This is an update to the original posting. August bank holiday Monday, 2016, was a sunny day and for most of that day, airplane trails were noticeably absent from Liverpool’s skyline. That was until late evening when I was drawing the curtains and noticed a sudden rash of white trails hanging over the city. I therefore went onto Planefinder to see if I could identify the aircraft responsible for this atmospheric graffiti. While I cannot be sure that the plane detailed below was the source of the trails, there is no doubt that its flight path is highly suspicious. What I later discovered about this is odd journey is that it did not happen. It turns out that this strange flight path is a processing error by the Planefinder website. This particular ‘Flybe’ plane is not transmitting its flight details by using a system called Automatic Dependence Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B). Currently, ADS-B is not mandatory but it is the new standard that is being introduced over time and all planes will eventually be compelled to use it. Consequently, this flight has been tracked through the use of ground stations and a system called Multilateration (MLAT). The problem with MLAT is that it requires a minimum of 3 groundstations to detect a plane in flight and to accurately calculate its position. The Planefinder website then uses the data about a plane's position to track its flight path and display it on screen.
The screenshot above describes 6 of the 8 flights that this plane undertook on 29 August 2016. Somehow, the Planefinder software has failed to realise when the plane has landed, so that it can terminate the flight. Instead, when the plane has taken off again, the software has assumed that it is continuing on the same journey. It has also filled in the flight data gaps created when the plane landed, so that it appears to be the continuation of a long and circular flight. This has taught me an important lesson about MLAT data. I believe that aircraft are involved in spraying activities over large parts of Britain. However, it is important that the evidence collected is as robust as possible, otherwise it undermines attempts to get others to take the issue seriously. There is another website called FlightRadar24, which provides similar flight details to Planefinder and it is worthwhile cross-checking flight details across both websites when observing what appear to be suspicious flight activities. Most of the strange flights that I have observed are by non-commercial aircraft whose journeys are tracked by MLAT. However, it is possible that these flights have also been inaccurately described because of the same problems to the ones described above. While ADS-B is a reliable system, MLAT does have shortcomings and these need to be recognised when observing what appear to be unusual flight patterns.
0 Comments
One of the biggest obstacles in convincing others that there is something unusual happening in the skies above them is obtaining proof. The website Planefinder is a worthwhile resource for obtaining the evidence needed to demonstrate that unlawful airplane spraying could be taking place. I was already aware of Planefinder, but unless things have recently changed in terms of the details displayed, I did not realise what a mine of information this website provides. If you hover your mouse over a plane as it moves across the screen, it will display summary details about the journey. By clicking on the plane, it will highlight the path that the plane has taken and provide more detailed information about the flight in a panel on the left hand side. Most of the planes displayed on the site are standard commercial aircraft that transmit data about their flights by utilising a system called Automatic Dependence Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B). Smaller and older planes do not necessarily transmit full details about their flights and the only way to confirm their location is through a system called Multilateration (MLAT). What I have discovered is that planes that utilise MLAT are more likely to display abnormal flight paths, whereby they take indirect routes to their destinations. On the face of it, this might not seem to be significant, as minor flight path variations are commonplace. However, over a couple of days, I identified numerous flights where the degree of deviation from a straightforward flight path was enormous. In some cases, the flights crossed into other countries and travelled overseas, only to eventually land at a location near to where they took off. A key benefit of the Planefinder site is that you can apply a filter, so that it only displays MLAT planes, and this makes it much easier to identify flights that behave abnormally. Planefinder says that it does restrict the information displayed, so that it does not compromise national security, which I believe means that it excludes military aircraft. However, even if military aircraft are not included, the information on MLAT flights is very interesting. I just hope that this data set is not restricted at a later date. It is worth noting that there is one commercial operator that does not transmit data on all of its flights in the normal way. Some ‘Flybe’ journeys are displayed by utilising MLAT and show extraordinarily circuitous routes. Furthermore, ‘Flybe’ has links to the UK military through ‘Flybe Aviation Services’ (FAS), which provides a Maintenance Repair & Overhaul (MRO) service for the RAF’s fleet of A400M aircraft. The FAS contract has been secured via Airbus Military. Below is a slideshow of screen shots from the Planefinder website, which displays the bizarre flight patterns that I observed. I start with those that fly near to Liverpool and then look at similarly irregular flights that pass through the UK. The famous saying “Follow the money”, comes from the film ‘All the President’s Men’, which is about the Watergate scandal. It suggests that if you want to get to the heart of corruption, you have to follow the money trail and see who is providing the resources to fund illegal activities.
This logic should be applied to aircraft trails. If aircraft have been spraying contaminants into the atmosphere for a number of years, then there will be a logistics network in place to ensure that the chemicals being added to aircraft trails are readily available. The main contaminant that seems to be present in various samples from air, rainfall and soil, is aluminium. So, the question is who manufactures and supplies aluminium in a form that would be suitable for spraying from aircraft? Also, if these illicit aircraft activities are happening on a large scale and for sustained periods of time, then it makes sense to keep the aluminium transport costs to a minimum, and the best way to do that is to locate the producers of aluminium close to the airports where the flights operate from. If that is not possible, then the next best thing would be to locate an aluminium factory near to a port or transport hub, so that it is easier to receive raw materials and to ship finished goods. When I have watched airplanes spraying over Liverpool, I have noticed that they seem to originate from west of Merseyside. After some research, it seemed that RAF Valley on the Isle of Anglesey, in North Wales, could be the likely candidate. I therefore decided to check out the airport and the surrounding area on Google Maps. It was then that I discovered that within a short distance of RAF Valley, is a defence company called Aluminium Powder. Not only is it located near to a military controlled air field but it is also located near to the port of Holyhead. Maybe this is a coincidence. Maybe not. If you look at the Defence Suppliers Directory for the Aluminium Powder Company (Alpoco), it says that it is “among the world’s largest manufacturers of aluminium powders and granules...The company has established a leading position in the supply of superfine aluminium powders”. Alpoco is a subsidiary company of Advanced Metallurgic Group (AMG) Superalloys UK (the new name for the London & Scandinavian Metallurgical Co. Ltd), which is a subsidiary of AMG Advanced Metallurgic Group N.V. There are many legitimate uses of aluminium within commercial and military settings but the question is whether aluminium is being used to generate toxic airplane trails over large parts of the UK. If this is happening, then the producers of aluminium powders need to be more transparent about the usage of their outputs, as there is a strong argument for saying that they are responsible for the handling of hazardous materials, even after they have been sold on to other organisations. In other words, if UK citizens are being submitted to sustained levels of pollutants, then the suppliers of such materials should be equally accountable as those that use their products in unethical ways. After all, you would not sell military equipment to criminals, so why would you sell harmful chemicals to those who do not use them responsibly, even if that includes our own government. Follow the chemistry and make the producers accountable. |
CategoriesArchives
January 2018
|