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The plane going in circles above my head for an hour now, what could it be?

flight radar data

Sahil
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  • Still going: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/IAD9503 – Greg Hewgill May 18 '22 at 22:00
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    Does this answer your question? Why is this plane circling around the Lucknow airport every day? – FreeMan May 19 '22 at 12:58
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    Without the vertical profile, and w/o the apt showing, it's not a dupe IMO and needs its own answer, also this (but that's beside the point here, but was a recent discovery and is still valid/being linked to from the help center) –  May 19 '22 at 13:07
  • @FreeMan Whilst I wouldnt want to see us drowned by questions showing an FR24 track with the question "Why is this plane doing this?", suggesting this is a duplicate based on the fact that they happen to both be training flights in completely different parts of the world with different aircraft is ... well..... somewhat not what duplicates are! You are of course free to suggest a duplicate any time you see fit, but just think about whether the question is the same (duplicate) or whether the answer might be similar - probably not a duplicate. – Jamiec May 19 '22 at 19:18

1 Answers1

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The vertical profile matches that of a plane staying in the pattern doing touch and go landings or practice approaches.

enter image description here

The airport doesn't show on the maps of the flight tracking websites, since it doesn't have a 3-letter IATA code I suppose, but from Google Earth the airport is HAL Airport (IATA: HAA128, ICAO: VOBG), at an elevation of 2,912 ft. The one dip to zero has to do with how FR24 processes if the plane has landed; FR24 doesn't show height above ground.

From 2018, indiatimes.com reported that "At HAL Airport, pilots spread their wings":

Major domestic carriers such as Alliance Air, Jet Airways, Jet Lite, IndiGo, GoAir, Vistara, Air Asia and SpiceJet have been using the airport to train their pilots and crew members.

Similar to this: Why is this plane circling around the Lucknow airport every day?

  • Good answer, I'm deleting mine due to your additional information. –  May 18 '22 at 22:37
  • @757toga thanks for the compliment, and sorry, this was just easier than the comments; it was a tricky one because zoomed out, the airport has no "pin" on FR24. –  May 18 '22 at 22:39
  • Your research is always excellent. Makes perfect sense. –  May 18 '22 at 22:44
  • See also: https://www.quora.com/Why-some-commercial-filghts-like-AirAsia-VTATF-keep-flying-over-HAL-airport-almost-12-times-on-27-Feb-4-5-P-M-IST-Picture-attached and: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/private-airlines-training-pilots-at-hal-airport/articleshow/50352270.cms . HAL is a training field for Air Asia – DeltaLima May 18 '22 at 22:50