What this is
FlightBank is a free real-time map of aircraft over southern England. Open it and you see what is in the air right now: callsign, altitude, speed and heading, updated continuously, with no account and no paywall.
It started as a personal project to answer a simple question — what is that aircraft overhead? — and grew into a public site because the answer turned out to be interesting to a lot of other people too.
Where the data comes from
Every aircraft on the map put itself there. Aircraft broadcast their own position, identity and altitude on 1090 MHz using a system called ADS-B, unencrypted and to nobody in particular. A receiver on the ground picks those broadcasts up and decodes them.
That is the whole mechanism. There is no radar dish, no feed bought from an airline, and no privileged access to air traffic control. Anyone with an aerial and a cheap USB receiver can pick up the same signals, which is exactly why we wrote a guide to building one.
Because reception is line-of-sight, coverage is shaped by terrain and antenna height rather than by any neat boundary. High-flying aircraft are visible from a long way off; low and slow traffic disappears behind the first hill. If an aircraft is missing, it is usually because it is below the horizon, or because it is not transmitting ADS-B at all — our guide on what ADS-B is covers the reasons in detail.
FlightBank is an enthusiast service. It is not an official source, it has no connection to NATS or any air traffic control organisation, and it must never be used for navigation, flight planning or any operational purpose. Aircraft data is provided for interest only.
Who runs it
FlightBank is run by a single person in the UK — a trading name of a sole trader, not a company with a team behind it. That means replies come from the person who actually wrote the code, and also that responses are not instant.
Ownership and data-controller details are set out in the privacy policy, and you can reach us via the contact page.
How the site is funded
Running a tracker costs money — hosting, a database, receiver hardware and the electricity to keep it running around the clock. Two things cover that:
- Advertising on the guide pages, served through Google AdSense.
- API subscriptions from developers using the data commercially.
The live map itself stays free and unmetered. What you can control about advertising and analytics is explained in the privacy policy.
Credits
FlightBank is built on work by others, and it is worth naming it:
- OpenStreetMap contributors — the street map the radar is drawn on.
- Esri — the satellite imagery behind the satellite view.
- Leaflet — the open-source mapping library that renders it all.
- Planespotters.net — aircraft photography shown in the detail panel.
- The wider ADS-B community, whose open-source decoders made any of this possible.
Corrections
Aircraft type, operator and photo information comes from public databases, and those databases are sometimes wrong or out of date. If you spot something incorrect — or a guide that has aged badly — please tell us. Corrections from people who know the subject are genuinely welcome.