New online: A flight-tracking tool for the skies around Southwest Florida International and Page Field airports.
WebTrak is available 24 hours a day at Lee County Port Authority’s website, flylcpa.com.
Airport officials hope it will ease people’s minds and reduce complaints about overflight noise and other unpleasant effects, when residents realize the planes they hear usually are higher than they thought.
People who live in the most-used corridors for air traffic hope to get data showing whether pilots are following the rules and, when it’s safe to do so, flying even higher and farther from homes and businesses.
“We really appreciate (the tracking tool having) been put in place,” said Annie Babcock. She’s a Fort Myers Beach resident who has said arriving jets flying over her neighborhood during peak travel times brought noise akin to “living under a railroad track.”
The port authority has done flight studies and taken input from residents to recommend voluntary practices to airlines, Babcock said. As of Thursday, she hadn’t had time to give WebTrak a workout, but believes it could help prove whether those suggestions are being translated into action.
In Collier County, the Naples Airport Watch group recently reminded folks on its email list that information about instrument-based flights in their area is available by going to FlightAware.com’s “airport tracker info,” and inserting “KAPF” in the box next to “airport code.”
With WebTrak, users can get information about flights following visual or instrument protocols. This includes area flight paths, plane altitudes and more in near real-time. That means you can learn more about that plane you heard overhead maybe 15 minutes ago.
Data on flights going back to as many as 90 days also are accessible.
Aircraft icons on the map are color coded to help identify planes arriving or departing from the two Lee airports or just passing by. Users can drag a house icon to a spot on the map or use an address feature to determine how far a particular aircraft was from their homes or businesses.
Click on a specific plane, and users can get such details as flight number, aircraft type, origin, destination, height and speed.
WebTrak also allows users to make aviation-related noise complaints online. Click on the “Investigate” tab and then click the “Show Complaint Form.“ You do not have to identify a flight to register a complaint.
Airport officials don’t make the rules for flight paths and altitudes. However, they get many of the complaints. In 2012 Lee County Port Authority recorded 369 noise comments, up 27 percent from 291 complaints in 2011. Year-to-date, “we have received 65 percent fewer comments,” said authority spokeswoman Victoria Moreland.
Boca Raton Airport has used WebTrak for about four years, said spokeswoman Kim Whalen. She estimates it has reduced volume of complaints by about 25 percent.
Said Whalen: “It’s a great informational tool.”
Source: http://www.news-press.com
http://www.flylcpa.com
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