that I don't think they will go that far.

[@inomad]

It won’t

[@nurrizadjatmiko21]

No i didin't but oh my god. That's crazy

[@Very_based]

i remember seeing this and thinking this is weird is must be a milatary plane

[@herego1959]

Wow!!

[@arinjayurs378]

O…..k now I get it. That’s the reason why FR24 was crashing I thought my phone was the problem

[@hewhohasnoidentity4377]

Being a higher tier member doesn't really help give you better access in these rare circumstances. If 400,000 people are trying to get through a narrow path simultaneously it doesn't do any good for someone near the back of the crowd to have the highest access tier. If this was expected to be a normal occurrence then the demand could be managed by having the tiers use different login points and then prioritize requests from the tiers appropriately. There has never been a need to build in such a level of complexity. The only solution here is to add cloud resources which is a quick process for all the data being moved behind the scenes to accomplish it but it isn't instantaneous and it isn't cheap when being done at this scale with immediate need.

[@OhHeyItsShan]

And the last sentence in their statement contradicts the very thing it is supposed to mitigate; "We continue to make improvements to our systems to provide additional capacity for flights of extreme interest" - clearly they didn't. This flight was announced weeks before. They clearly had advanced notice. They need to setup a server system where they can scale in the moment as and when demand/capacity requires it and when they don't need the demand, it can scale down. Probably something AWS could easily achieve.

[@someguy4915]

@@OhHeyItsShan Azure and AWS *can* scale quite well, but not instantly nor *that* dynamically. If you request Azure/AWS to scale lets say 100,000% both will say 'sure give us a few hours or even days' while in these situations you need 'instant' scaling, so you can for instance double your capacity within five minutes. There are payment plans within Azure (AWS probably too) that do allow you to nearly instantly increase capacity by for instance 50%, but the price for those is extreme as they basically require Azure to have tons of equipment (and bandwidth) just on standby. Wishing easy (and affordable) scaling is one thing, reality sadly is another. Most of these users are not paying and no realistic amount of ads will cover the cost of such a complex system. So you're asking a system that normally has up to 500 people watching a single flight to instantly scale to over 700,000 people watching a single flight... If cost scales linearly (which is doesn't) you would go from spending $1000 on hosting per month to ~$1.4 million, no (cloud) platform will ever allow or even be capable of that level of scaling. Lastly, I assume you are paying for FlightRadar, since you seem to be making demands that they should scale their service flawlessly?

[@BotanistOnDuna]

prob a 737-700ER bc it can fly for 7hrs nonstop so must be the er version with a higher range

[@BagusWidyanto_HappyIn1997]

At the same time as when this plane was tracked, there was a Boeing 747 flying over my house in Surabaya, Indonesia. When I was going to find out about the plane's identity, I was shocked to see the Flightradar24 jammed! Apparently it was because of Nancy Pelosi's flight

[@Cappadoccia04]

This 737 flew from the US to Taiwan? I didn’t know they had that kind of range.

[@Wick9876]

It flew direct from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Taiwan. I'm confident it didn't fly there direct from Washington DC but I don't know what other stops it made.

[@ebarteldes]

My thoughts exactly

[@-caesarian-6078]

The private jet versions of the 737 have around double the range of the normal 737s, just from replacing the middle cargo area with more fuel tanks. I suspect that this military version of the 737 has the same modifications.

[@Wick9876]

@@-caesarian-6078 The C-40A, which is based on the 737-700, is convertible between cargo and passengers. It has a loaded (30k lb) range of over 3,000 miles and a ferry range of over 4,000.

[@ebarteldes]

@@-caesarian-6078 Thanks. That should be a consideration for AF2, since the 757 is aging rapidly

[@SuperFlyCH]

Me personally, I wasn't tracking it, but I joined a stream that was. So how do I answer that one? 🤪

[@dennisworkmansr.714]

Hell no

[@Pengie0770]

i tracked this plane aswell

[@onsvirjousuid-afrika]

I am a silver user i tracked it 3D the whole time

[@avgeekguy]

I am a Gold user, too bad I didnt get a chance to see this.

[@miab2801]

i tracked it because i was shocked at how many ppl were tracking it i had no idea that it was flying for that reason then thought my phone glitched when i had tried to use it to see any planes over my school the next day

[@bighoss9705]

I do believe AF2 is a 757 not a 737....

[@B1970T]

To clarify: AF2 is the call sign assigned to ANY AIr Force aircraft the VP is on, not just a B757, though that’s the most common type assigned to them, mission dependent. If the V.P was on a Marine aircraft, it would be Marine 2, etc. When the President is going from the WH lawn to Andrews AFB on the Sirkorsky helo, then it’s callsign is, Marine One. Have a good one!

[@rafetorcende6688]

200,000 plus track the flight

[@ebarteldes]

A 737 has such range ?

[@Racko.]

Yes

[@jacobocaj5778]

People pay 4 flight tracker

[@eamonahern7495]

I'm a silver user but I didn't happen to be using it that day

[@vondahe]

My favourite colour is blue.

[@sagittarius_12_archer]

Yes,i'm the one because i seen the aircraft SAR19 passes thru Philippine airspace at that night towards taiwan,flight radar24 log out my account and i'm also on waiting on the list to signing in again

[@steveoflyz]

LET’S GO BRANDON!!!!!

[@ram_1776]

Should not have able to track this flight.

[@someguy4915]

More like 'should not have skipped English lessons'.

[@Lvlaple4Ever]

Thought it would be Elon's jet lol.

[@meejinhuang]

Xi jing ping's plane will be tracked with SAMs now.

[@randomreviews2559]

Lmao do people really care about her this much??😂😂

[@mustafaaasaqib3384]

Nice

[@cjever6625]

flightradar24 even crashed

[@andimilan5348]

Don't worry... Russia, North Korea, China are also tracking this plane as well 😁

[@someguy4915]

Like Russia can afford a FlightRadar subscription xD

[@andimilan5348]

@@someguy4915 😁

[@mikenet1862]

Who cares Nancy

[@mikedc]

I see this plane and other presidential fleet AC all the time. Air force 1 doomsday plane all types of fighters. But might be tracked by you guys but I'm bored of seeing these planes fly over my house every week.

[@grriceman782]

What a colossal waste of resources sending Nancy and her entourage anywhere.

[@GintaPPE1000]

So your dislike of a politician is more important than reminding China that they have no right to order anyone besides their own citizens around? Shame on you and your selfish attitude.

[@tengkualiff]

If only a different Malaysian outbound flight was the most tracked of all time... 🥲

[@kendalldad]

Tracked by Biden too who is not happy about this trip.