Flight information

I'm a bit late to this but bear with me.

Yesterday evening I took my son to Heathrow. He was catching a flight to Chengdu (China's fifth largest city) via Abu Dhabi.

At baggage drop-off they attached a large red label to his rucksack with the words 'Hot Transfer' in bold white letters.

Looking at the flight times I saw why. There was less than an hour between arrival in Abu Dhabi and departure (on a different plane) to Chengdu.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post.

When I left Heathrow I popped in on friends in Watford. Gary, who I have known since university, loves gadgets and he immediately took me outside with his iPad to demonstrate an app called Flightradar24.

God knows how, but the app calibrates whatever aircraft is overhead and tells you the flight number and where it is heading.

Impressively, it can also track the position of any commercial aircraft currently airborne, anywhere in the world.

So, two minutes ago I checked the position of flight EY818 to Chengdu and discovered it's just north of Calcutta (Kolkata), altitude 41,000 feet, speed 457 knots.

Estimated time of arrival is 19:33 (local time), 30 minutes ahead of schedule, or 12:30 UK time.

Amazing.

OK, I'll do some work now.