January 07, 2023

"Santa Tracker" stories perpetuate public ignorance.

Yes, bah humbug indeed. NORAD and other worldwide military organisations like having a little fun with the idea that Santa is flying though their airspace, and make cute videos depicting their planes intercepting him, his sleigh, and nine reindeer. Adorable.

However, the public can track almost all of the planes mentioned; most of the public don't know that.

Let's take NATO and allied tankers that are frequently used for refueling QRA intercepts. Portraying aircraft that use a publicly viewable transponders as involved in a Santa escort mission isn't just a bit of fun, it reinforces existing misconceptions about the visibility of military aircraft. For the RAF their Voyager tankers are almost always visible by their transponders, same with the RCAF, and the RAAF. Many, most of the public even, don't know that.

More than being a party pooper, I'd like to raise the bar; have the public discover almost all aviation is trackable in real time, and stop pretending we're living in a pre-internet age.

Just as a sample, you can click any of the hot links below and see right now if any of the following aircraft have been in the air in the past day. The list is a super-set of tankers and transport aircraft (eg RCAF 15004 and 15005 are the only tankers, the other three are just transports)

🇦🇺 RAAF Airbus KC-30A (A330-203MRTT) 

A39-001

7CF864

A39-002

7CF865

A39-003

7CF866

A39-004

7CF867

A39-005

7CF868

A39-006

7CF9C8

A39-007

7CF9C9

🇬🇧 RAF Airbus Voyager KC2 (A330-243MRTT) 

G-VYGJ

406B79

G-VYGK

406D26

G-VYGL

406D27

G-VYGM

406E9F

ZZ330

43C6F3

ZZ331

43C6F4

ZZ332

43C6F5

ZZ333

43C6F6

ZZ334

43C6F7

ZZ335

43C6F8

ZZ336

43C6F9

ZZ337

43C6FA

ZZ338

43C6FB

ZZ343

43C700

🇨🇦 RCAF CC-150 Polaris (Airbus A310)

15001

C2B355

15002

C2B35F

15003

C2B3B9

15004

C2B3C3

15005

C2B37D


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