RerunKC needs to chime in on the nuances of flight tracking.
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A light hearted and sarcastic article about the Chiefs---MPLS paper.


We here at the Star Tribune take investigative journalism seriously, so when we heard that Taylor Swift's relationship with Travis Kelce was a combination publicity stunt and political psy-op, we went to work.

We filled conference rooms with documents. We executed data analysis. We shined flashlights into the dark web. We wore tinfoil hats over our virtual-reality goggles.

What we found will shock you.

Swift is desperately seeking publicity. She was hired by the NFL to increase the league's popularity. The NFL is rigging games to benefit the Chiefs. Swift is, indeed, a political psy-op agent, and Kelce is her partner in crime.

Here's the proof:

• Kelce and Swift were facing financial ruin before they orchestrated their sham relationship. Kelce has made only $77 million as a football player, and another handful of millions in endorsements. He's going to make only $28 million more in the two final years of his contract, and then may have to take a pay cut that could limit him to single-digit millions per year. Plus endorsements.

Dating Swift is the only way Kelce could afford to buy a house in Kansas City, where all those rich elites have driven up property values.

Swift's influence is so overwhelming that many advertisers hired Kelce before he even met her.

Bloomberg News has estimated Swift's wealth at $1.1 billion. Together, Kelce and Swift, if they time the market right, may be able to afford one of those homes real estate agents describe as "needing a little love."

• The NFL was dying before Swift began hogging the spotlight. She orchestrated her spotlight-hogging by sitting in a private suite and allowing network cameras to show her face for up to 25 seconds throughout a three-hour game while doing zero interviews with NFL media.

Last September, the NFL was estimated to be worth $163 billion. The Dallas Cowboys alone are thought to be worth $10 billion.

Clearly, the NFL needed a Swift kick to the bottom line.

Which is why the NFL ...

• Rigged Chiefs games. Heck, the NFL has done nothing but pave the way for the Chiefs to dominate the league because, as we all know, major sports leagues consider Kansas City to be their most important market. That's why the NFL bribed nine teams, including the small-market Bears and Jets, to pass on Mahomes in the 2017 NFL draft. That's why the NFL allowed the massive-market Tampa Bay Buccaneers to beat the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV and the even-bigger-market Cincinnati Bengals to defeat the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game two years ago.

Even more deviously, the NFL orchestrated last year's Super Bowl, ensuring that the major-market Chiefs would defeat the Eagles, who hail from a little suburb of Camden, N.J., named Philadelphia.

• This is not a result of our exhaustive financial investigation, just a human observation: These two are desperate. How could either ever get a date if they weren't using each other?

• The most serious charge against Swift is that she is a political psy-op agent. Well, as we say in the investigative reporting business, obvi.

Swift is an American citizen encouraging other Americans to vote, and there is no place in a democracy for voting.

• If you need more proof, well, guess what anagrams you can derive from their names.

"Fake story." "Fake love." "Is it real?"

Their names also offer betting advice: "Take (the) over."

Case closed.

What should frighten you is that there is more to come. Swift alone will determine who wins the Super Bowl, the next presidential election and the next Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

This is a travesty, which sounds suspiciously like "Travis ---ce."

Our sources tell us that after the NFL orchestrates another Chiefs Super Bowl victory on Sunday, Swift and Kelce will not go to Disneyland.

They will fly in a black helicopter to Area 51, where they will party with Elvis and JFK, examine airplane contrails with Aaron Rodgers, then fake a moon landing.

We stand by our reporting.
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Not really much nuance here - we just don't 100% know that she's on this particular jet. The link I posted is a charter jet from the same company she flew to get to Tokyo, and it's on a similar timeline and route that everyone would expect for her. It's possible, though, that it's a coincidence and this is someone else who just happens to have a similar itinerary.

(She's apparently not using her own jet due to the distance and number of people flying with her.)
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She could have chartered a big jet like a 747 jet the Chiefs do and brought her whole crew back to the states with her.
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Ha - FlightRadar24 has it labeled "The Football Era." I have no idea where that comes from, but that seems like a pretty solid indicator.

Nice ride.
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I get the interest, but I wish we lived in a world where people saw celebrities as people deserving privacy with respect to their movements around the world.
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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/ta...t-jack-sweeney

UCF student tracking Taylor Swift's private jet claps back after receiving cease and desist

ORLANDO, Fla. - Is bad blood brewing between Taylor Swift and a student at the University of Central Florida? She wants him to stop tracking her private jet, and he's making it clear that he has no intention of shaking it off.

The Washington Post was first to report this week that the "Anti-Hero" singer's legal team sent a cease and desist letter to Sweeney back in December threatening to "pursue any and all legal remedies" if he doesn't stop his "stalking and harassing behavior." The letter was sent because Swift's legal team thinks he has "no legitimate interest" in sharing private jet tracking information, the UCF student said in a statement to FOX 35.

That's "fundamentally incorrect," he said, adding that he actually likes some of the Grammy winning artist's songs.

"Her fans, who have grown the TaylorSwiftJets accounts and subreddit, are the ones truly interested. These tracking accounts consistently have more supporters and fans," Sweeney said. "When the Embassy of Japan in the USA expresses confidence that Swift can make a flight from Tokyo to the Super Bowl, it indicates public interest.

"Therefore, one should reasonably expect that their jet will be tracked, whether or not I’m the one doing it, as it is public information after all."

Sweeney took to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday to clear up some "misinformation" about his jet-tracking antics. He said he doesn't use tracking data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but uses Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) instead.

According to the FAA, ADS-B is a "performance–based surveillance technology that is more precise than radar."

How does it work? It combines "an aircraft’s positioning source, aircraft avionics, and a ground infrastructure to create an accurate surveillance interface between aircraft and (air traffic control)," according to the FAA.

"There is a bit of misinformation circulating. I don't use tracking data from the FAA. I use unencrypted signals broadcast straight from planes (ADS-B). FAA/ICAO mandates aircraft broadcast locations using ADS-B. Hobbyists operate networks that collect these unencrypted signals.

The FCC does not prohibit the collection of unencrypted radio signals such as ADS-B and ACARS. This is done by thousands of feeders who give data to websites like
@live_airplanes, TheAirTraffic, @AirframesIO, and ADSBexchange.

The only data I use from the FAA is aircraft registry info, RVSM operators list data, as well as supplemental FOIAs."

Sweeney also made it a point to mention that The Washington Post's article was published days after Swift's private jet usage and hereby carbon emissions were criticized. Last week, FOX News cited a Reddit thread that said Swift's 40-minute, 164-mile trip from New Jersey to Baltimore cost $1,328 and produced three tons of CO2 emissions. In three months, the jet reportedly created 138 tons of emissions.

Swift's team has told media outlets in the past that her jet is often "loaned out," and all trips on the jet shouldn't be attributed to her, FOX News reports.

"These statements contradict each other, much like her team’s response to owning a single jet, which has only been true for the past two weeks," Sweeney said in his statement. "Her family has owned N898TS and N621MM for years, with ownership only changing recently.

"The claim of owning just one jet seems to be an attempt to downplay the family’s jet use. While this may be true now, it’s a recent development."

Sweeney went on to add that if "privacy and safety" are of importance to Swift and her legal team, they should register the jet to a trust instead of an LLC that is "clearly linked" to her.

"Don’t register the tail number as a resemblance to who you are," he said.

According to TMZ, Swift recently sold one of her private jets to an LLC apparently linked to CarShield CEO Nicholas Hamilton.

As a result of Swift's legal team's threats, the social media account he uses to share Swift's jet tracking information – @taylorswiftjets – has been suspended on Instagram, Threads and Facebook, Sweeney said.

"The accounts got suspended only hours after I received the letter from her team. This means Swift's team also sent threats to Meta, later apparently confirmed by insiders," Sweeney said, adding that the accounts tracking other famous faces – including Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg – are still up and running on Meta platforms.

Sweeney still tracks Musk's jet, too – but with a caveat that he posts the data 24 hours after he's reported to be in the air. This came after a feud between the two back in 2022.

The Tesla and X owner slid into Sweeney's DMs on what used to be Twitter, and offered him $5,000 to stop tracking his private jet. Sweeney turned it down, but ultimately decided to comply with the app's change in policy which required the delay of information.

As Swift vs. Sweeney made national headlines this week, Musk weighed in.

"Sweeney is an awful human being. Taylor Swift is right to be concerned," he said on X.

"Let's remember you offered me 5k to stop. Also threatened to sue me, and here we are a year later," Sweeney replied.

FOX 35 spoke to Sweeney three times in recent years, and two of these times were amid his clash with Musk. Sweeney tried to strike a deal with him after buying X, but no dice.

Last May, Sweeney began to track Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' jet.

"I think there's a lot to learn from people's flights. And like, if he flew somewhere that's out of the unusual, which I'm sure someone will find out (before me)," Sweeney told FOX 35 at the time. "But like, if he went somewhere, it might be to show that where he's announcing or something like that or anything related to their travels could be some kind of big deal also."

At the end of the day, Sweeney said he's not trying to cause harm, but he believes in the "importance of transparency and public information."

Stetson College of Law professor Catherine Cameron, an expert on the First Amendment, told FOX 35's sister station FOX 13 that she tends to agree with him.

"Although I sympathize with her desire to protect her own safety, I really struggle to know what extra information someone could get out of seeing her flight log," Cameron said. "Her schedule is pretty public, especially when she has concerts going on like she does right now. Or public appearances. It's known where she's going. I don't think it's a surprise."

FOX 35 has reached out to Taylor Swift's legal team, but no word back yet. Sweeney said in his statement that Swift's team has dodged his correspondence, too.
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Meh. If I am ever wealthy enough to have my own fleet of jets, I'll take a slight lack of total privacy as the downside of the luxury.
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Yeah, world's smallest violin playing for Taylor on this one.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but she has a whole host of stalkers who are anything but innocently curious of her whereabouts.

But if she has more money than me, fuck her privacy!

I mean, Selena had lots of money so she deserved to be murdered by a fan
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Her killer didn't need to track Selenas flights.
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Relax. Just checked and Selena is alive and well.
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Flightradar24 has a sense of humor. When there was the Chinese balloon over the US, there were other balloons too, they had one labeled 'not the Chinese balloon'


Surprised the tail number is not more TS related. Unless I am missing something.
Even the marvin windows jet has MW as its last letters.


41,000 ft up and 700 mph--holy shit
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This is a chartered jet. The jet she just sold had the tail number N898TS.

The Bombardier jet she's on is the highest performing private jet available. That doesn't include converted commercial jets.

I wonder if she's decided to do a jet-sharing deal with Netjets or the like? Way more difficult to track her every move.
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it ain’t a short jaunt to Vegas from Tokyo. 4 straight night at 3 hours performing. She has to be really tired.
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