How long after a flight do photos appear online?
Most spotter photos are not online straight away. Across the JetPhotos photos Flown and Found holds, half were posted within about a month of being taken, 83% within six months and 91% within a year, and a few took several years. So a photo of a recent flight may simply not be online yet. Flown and Found keeps looking automatically for two years after each flight.
© Ronnie Macdonald · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsYou looked, and found nothing. Yet.
It is natural to search the day after a flight, while it is fresh. It is also the worst time to look. Very few photos are posted the same week: they are sorted and edited first, and the big sites check them against their standards before publishing (Airliners.net describes its own as extremely high). A photo taken this morning might go online next month, or next year.
How long it takes, in numbers
We measured it across the JetPhotos photos we hold, comparing the date each photo was taken with the date it was posted:
| Time since the photo was taken | Share of photos online |
|---|---|
| One week | 4% |
| Four weeks | 46% |
| Six months | 83% |
| One year | 91% |
The middle of the range is 33 days: half of photos are posted sooner, half later. Photos that matched a pilot’s own flight follow the same pattern, a little faster: 58% were online four weeks after the flight, 92% after six months and 98% after two years.
What that means when you search
- Recent flights: do not give up after one search. Look again after a month, and again after six.
- Flights from a year or more ago: nearly everything that will ever be posted already has been, so one careful search across the sites tells you most of what there is to know.
- Very old flights: still worth checking now and then, because a small share of photos are posted years after the day.
Let Flown and Found keep looking
Remembering to search every flight again at the right moments is the kind of job nobody keeps up. Flown and Found does it for you, on a schedule built from these numbers: each flight is looked at again 4, 10, 17 and 26 weeks after it, then at 9 months, a year and two years, on five spotter sites including JetPhotos, Planespotters.net and Airliners.net. Upload your logbook once and late photos are still found.
See which of your flights were photographed. It is free to join. For the full hand method, read how to find photos of aircraft you’ve flown.
Questions
Why can't I find a photo of yesterday's flight?
Most photos are not online yet. Only about 4% of spotter photos are posted within a week of being taken, and about half within a month. Look again in a few weeks, and again after a few months.
Is it worth searching for flights from years ago?
Yes. By a year after a flight, about 90% of the photos that will ever appear are already online, so old flights are the quickest to check thoroughly.
Do photos still appear years later?
A few do. Of the same-day photos we have matched to pilots' flights, about 2% went online more than two years after the flight.
Does Flown and Found search again automatically?
Yes. It looks again 4, 10, 17 and 26 weeks after each flight, then at 9 months, a year and two years, so a photo posted late is still found.
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