John Wiseman

@lemonodor.bsky.social

4576 Followers 1045 Following

Persistent sousveiller. Walt Disney R&D Imagineer. Runs GPSJAM.org. Signal: wiseman.04 https://heavymeta.org

Map showing a Global Hawk circling off the east coast of the U.S.
Map showing C-17s flying in Europe and the eastern Med.
Daily Briefer: World aviation watch - 23 July 2026, 1710Z Briefing written by Claude Opus 4.8. About 15,600 aircraft in the feed at the anchor, 14,522 with fresh positions, 422 carrying a military flag. Two things stand out this afternoon: an unusually busy US airlift corridor running from Germany into the eastern Mediterranean, and a Navy Global Hawk up above FL500 off the mid-Atlantic coast. Out west, the summer fire-attack machine is running hard. As always this feed favors Western movement, and the finalists reflect that. Seven-plus C-17s working the Germany-to-Aegean corridor at once A heavy run of USAF C-17s is spread along one channel: RCH170 and RCH335 over Bavaria, RCH5015, RCH576 and RCH038 over Hungary and Romania, and RCH674, RCH407 and RCH852 into the northern Aegean toward Greece - seven with live positions at the anchor and an eighth a beat behind, headings mixed as some run out and others come back. This is a Ramstein-anchored flow: RCH5015's datalink logs it flying the Ramstein-to-Azraq leg into Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan [via ACARS]. Where the rest begin and end is not something the feed can confirm.
Day two on the Hormuz tanker anchors Yesterday’s two refueling anchors bracketing the Strait of Hormuz were staffed again: the Gulf of Oman anchor from before 0510Z onward by a relay of KC-46s - five airframes with overlapping handovers, the day’s last relief arriving as the picture closed - the Al Dhafra anchor by a KC-135R and a KC-46. Positions are MLAT and gappy - windows are minimums, and the overnight in between is unobserved. Same boxes, second day running. Aircraft tracking map accompanying “Day two on the Hormuz tanker anchors” Changed after fact-check Two-way traffic on the eastern Med corridor Airlift ran both ways across the eastern Med - US C-17 RCH347, Navy C-130 CNV5315 out of Sigonella, Qatari C-17 LHOB240, and German A400M GAF153 inbound at the anchor; Kuwaiti and Italian C-130Js and a NATO tanker rotated out. Odd leg: German C-130J GAF333 left Amman, flew a low out-and-back into the eastern Jordanian desert - an observed 5,750 ft, roughly 3,500 ft above the desert, with a gap at the far end - then landed at Tel Aviv. Changed after fact-check Russian heavy metal around the Gulf Two Russian Il-76s worked the Emirates: RA-76373, a Gelix Airlines airframe that shuttles Moscow-UAE, departed Sharjah 1355Z eastbound over the Gulf of Oman; RA-76370, an Abakan Air jet that has lived at Al Ain lately, flying overnight runs southeast beyond coverage, lifted off again at 1437Z. Abakan Air has been reported US-sanctioned since 2024 for military cargo flights (The Insider, defenceWeb). And RA-85042, one of the last flying Tu-154s, left Chkalovsky air base around 1353Z into the Gulf of Finland corridor, consistent with the Kaliningrad run.
Chart showing the API costs of Fable 5 tokens that I've used.
Current session 8% used Resets 2:20am (America/Los_Angeles) Current week (all models) 47% used Resets Jul 11 at 4am (America/Los_Angeles) Current week (Fable) 80% used Resets Jul 11 at 4am (America/Los_Angeles)
Photo of two Russian Blue cats
A close-up profile of a young person with light-colored, shoulder-length hair looking through a pair of black binoculars. They are intently watching the space shuttle orbiter test in the distance against a bright, slightly cloudy sky. A Periscope Film watermark and timecode (00:01:15:11) are visible at the bottom.
https://x.com/jamesmishra/status/2071336100220825687
https://mediagraph.io/parkendium/explore/collections/record-00003-costuming-documentation#/assets/f2849bae-3f8b-4e14-9b7c-17b0d4f20c28
Photo of a plastic bag containing chunks of clay labeled GRANDMA's GEORGIA WHITE DIRT
22:38:38 — CYO924 lifts off from runway 25L. 22:38:42 — CYO924 declares MAYDAY to LAX Tower for an engine fire, 4 seconds after liftoff, climbing off 25L. ~22:40 — ARFF6 fire truck starts rolling and pre-positions on Taxiway A. 22:40:19 — IBE03ZB goes around: stops descending at 2,350 ft about 6 miles out on the 25L approach, then climbs away. ~22:42 to 22:44 — ARFF2, ARFF4, and ops vehicle O91 stage along the south side on Taxiway A, 130 to 240 m south of 25L. 22:46:01 — CYO924 touches down on 25L (1.7 m off centerline) on its emergency return. ~22:46:40 — CYO924 turns off to the south, vacating the runway toward Taxiway A. 22:48:48 — CYO924 stops; O91, ARFF2 (106 m) and ARFF4 (141 m) converge on it, about 284 m south of 25L in the Taxiway A area. 22:49:43 — DAL908 lands on 25L (0.6 m off centerline), the first plane after CYO924. 22:51:55 — FDY805 lands on 25L (2.9 m), the second plane after. 22:53:10 — KYE9724 lands on 25L (2.8 m), the third plane after. 22:55:25 — IBE03ZB lands on 25L, the go-around aircraft re-sequenced about 15 minutes later.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DaCUdybgGwI/
Screenshot of my circle & target of interest (TOI) detector.
Screenshot of gtla.live
A dark-mode timeline chart tracking daily GPS jamming from May 10–18, 2026. The chart plots 24-hour rows showing scheduled jamming windows (shaded blue) against actual jammed aircraft (white bars), with daily affected plane counts on the right. Key sequence: • May 10–11: No windows; minimal interference (~10 planes/day). • May 12–13: Scheduled windows activate; heavy jamming hits 274 and 286 planes. • May 14 ("crash day", in red): Jamming peaks at 336 planes. A pink line at 06:00 UTC marks "N249CP last ADS-B fix" inside the active jamming window. • May 15–18: Shaded scheduled windows continue, but actual jamming bars vanish entirely. Daily affected counts immediately drop to single digits (7 to 16 per day).
Image taken from the NTSB preliminary report into the N249CP crash: A Google Earth satellite map displaying the flight path of aircraft N249CP over a desert and mountainous region, annotated with timeline events. A legend in the bottom left indicates that green dots represent "Prelim ADS-B" data and red circles represent "Spidertrack" data. The flight path proceeds chronologically as follows: T/O 2352: The flight takes off from ROW Airport, heading west (marked in green). 0000:26: The plane is "1K' High (13k')" and "Reports GPS Lost." At this point, the tracking data switches from green to red. 0001:17: An annotation reads, "ARTCC Controller Requests Stop Jamming." The plane is on a "275 Hdg to SRR." The plane makes a right turn northward, annotated "Cleared to REYOK 350 Hdg." 0005: As it travels north, an annotation reads, "ARTCC Supervisor Requests Stop Jamming." 0008:06: Near the top of its northward path, the plane is "Visual with SRR" and makes its "Final Radio Transmissions." The track briefly switches back to green dots. 0010: The plane makes a sharp left turn toward the west. Annotations read "ARTCC Informs Military Airplane is Visual" and "Airplane Starts Descent From 12k'." The tracking data switches back to red circles. 0015: The path continues westward into mountainous terrain and terminates at a red crash symbol labeled "N249CP," with the annotation "End of Flight Data."
PurpleAir screenshot showing 10-minute PM2.5 values of 272 in Eagle Rock Los Angeles
Image from the NTSB report: A Google Earth satellite map displaying the flight path of aircraft N249CP over a desert and mountainous region, annotated with timeline events. A legend in the bottom left indicates that green dots represent "Prelim ADS-B" data and red circles represent "Spidertrack" data. The flight path proceeds chronologically as follows: T/O 2352: The flight takes off from ROW Airport, heading west (marked in green). 0000:26: The plane is "1K' High (13k')" and "Reports GPS Lost." At this point, the tracking data switches from green to red. 0001:17: An annotation reads, "ARTCC Controller Requests Stop Jamming." The plane is on a "275 Hdg to SRR." The plane makes a right turn northward, annotated "Cleared to REYOK 350 Hdg." 0005: As it travels north, an annotation reads, "ARTCC Supervisor Requests Stop Jamming." 0008:06: Near the top of its northward path, the plane is "Visual with SRR" and makes its "Final Radio Transmissions." The track briefly switches back to green dots. 0010: The plane makes a sharp left turn toward the west. Annotations read "ARTCC Informs Military Airplane is Visual" and "Airplane Starts Descent From 12k'." The tracking data switches back to red circles. 0015: The path continues westward into mountainous terrain and terminates at a red crash symbol labeled "N249CP," with the annotation "End of Flight Data."
Chart of go arounds.
Video showing the go around.
A line and scatter plot chart titled "KSFO daily operations — official FAA ATADS count." A subtitle at the top reads: "Official tower operations (takeoffs + landings). Public ATADS data currently ends Apr 30 2026, so the post-ban window is ~1 month." Axes: The y-axis measures "operations / day (tower)" from 0 to 1200+. The x-axis measures the "date (UTC)," spanning roughly from mid-December 2025 to May 2026. Data and Trend: The chart plots individual daily operations as light blue dots, with a solid dark blue line representing the "7-day average." The trend line remains relatively stable across the entire timeline, supporting the conclusion that overall operations were unaffected. Key Annotations: A horizontal dotted line on the left side indicates a "before-ban avg 1091 ops/day". A vertical dashed line intersects the graph at the end of March, labeled "FAA parallel-approach ban Mar 31 2026". A horizontal dotted line on the right side indicates a slightly higher "after-ban avg 1141 ops/day". Source: Text in the bottom left corner cites "Source: FAA ATADS / OPSNET (aspm.faa.gov/opsnet), Airport Operations, KSFO."
A two-panel chart titled "KSFO: the end of simultaneous parallel approaches and the collapse in TCAS RAs," plotting data from roughly mid-December 2025 to mid-June 2026. A vertical dashed line intersects both charts, labeled "FAA ban Mar 31 2026." Top Chart: Titled "Simultaneous parallel approaches per day at KSFO." It displays a blue line representing the 7-day average of approaches. Before the ban, the daily approaches fluctuated heavily with a "before-ban avg 45/day." Immediately following the March 31 ban, the line flatlines to an "after-ban avg 0.0/day." Bottom Chart: Titled "TCAS Resolution Advisories (RAs) per day at KSFO (approach corridor + field)." It displays a red line representing the 7-day average of RAs. Before the ban, RAs occurred frequently with a "before-ban avg 2.6/day." After the ban, the line drops significantly to an "after-ban avg 0.3/day." The bottom left corner cites the source as "airplanes.live ADS-B data."
Photo of a toggle switch labeled "AIS SELECTOR"
airplanes.live screenshot showing N84BZ on short final into KWHP.
A screenshot of the ADS-Bit interface showing a retro, 16-bit pixel art flight tracker. The main screen depicts a side-view of a desert landscape with a Las Vegas city skyline and mountains in the background. Three pixel-art passenger airplanes fly horizontally across a blue sky dotted with smiling clouds. A sidebar titled "AIRCRAFT IN VIEW" lists flights UAL2127, UAL2113, and ASA593. A bottom dashboard shows the connection status, a viewing direction of East, and local Las Vegas information including the date (Sun, Jun 14, 12:00 PM), clear weather at 103°F, and sunrise/sunset times.
Screenshot of a scanner control app
Airplanes.live screenshot.
A one-way Iranian Shahed attack drone downed the Apache helicopter gunship on Monday, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, confirming an earlier report by Axios. President Trump had announced earlier on social media that Iran had shot down the helicopter as it patrolled near the Strait of Hormuz, but he did not provide details.
Airplanes.live screenshot.
airplanes.live screenshot.
Airplanes.live screenshot showing 7 balloons flying over the LA area, NW to SE.
Part 2 is about what happened after. What maintainers actually said. How they handled scrutiny. Some of them fixed things. Some of them threatened ISP complaints. Some of them quietly changed the issue titles and closed everything before anyone noticed. At least three projects didn't just ignore the issues or bulk-close them. They edited the issue titles first, replacing specific technical descriptions with vague labels, then closed them. Out of sight, not searchable, tracker looks clean. Deliberate evidence management. 45 osiris issues bulk-closed in one day, zero fixes 71 GlobeNewsLive issues, zero responses 3+ projects that renamed issues before closing them 15 GHOST-osint-crm issues fixed, all with commit refs 13 hantavirus-tracker issues addressed with detail
SoCal Aviation Watch - Sunday Morning, June 8 A quiet early Sunday over the basin, maybe 380 aircraft aloft and nothing screaming at the top of the scan. The interesting traffic is out at the edges this morning: a vintage Boeing 707 flying a tanker towline up the coast, and a small fleet of military-contract aircraft working the offshore range around San Clemente Island. A Cold War 707 working a refueling towline off the coast The standout is OME77, a Boeing 707-3K1C (N707GF) operated by Omega Aerial Refueling Services - a contractor that flies commercial aerial-refueling for the military. This jet has a story: built in 1974, it was once a Boeing 707 bought for Romania and reportedly served as dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's VIP transport before Omega converted it into a probe-and-drogue tanker. This morning it climbed out of the inland LA area, leveled at exactly 22,000 ft, and settled onto a long, dead-straight northwest leg paralleling the coast - off Long Beach, past Santa Catalina, and up beyond Point Conception toward San Luis Obispo. That fixed-altitude, fixed-heading towline is the signature of a tanker setting up to pass gas, almost certainly to military receivers working the coastal ranges. In recent visible history this airframe ranges all over the country on the OME77 callsign; today it is ours. A contract air force over San Clemente Island The other cluster is offshore, low and slow over the Navy ranges around San Clemente Island (KNUC). Phoenix Air had two airframes working - N118PA, a Saab 340 down near 500 ft over the water, and N465PA, an EMB-120 inbound from the north. Phoenix Air holds a Navy Contracted Air Services deal flying simulated electronic-warfare threats for fleet training. Alongside them were N238PT - a turbine de Havilland Caribou registered to Nordluft, a rarity that once flew NATO support out of Bagram - and N434CA, a CASA-212 rigged for jump operations, circling at 600 to 1,600 ft. Both trace to Rampart Aviation and routinely run peopl…
https://x.com/RamseyFaragher/status/1936748526639440218
Still from the Veritasium video showing Russian early warning satellites in Molniya orbits.
Photo of a spent Chinese Long March 3B rocket body, imaged by a Vantor WorldView Legion satellite from 88 km away
B&W Photo of a mysterious looking double-ring kite
Air to Ground Message: HOW DO I TELL THE OPTIMIZER I DONT WANT TO FLY THRU THE WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE Area: Austin, TX, USA Type: Boeing 737-800 A: #a8864fb8fbe F: #f94a6fd462a
Screenshot of the Simple Flying flight tracking map
A 3D Google Earth visualization displaying the flight approach paths of numerous aircraft descending toward Newark Airport's Runway 29 over Newark Bay and the surrounding industrial landscape. Over a hundred background flights are traced in semi-transparent white lines, creating a tight funnel. Four specific Boeing 767-400 flight tracks are highlighted in bold colors: red, blue, green, and orange. The red track represents the UAL169 incident flight.
A screenshot featuring two diagrams from a preliminary NTSB report regarding United Airlines Flight 169. The top diagram, labeled "Figure 3," is a Google Earth aerial view detailing the airplane's flight path over the New Jersey Turnpike toward the approach end of Newark's Runway 29. The path includes plotted timestamps and altitudes above ground level (AGL). A yellow arrow highlights a "15 ft high Light post" on the turnpike. Between the timestamps 1350:04 and 1350:05, the aircraft descends from 19 ft AGL to 18 ft AGL, passing directly over the light post. A caption clarifies that the turnpike is 5 feet higher than the runway. The airplane touches down at 1350:12 at 0 ft AGL. The bottom diagram is a line graph charting both Altitude (in feet) and Speed (in knots) against Time (EDT in hours and minutes) from 13:46 to 13:50. The graph contains four traces plotted across several waypoints (IZEKO, PRYRR, JIMLO, AFISK, AXELL, NOWAY): Flight Data Recorder (FDR) corrected pressure altitude in red, ADS-B groundspeed in green, FDR airspeed in solid blue, and Programmed target airspeed in dashed blue.
Screenshot of the Claude Code desktop app: Plenty going on. Here's what stands out over SoCal right now (live feed, 16:21 UTC / 9:21 AM PDT): 🔥 Likely active fire response — Riverside County Two CAL FIRE Firehawks (Sikorsky S-70i / UH-60) are working the Calimesa / Beaumont / San Timoteo Badlands area: CFR605 (N478DF) — orbiting one tight spot near Calimesa (33.96, -117.09), avg 36 kt at ~2,000 ft for the last 30+ min. That hover-and-orbit pattern is classic water-dropping/recon over an incident. track CFR608 (N476DF) — ranging more widely between San Bernardino foothills and the Cajon area at ~70 kt, likely shuttling to a water source. track Two Firehawks committed on a weekday morning strongly suggests a brush fire near Calimesa/the Badlands worth keeping an eye on. 🛩️ Defense / government N72NG — Northrop Grumman King Air 350, climbing out of the Palmdale/Antelope Valley at 12,000 ft. Their test/utility shuttle. track FLC72 (N72) — FAA flight-check King Air, 11,250 ft over the South Bay — out calibrating navaids/approaches. track 🚁 Law enforcement & news birds N230LA — LAPD Air Support AS350 orbiting over central LA (~1,400 ft). track N71HD — Helinet AS350 (the news/ENG helicopter operator) over the Hollywood/Burbank area. track Plus Huntington Beach PD (Hughes 500), Ontario PD and San Bernardino Sheriff AS350s all up. 💼 Odd one out N313BK — a Bombardier Global 6000 heavy bizjet down at 250 ft / 124 kt near Camarillo (KCMA). A jet that big into Camarillo is unusual — either a tight approach or a missed/low pass. Want me to dig into any of these — e.g. confirm the Calimesa fire by pulling CFR605's full orbit, or run the registry/ownership history on the Global 6000?
Video showing 3 months of maritime traffic near the Strait of Hormuz.
A close-up photograph of a Sony digital camera's LCD screen displaying a captured image of a real-world "aircraft-to-aircraft close visual encounter." The photo on the screen shows two large jets crossing paths high in a bright blue sky, each leaving long white contrails. From the photographer's perspective on the ground, the lower blue and white jet appears to be passing directly underneath the higher white jet in a tight visual alignment.
Video showing an augmented reality interface. The video shows the user in an area with green grass and trees. The sky is blue, with a few clouds. The AR overlay shows multiple aircraft tracks in the sky.
A screenshot of a dark-themed web application interface named "SPOOR," designed for advanced flight tracking and aviation investigation. The central dashboard features the heading "What are we hunting today?" above a grid of suggested complex queries categorized by actions like MAP, DETECT, INVESTIGATE, and CHART. Example prompts include finding drones that squawked 7400, mapping ATC facilities using specific frequencies, and charting U.S. military aircraft crossing the Atlantic. A left sidebar displays a history of recent searches targeting specific aircraft tail numbers. The bottom of the screen features a command input bar flanked by active database indicators (such as TRACES and NASR) and an AI model selector set to "Opus 4.8". The interface uses a terminal-inspired design with neon green text accents, giving it the appearance of a professional intelligence tool.
A vintage 1987 photograph of a young man kneeling on an airfield tarmac next to the front wheel of a yellow and white Cessna 150 H airplane. He is wearing dark aviator sunglasses, a shiny silver bomber jacket, a teal shirt, dark jeans, and white sneakers. Resting on the ground beside him are three blue and white bags of Vons brand flour, intended for marking wreck sites from the air. In the background, another small airplane, a blue sports car, and distant mountains are visible.
airplanes live screenshot
FAA chart showing daily spoofing trends from January to June 2025.
A dark-themed informational graphic analyzing the flight path of aircraft N2132X, a Mooney M20M operated by Scientific Aviation, on May 3, 2026, in the Sacramento Valley. The left side features a map with a flight track colored by altitude (from blue at 250 ft to red at 3,050 ft), showing a route departing from KLHM and visiting three distinct locations where the plane flew in tight, circular, stacked-orbit patterns. Text on the right explains this was an "aerial methane-emissions quantification mission" surveying three municipal landfills: Western Regional Sanitary Landfill, Kiefer Landfill, and Yolo County Central Landfill. A section titled "Why the spiral?" explains that flying repeated loops at rising altitudes draws a virtual cylinder around the source to measure methane concentrations and calculate emission rates using a mass-balance profile. A footer displays flight stats: 3 hours 15 minutes time aloft, 3 landfills surveyed, an orbit altitude band of ~250–3,050 ft, and a chronological timeline of the flight from 18:57 to 22:12 UTC.
Below are the largest number of observations seen within any one year within any given decade. SELECT decade: FLOOR(year / 10)::INT * 10, MAX(num_obs) FROM yearly_counts GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 1; ┌────────┬──────────────┐ │ decade │ max(num_obs) │ │ int32 │ int64 │ ├────────┼──────────────┤ │ 1940 │ 5284124 │ │ 1950 │ 6046249 │ │ 1960 │ 5789299 │ │ 1970 │ 10288125 │ │ 1980 │ 12507342 │ │ 1990 │ 24676905 │ │ 2000 │ 49115404 │ │ 2010 │ 58220234 │ │ 2020 │ 59742202 │ └────────┴──────────────┘ I checked the latest forecast in this year's dataset as it was valid up to about 30 minutes before I ran this command. $ ~/duckdb asos.duckdb SELECT MAX(valid) FROM 'https://data.source.coop/dynamical/asos-parquet/year=2026/data.parquet' ┌──────────────────────────┐ │ max("valid") │ │ timestamp with time zone │ ├──────────────────────────┤ │ 2026-05-26 20:40:00+03 │ └──────────────────────────┘
Photo of a chicken being held on top of a Monome.
While not as severe as some prior GPS jamming events, tonight's events were unsafe and could hurt people in a more severe or complex situation. This issue has been going on for years at ZAB. There have been multiple briefings on the order, with several serious conversations with the military on the effects of GPS jamming. It has been repeatedly briefed to our facility that if jamming is affecting one aircraft, much less multiple, they are to stop the jamming operation and "stop buzzer." The Manager On Duty deciding that the effect on the plane wasn't severe enough to stop jamming is alarming. Someone not flying the plane nor working the positions taking the equipment failure reports should be deciding to continue jamming. Someone will get hurt ignoring the pilot reports or deciding for pilots how much equipment can fail or be unreliable before they "agree" or decide to stop GPS jamming. Suggestion: Stop GPS jamming when aircraft equipment starts to fail or is unreliable. Retrain Operation Managers on how critical a situation is when equipment fails or is unreliable in an aircraft. Follow existing protocol for GPS jamming and "stop buzzer" procedures. Brief the workforce on the process to stop GPS jamming.
A dark-themed timeline chart displaying observed GPS jamming near White Sands Missile Range from May 10 to May 18, 2026. Each date is a row with a 24-hour timeline. Scheduled NOTAM windows for GPS interference are highlighted with blue shading, and white bars show the number of aircraft experiencing bad GPS in 30-minute intervals. On May 12, 13, and 14, tall white bars indicate heavy jamming directly correlating with the scheduled NOTAM windows. May 14 is highlighted in red as "crash day," with a pink vertical line marking the "N249CP last ADS-B fix" right in the middle of active jamming. For the subsequent four days (May 15–18), wide NOTAM windows remain scheduled, but the white bars are completely flat, indicating no actual jamming took place.
Satellite map titled "N249CP crash 2026-05-14" comparing the aircraft's planned and actual flight paths over New Mexico. A dashed magenta line indicates the filed flight plan, showing a direct route from KROW airport to KSRR airport via waypoints CME281025 and REYOK. A solid green line shows the actual ADS-B flight data, which deviates significantly from the plan by looping far to the north before turning back southwest. An orange dashed line indicates an ADS-B gap, connecting the end of the erratic green path straight to an orange 'X' marked "N249CP Crash site" in a rugged, mountainous area.