We brought an antenna to Davos to track private airplanes, here's what we found

[jgrahamc]

And what they found was... nothing? This is a strange article, you keep thinking they are going to tell you something interesting. And then they don't. For example, they have a map showing that helicopters took the same routes: it's almost as if people are flying to and from the same airports and there's some sort of plan in place for where they fly. Who knew?

Chartering a helicopter flight from Zürich to Davos can cost as much as $10,000. We built our helicopter-tracking rig for under $200.

Is that supposed to be some weird juxtaposition?

Almost feels like this entire article is a justification for them being able to expense the cost of building an ADS-B set up.

[koliber]

The InterContinental hotel at which many attendees were staying cost $56 million to build. We bought our lunch for $8.

[brudgers]

I found the story about collecting the data intellectually interesting. [1] That there isn't some earth shattering pseudo-analysis for the sake of link bait is okbyme. Maybe something will pop out of the data or maybe I can simply use it to confirm my own beliefs. Anyway, it reminds me of hacking for the sake of hacking [1] and I appreciate the attention given to the write up: line drawings of helicopters rather than Medium style meme GIF's.

YMMV [1]

[1]: Admittedly, that may be a greater reflection of the low quality of my intellect than the high quality of the article.

[nashashmi]

I thought about submitting this article to HN, but I thought it would a waste of everyone's time. There was no "point" of the article. Except for maybe that helicopters are used in Davos.

[mynewtb]

Absolutely nothing of relevance? What a sad piece, this should have gone into the drawer or better as a sidenote in some actual reporting to keep others from wasting their time on it.

[yanofsky]

While clearly some of you folks don't find it interesting, we found:

- The approximate volume of helicopter traffic that fly into and out of Davos, which was previously unknown

- The approximate number of helicopters that fly into and out of Davos, which was previously unknown

- The exact types of helicopters that were flying around Davos, which was previously unknown

This data also provide a benchmark for future analysis of and reporting on helicopter use patterns at Davos and elsewhere.

[Gys]

Genuinely wondering: why do you think that is of interest ?

[aeaejei]

The title should indicate that the article focuses on private helicopters as opposed to other private aircraft.

[rasz_pl]

We brought an antenna to Davos to track private airplanes, you wont believe what happened next.