NOTE: I used Claude to make this project (putting it upfront so it's clear).

I love the blue range outline present on a readsb/tar1090 setup but found it to not give the true picture of what your antenna can capture. There are a good amount of mountains surrounding me and so I can usually capture all planes before the mountains but only aircraft at cruising altitude beyond the mountains. I wanted to be able to visualize this in 3D space which is why I built this tool to help me do that!

It adds a single button to your current tar1090 visualizer so you can easily view the range whenever you want to. It works the same as the normal range outline where you have to let it run for a few days or so to "carve" out the range of your antenna.

The coverage envelope is color coded by altitude, using the same colors tar1090 already uses for aircraft. The aircraft your antenna is currently seeing show up as small colored boxes inside the envelope. OpenStreetMap is overlayed underneath so you can understand where exactly your coverage under a certain altitude drops off.

I hope someone else also found themselves wanting something like this and if so here is the github:

https://github.com/Charan-N15/ADS-B-3D-Antenna-Range-Visualizer

Please let me know if there are any bugs!!!

4:30am EST. The least seen military aircraft I've seen in a while. A border patrol helicopter, a vip army Bombardier doing circles, a Globemaster, and a C17. There's always a C17. The circles have to be some night flight hours is my guess. Edit. Sorry, not a globemaster, that's a Herc down near the gulf.

Saw this twin engine plane fly at an altitude between 300-400ft. Never seen aircraft fly that low in the North Tampa/Land O Lakes area. No registration number on flightradar. Not seeing it on Flight Aware. Here's the adsb exchange link: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a4c2c5

Any clue what this could be for?

https://globe.airplanes.live/?icao=ae11de

This is a widget I've been working on for Tesserae, a self-hosted dashboard server for e-paper displays. It shows what's within 50 km of my place in Melbourne. Each aircraft is painted from a photo of that exact airframe and sized by wingspan, with its callsign, type, altitude, whether it's climbing or descending, and its route.

Where the data comes from

• Positions: adsb.lol, falling back to adsb.fi. You can point it at your own receiver's aircraft.json instead. It needs the registration and type fields that tar1090-db adds (ultrafeeder and adsb.im include them); without them you'll get callsigns and altitudes but no photos or paintings. I've only tested this against a mocked feed so far, so reports from real setups are very welcome.
• Type and wingspan: from the ICAO type code. The operator comes from the callsign.
• Routes: adsbdb.
• Photos: planespotters.net, credited to the photographer. The paintings on the frame are made from those photos.

What it can do

• Four layouts: a single photo, a single framed plate, a cluster like the one in the photo, or one big painted scene with a sky that follows the real time of day and weather.
• A "since the last render" mode. Instead of one moment, the page shows everything that passed since the last refresh, each aircraft at its closest point. That works better on e-paper, which might only refresh once an hour.
• It keeps a log of every pass and estimates how many distinct airframes fly over you.

Free and open source: AGPL, no account needed. The paintings are optional. They use your own fal.ai key at about US$0.04 each, and each airframe is painted once and then kept. Photo mode costs nothing.

Known bugs: This photo is from an older build. The Jetstar A320 has its landing gear painted on, which has since been fixed. There are still a few rough edges to work out, so if you try it and something looks off, please open an issue or let me know here.

Widget: https://github.com/dmellok/tesserae-widget-overhead

Tesserae: https://github.com/dmellok/tesserae

Website: https://tesserae.ink

I don't think I've ever seen anyone beside military cut straight through this airspace before.

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=acd5a1

It took off in Ellington airport on Texas, it’s doing a mission under “imagery support” campaign for NASA. (I searched it up)

Hey r/ADSB,

Remember the nearPlane project from a while ago? It was a cool concept to turn an M5StickC into a pocket-sized aircraft tracker, but the upstream project hasn't been active for a year.

Since I had an M5StickC Plus 2 dying in my desk drawer (I know you all have at least one!), I decided to take the original idea, rewrite the core, and push it much further.

I just released nearPlane+ – a major "hard fork" loaded with new features for aviation enthusiasts.

GitHub Repository

You can grab the source code, check the instructions, and flash it from here:
https://github.com/svatec/nearplane-plus

Credits & Shoutout

This project is a fork of nearPlane by Steven J. Selcuk. Huge thanks to him for the original firmware, the excellent UI concept, and for releasing it under the MIT license. This project stands on his solid foundation!

What’s new in nearPlane+ compared to the original?

• Hardware GPS Module Support: Added native support for a GPS module. No more hardcoding your latitude/longitude or using the web setup form every time you change your location – the device now locks onto satellites and updates your position automatically in real-time.
• Tracks the 5 Closest Aircraft: The upstream version only tracked one. Now you can cycle through the top 5 closest aircraft using the hardware buttons.
• 10-Page Interface: Expanded from 6 pages. It now includes detailed flight data, attitude, speed vectors, autopilot targets, identity codes, environmental data (wind/RSSI), and daily statistics.
• Real-time Radar Map: A brand new, scalable, north-up top-down view showing up to 40 nearby aircraft with range rings and adjustable scales (7.5 km up to your full scan radius).
• Smart Alert Banners & Audio: Automatically flags Emergency (7500/7600/7700), Military, and Rare aircraft (A380, B747s, Beluga, An-124, etc.) with custom sound alerts and instant screen selection so you don't miss them.
• Persistent Daily Stats: Keeps track of your daily spotted aircraft count, plus records for the closest, highest, and fastest plane of the day (survives reboots).
• Robust API Handling & Fallback: Native integration with adsb.lol (streaming JSON parsing for low memory footprint) and an automatic fallback to adsb.fi if you get rate-limited. Flight routes are fully resolved via adsb.im.
• Quality of Life Updates: Web-based setup portal for Wi-Fi and location coordinates, custom User-Agent configuration, hardware buzzer mute (2s hold), battery/charging indicator, and automatic deep sleep to save juice when the sky is empty.

Hardware needed:

• M5StickC Plus 2
• No external SDR or antenna required – it runs entirely over Wi-Fi using open-source aggregator APIs.

I wanted to make this tool reliable and packed with info for quick outdoor planespotting. If you have an M5Stick lying around, give it a shot and let me know what you think! Bug reports, ideas, and Pull Requests are more than welcome.

Clear skies!

I started making Flight Scanner because I kept finding myself checking my phone whenever an interesting aircraft flew overhead.

I figured it would be much more convenient to just glance at my watch, so I had a go at building it myself.

It's turned into a bit of a bigger project than I originally expected!

What it does: Turns your smartwatch into a live aircraft radar. It shows nearby planes, lets you view their details, search for specific flights, check airports and runways, and pin aircraft you want to follow.

Platforms and cost:

Wear OS: $2.99 one-time purchase, subject to local pricing.

Garmin: Free basic version with optional paid Pro features.

Links:

Wear OS: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alexd.flightscanner

Garmin free: https://apps.garmin.com/apps/54094e6b-a4a5-436d-940b-095b49e0cfab

Garmin Pro: https://apps.garmin.com/en-GB/apps/21fd8667-f22c-40ad-a0cf-e700eff81040

It's a small independent project and I've enjoyed seeing people actually use it. Always interested in suggestions for things that could be improved or added!

(You may have noticed this is a replacement post from a few months ago, I had some copyright style enquiries and ended up removing the post before restarting as a separate entity, thanks for the support!)

Data is a commercial license from airplanes.live I'm sure you've all heard of them here.

I built a free live aircraft tracker that highlights police and surveillance aircraft — no login required.

I built Eyes on the Sky, a free, live aircraft tracking map that goes a bit further than your typical flight tracker.

It highlights police aircraft, known surveillance operators, and aircraft documented to carry cameras, using publicly available information that I've researched and compiled with the help of AI.

The idea is to give people more context about what's flying overhead, rather than just showing a plane icon moving across a map.

A few features:

🛩️ Live aircraft positions using community ADS-B feeds.

🚁 Colour-coded identification of police, surveillance, camera-equipped and civilian aircraft.

📸 Photo capture and map-based sightings, including aircraft that aren't appearing on public tracking feeds.

📍 Privacy-conscious photo pins, with locations slightly offset so contributors aren't revealing their exact position.

🛸 Additional aircraft awareness for recreational drone pilots.

🔓 Completely free, with no account or login required.

The maps use free OpenStreetMap tiles, and I built the platform with AI assistance. Aircraft classifications are based on public research, not claims about what any aircraft is actively observing.

Flightradar24 shows you planes. Eyes on the Sky helps you understand who's flying overhead and what their aircraft might be equipped to do.

It's still evolving, and I'd genuinely appreciate feedback, suggestions, or ideas for improving it.

🔗 https://eyesonthesky.io/

Link in comments.

Just sharing a hobby project. Hoping to put a cheap amazon clip on x28 times lens to be able to get clearer photos.

Very simple prototype right now that I just 3d printed and wired up. The only things within range so far are pictured in the second photo.

Eventually I’d like to mount a weatherized version on my roof and get 360 degree coverage for plane spotting. The goal is to make it very cheap. This is the currently some cheap stepper motors, a Wyze cam v3, and a PI. I’m working on making it $50-100 total by hopefully flashing the Wyze cam directly and running the steppers off of its GPIO. Maybe an ESP32 if that doesn’t work.

Edit: Formatting and clarity

I can't find the exact reference anywhere so i marked it as this in my radar.

"424A71": {reg: "ID424A71", model: "ATC TOWER", class: "GROUND TETHERED BEACON", airline: "Aberdeen International Airport", country: "Scotland"},

"424A72": {reg: "ID424A72", model: "MLAT TRANSPONDER", class: "GROUND TETHERED BEACON", airline: "Aberdeen International Airport", country: "Scotland"},

1) Spite art of livery of aircraft close to the set location.

2) Flap flip board for the Approach and Departures.

Free to ask questions.

Linking the GitHub repo : https://github.com/Jay9185/solidpixels-aviation.git

I run TripStow, a travel log that builds your trips from booking emails. For past flights outside the US, it works out the individual aircraft (the registration) by matching each flight to the adsb.lol open archive, so a big thank you to everyone feeding it.

A few things that came up, in case they are useful to anyone else matching against the archive:

- Ground coverage is thin at a lot of big non-European airports, so many legs have no take-off or landing, only cruise. Matching on callsign and time alone has to be careful.

- A plane that lands and leaves again unseen keeps the first flight's callsign in its trace for a few minutes. Splitting traces after 30 minutes unseen, then re-joining pieces with the same callsign over oceans, sorted it.

- Callsigns with a letter suffix (QTR10H, IGO11U) seen with no airports are often other flights. We only accept them when the aircraft type matches the booking.

- Codeshare numbers never show up; you need the operating flight first, and some airlines (Lufthansa, Etihad) fly alphanumeric callsigns like DLH7K or ETD6HZ.

The matched legs are published as open data (tripstow.com/open-data), as the ODbL asks. Happy to share more detail if anyone is doing something similar.

So previously one could get json for trace/trail of current flight for specific flight. Ie my adsb reciever notied an interesting plane and then I could the the history / trail / trace from adsb.lol for that specific flight. That is not possbile anymore since the page has some kind of challenge. Is there any other site where this is possible and allowed? I feed pretty much all sites.

Used this app for years but suddenly had this pop up. Any ideas? I can't find any solid information anywhere.

Edit: I'm on Magic 7 Lite, android 16 and it's app version 4.7

I've been building a full-screen display of the planes over one area, meant to sit on a spare TV or an old tablet and stay on. Dark map, every plane nearby, and one big card at a time for a flight overhead: airline, flight number, type, route, altitude, speed, climb or descent.

Positions come from adsb.lol, with adsb.fi as the fallback, types from adsbdb. Routes come from the VRS standing data and get checked against the plane's position, altitude and heading. If a route doesn't fit, the card says "Route unknown" rather than guess. Some flights get a confirmed route from FlightAware inside a small monthly budget.

You can follow a flight and the wall tracks it until it lands, and it gives you a heads-up when a plane is about to pass close overhead.

It's been running on my wall in Jersey City (EWR, LGA and JFK traffic) and I want about 10 people to try it on their own screens next week. The beta is free. No account; your location stays in your browser.

I'd most like to hear from people who can tell me when a route or a type is wrong.

Waitlist for the invite (goes out Thursday 29 October): https://wingwatch.app

Happy to answer anything about how the routes are checked.

Hi everyone! I’ve been working on this for a few months and wanted to share it here.

It’s an ESP32-WROOM-32 driving a Waveshare 5.79" e-Paper screen (792 × 272), in a 3D-printed PLA enclosure I designed.

What it shows:

• The closest aircraft in a radius you choose (10–250 km): type, airline, registration, route, altitude, speed, heading, vertical speed and distance
• A mini radar with the other aircraft around you
• An ISS mode with a world map, the station’s position, altitude, speed and distance from you

Data:

• Aircraft: public community ADS-B data (adsb.lol, with adsb.fi as fallback)
• Routes: VRS standing-data (CC0)
• ISS: wheretheiss.at

It polls every 20 s and only redraws when something changes. A full refresh runs at least every 2 hours to clear e-Paper ghosting.

Setup is done from a phone through a captive portal (EN/FR), no app needed. I don’t run my own receiver yet, so I’m curious: would you find it useful to feed it from a local readsb/dump1090 instance instead?

Happy to answer any questions!

I'm an enthusiast that wanted a different way to track flights versus the traditional options.

Based on your current or manually set location with alerting when a flight is in the set radius, Inbounder Pro combines real-time ADS-B transponder tracking with a unique Airspace Replay engine—so you never miss what is flying above you now, or what passed through minutes or up to 2 hours ago.

Available in the macOS app store for free (macOS 15+):
https://apps.apple.com/app/inbounder-pro-flight-tracking/id6812617010

Front-end is Swift and hand-coded.
Using https://airlabs.co for ADS-B on the backend, running in Google Cloud based on Go which I used AI to help build out.

Would love feedback from this community as I prepare to launch on iPhone, iPad and Android with a freemium business model in hopes of recouping some of the backend costs.