Turning the boat around at EWR

[keith]

On Mar 11, 11pm EDT, EWR swapped from rwy 22L/R to 4L/R as the winds picked up out of the northwest. If you're curious what that process looks like when there is a sky full of planes, look no further...
http://keith.tristesse.com/object/turning_boat_at_EWR.html

Hats off to the controllers involved in this one...I can only imagine how much coordination this required. If any of the N90 EWR guys would care to comment as to how all of this is managed, I would love to hear it. It's awesome to watch.  Please excuse my amateur commentary on the video, I figured some guidance for the uninitiated would be better than a silent movie.

[captray]

That's pretty cool, as a pilot I can appreciate the work that goes into this swap. You didn't memtion that all of this has to be coordinated with LGA, JFK, TEB, and MMU. That's what make the NY metro area controlers the best!

[keith]

Very true, although TEB and MMU are fairly quiet at that time of night. In fact, MMU tower wouldn't even have been open.

I was focused on EWR for that video, but, as you eluded to, JFK seems to run the show. Based on a comment left on my site, JFK swapped at 9:40pm, followed by LGA at 10:20 PM.  EWR followed right around 11pm. I wonder if it's any coincidence that each was 40 mins apart.

[thedude]

What software are you using to track the flights?

[keith]

Passur's Airport Monitor.

I added a link to the EWR Passur feed from that same page.  I use Jing (a free screen/voice recorder that encodes to a Flash video) to record the playback and embed it on the page.

[thedude]

Thanks!

I live in Memphis, and often have the FedEx planes passing over my house around 5-7,000 feet...would be cool to see where their coming from and what their doing.

[keith]

The only airports served by passur's free product are listed here:
http://www.passur.com/airportmonitor-locations.htm

If you want to track individual flights, though, there's always flightaware and fboweb.

[thedude]

Isn't there a program that tracks flights out there?

I think you have to pay like $100 for it, but you can install it on your computer, and it uses a network of users to relay radar information and what not back and forth..or something like that.

[cessna157]

Isn't there a program that tracks flights out there?

My airline uses a program called FlightView.  They have a website that you can search individual flights, but the program allows you to view any flight in the NAS.  You can filter by almost any preference (Aircraft type, departure airport, destination, airline, etc....).  It is an absolutely awesome asset to have.  The Flight Controllers and Dispatchers use to to track the airlines' flights around the world, and the ramp tower uses it to track all flight into/out of the airport to update ETAs, check flight status, etc.  Unfortunately the licensing for the program is in the thousands of dollars per month.

[keith]

Update: 3rd video added, this one is real time, and includes ATC audio.
Audio taken from camcorder while flying from FOK-N07.

Use the next/prev buttons above the movie to cycle through them.

[joeyb747]

Very cool vid. Very interesting. Thanks for posting that!