Earlier records counted an aircraft entering a low area near an airport as a touch-and-go. That method could count an ordinary departure, a full-stop arrival, or a low approach. We withdraw the earlier touch-and-go totals and the rankings, trends, operator or airport adherence claims, and program-execution or statutory conclusions derived from them. Do not use those claims as current findings.
The revised analysis separates a circuit-shaped path from a runway event. It calls an event a likely touch-and-go supported by ADS-B only when the available samples show an airborne approach, a brief moving on-ground roll, and a climb without a nearby observed stop. Low observations without that sequence are marked unresolved. Three distinct low near-field passes with observed excursions between them, at a plausible training cadence, can flag probable pattern work for review. The time comparison uses each event's own timestamp.
The FAA Pilot/Controller Glossary defines a touch-and-go as landing and departing without stopping or exiting the runway. Public ADS-B cannot prove wheel contact. There is no basis to promise zero false positives or false negatives.
The earlier public summary displayed 28,179 touch-and-goes and 1,323 sessions outside guidance for January 1–September 22. The revised analysis screens 6,861 candidate near-field sessions, with 175 supported likely touch-and-go events, 28,964 unresolved low near-field observations, and 19 sessions potentially outside a checked measure. The two versions select and classify sessions differently, so the old and new totals are not a measured rate of change in flying. They show how strongly the earlier classification overstated what the telemetry could prove.
Archived previous totals · Revised summary data
The 175 supported likely events span all 6,861 candidate sessions. The 6,192 public R2 session pages contain 170 of those events; five occur in candidates without a published page. These counts cover different sets of sessions and are not competing totals.
Each field has archived samples on 259 of the 265 dates in this period. Those dates do not establish complete reception of every aircraft or operation during the observation windows.
The correction covers the available observations from January 1 through September 22, 2026 at Erie, Boulder, Longmont, Rocky Mountain Metro, and Centennial airports. New session references carry R2. Earlier cited pages and PDFs remain as the original archived record, but their affected claims are withdrawn by this dated entry. The 6,192 R2 pages are screened observations, not 6,192 adjudicated incidents.
The affected report series are the January–August, March–August, and June–August five-airport summaries, their airport reports, and their operator dossiers. Earlier touch-and-go counts, comparative rankings and trends, named registrant conclusions, airport-program adherence claims, and downstream legal or statutory statements in these series are superseded. The R2 five-airport summary and revised airport reports for Erie, Boulder, Longmont, Rocky Mountain Metro, and Centennial show the revised screen; neither proves absence of all other activity.
For example, the earlier N545Z at BJC record called a departure and later return touch-and-goes. The underlying samples support a departure and full-stop arrival, with no supported touch-and-go in that session. That old finding is withdrawn; there is no corresponding R2 public session page. The N529NG Erie record similarly counted a full-stop arrival; its old finding is withdrawn.
The observation windows are 05:30–08:00 and 20:00–24:00 Mountain time. Midday is not collected; receiver gaps and incomplete ground status can hide events. The unresolved category is part of the result and must be read beside the supported count. The 19 screened Erie sessions have not been matched to independent runway logs or video. A screened status is not a regulatory finding or a judgment about an aircraft operator. The airports' programs are voluntary.
View the revised record · Report a record issue. We acknowledge reports within five business days. Public corrections require human review.