A plane flying over Germany drawing a Christmas tree

[bhaak]

Apparently a test flight of an Airbus 380 by the Emirates airline according to Spiegel Online: http://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/emirates-testflug-ueber-...

So, yes, looks like somebody having a blast during Advent season. :-)

[ndh2]

https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/940959604896358400

> @Airbus is almost finished with their A380 Christmas tree. Will they put a star on top?

[craftyguy]

Looks like they opted to fly over Denmark and draw a penis instead.

[jcims]

While this seems legit, it's worth noting that ADSB, the RF message protocol used for most 'live' location stats in FlightRadar24, has no form of authentication. Nevermind the network protocol weaknesses, trolling FR24 would require little more than a $300 radio and some free software.

[ovi256]

If anyone does that, some very professional people who love hunting radio emitters (so much that they've made it their life's work) will start triangulating him. They'll have a blast, and they're very good at it. And they'll come accompanied by some plentifully armed people who like to use force, and they're very good at it.

[code4tee]

Yes, and it’s not just for these sites but ATC too... although that’s been true of all aviation coms and nav technologies. Someone with some radio gear and a basic understanding of how these systems work could mess things up big time. That’s why, at least in the US, unauthorized broadcasting on aviation Nav or Com frequencies is a deadly serious thing that the Feds don’t take lightly.

[mikeash]

You'd also be trolling the air traffic control system, which would get the attention of people you'd much rather not notice you.

That doesn't prove that this is real, but think twice before trying it out....

[hxxxx]

That's already been demonstrated at defcon. Here's Brad Haines tricking open source flight tracking software into displaying YOURMOM, a connecting flight with the San Francisco International air control tower. Demonstrated in safe conditions in a faraday cage, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXv1j3GbgLk

[Reason077]

"the RF message protocol used for most 'live' location stats in FlightRadar24, has no form of authentication."

I wonder if this is a potential security risk, considering ADS-B is not only used for flight tracking but also air traffic control and collision avoidance?

Could a bad actor (using a drone, perhaps) broadcast a false signal and trick aircraft into performing collision avoidance manoeuvres? Or flood the ADS-B bandwidth with false signals to confuse ATC?

[remael]

They could be employing some verification by using multilateration (time (difference) of arrival) between their receivers, which would make it a lot more resistant to spoofing.

EDIT: https://www.flightradar24.com/how-it-works#mlat

[rootlocus]

It's legit https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/940976806638899201

[upofadown]

Yeah, ADSB is a position reporting system that has to work between aircraft with no prearrangement. Such a thing is inherently insecure by the nature of what it is.

[zhan_eg]

Screenshot of the flight shape at the moment https://i.imgur.com/oPk8XY8.png

[pizzetta]

That's pretty cool, ornaments and all. Boeing flew in the shape of an airliner once http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/08/boeing-plane-flies-test-r...

[scirocco]

Today in Sweden the military flew a couple of jets in xmas tree formation over Stockholm :)

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/oRpj10/darfor-flog-jas-...

[johansch]

Less obnoxious video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu6xitdVlM8

[samdoidge]

*It looks like 'a couple' was correct usage - apologies!

'a couple' = 2, 'a few' would be more accurate :)

[kharms]

Speculating here, but pilots have flight hour requirements for various certifications. Maybe this is a flight that had to happen to log hours but isn’t otherwise necessary so the pilot decided to have some fun.

[VonGallifrey]

It is the Airbus Flight Test Team[0].

The Hamburg XFW Airport is used by Airbus to test their new A380 just before delivery. This Christmas flight was the First Flight of this Tail ID so I would guess that it is a new A380 being tested.

The second flight of this A380 looks more like what we usually see here for these kinds of Test flights[1]. Back and forth usually near Hamburg or over Berlin.

[0] https://twitter.com/Airbus/status/940962395463266305

[1] https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/f-wwae/#fcc5ca7

[eric_h]

It's a test flight - I think the plane needs to log hours.

[joezydeco]

Pre-delivery checkout flight. Airbus' A380 delivery office is at the Finkenwerter plant.

[alistairSH]

I imagine an airliner flying a pattern this large would take the involvement of more than just the pilot/crew. ATC, airline's planning/staffing group, ground crew (fueling), etc.

[infogulch]

Reminds me of last August when a 787 drew a US-sized 787 with it's flight path over 18 hours.

https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-787-8-drawing-test-flight...

[francisofascii]

This type of thing is popular with runners and cyclists. Search for "strava art" The hard part is finding roads that match your desired picture. Or findind a picture with the given roads. Planes have it easy.

[StephanKletzl]

As someone who doesn't look at flight radars often, I'm always surprised by how many planes are flying simultaneously.

Is there an estimation about how many more planes are possible before it gets too crowded?

[mseebach]

Major airports and some routes between clusters of major airports, such as western Europe to the US east coast are already quite crowded with several at capacity.

Also, flight radar, especially at the zoomed out views, looks a lot more crowded than it really is, the airplane-icons are huge.

[mikeash]

Crowding is a problem at airports, because each runway can only handle so many planes per hour.

Outside of that, the sky is a really big place. Not quite big enough that you can completely ignore collision avoidance, but big enough that you can pack in a lot more traffic than we currently do.

[JackFr]

If you watch on a clear night from the roof of my building in Manhattan, you can see about 3-4 planes at a time lined up to land at Newark. Sometimes it seems like the Berlin airlift because they just keep coming.

[tmatthewj]

What a pleasant sight to watch on the map. But I guess the travellers won't be relishing the experience as much as we do. :-)

[devy]

I wonder how much extra would it cost for this Airbus A380 test route in Xmas tree vs. a circle path?

[jdavis703]

I think they have to get in a certain amount of mileage, time and different movements. Flight testing is probably something we don't want bean counters trying to skimp money on.

[swordfish0321]

In america we draw dicks.

[lerie82]

That's bad ass, Merry Christmas Germany.

[agumonkey]

#oneplanetsummit

[d13]

Shouldn't it be "an" xmas tree?

[Pxtl]

Technically abbreviating "Christ" as "X" is actually the letter χ or "Chi". So it shouldn't be pronounced X-mas, as it's really χ-mas.

Same thing with LaTeχ, actually.

[rayvd]

Depends on if you intend it to be read as "Christmas" or "EX" mas. :)

[frandroid]

Xmas is pronounced "Christmas" by most people.

[danjoc]

"plane"

That's Santa Claus making a test run.

[nurettin]

One HN launches drawing-cultural-symbol-with-plane-as-a-service

[frenchie4111]

Can't wait to see all the disrupt presentations talking about how their company is a DCSWPaaS

[yitchelle]

Can be called "Über Doodle".

[dsfyu404ed]

Which gets sued into oblivion for refusing to draw a confederate flag...