Why tail number matters
Most trackers show you a flight number. BA2751 is not an aircraft — it is a route, flown by whichever airframe happens to be available that morning. Log flight numbers and you end up with a list of journeys, not of aeroplanes.
FlightBank logs the airframe itself, by registration. G-EUYC stays one entry in your book whether it is wearing BA2751 today or BA0832 tomorrow. That is what makes a spotting log worth keeping: it is a record of the individual aircraft you have actually seen.
Open the live radar, tap any aircraft, press Log. That is the whole process. The photograph, type and registration are filled in for you.
Rarity that means something
An aircraft is rare if it is genuinely seldom seen, so rarity is calculated from sightings per day across the whole receiver network — how often that specific airframe actually appears in the sky we can hear.
It deliberately is not based on how many users have logged something. That approach makes rarity a popularity contest, where an everyday Ryanair 737 can rank as legendary purely because nobody bothered to tap it. Ours ranks it as what it is: common.
Ranking stays switched off until there is enough observation behind it — at least seven days of data and 250 airframes seen for a full day or more. Until then the logbook says so rather than inventing a number.
What you get
- Photos. Each entry is illustrated, so the book reads as a collection rather than a spreadsheet.
- Type and registration filled in automatically.
- Rarity tiers — legendary, rare, uncommon — from real observation rates.
- Search and filter by tail number, type or hex code.
- It follows you between phone and desktop, because it is tied to your account rather than to one browser.
What it costs
Nothing. The logbook and the live map are free, and there is no app to install — it runs in a browser on a phone just as well as on a laptop. Sign-in is Google only, which means no password for you to remember and none for us to store.
Running the site costs money, so it carries advertising. You can turn ads off for feeding data from your own receiver, or with a small subscription if you would rather not run hardware.
Where it covers
The map covers Europe. Our own receivers hear southern England directly — Gatwick, Heathrow, Southampton and the airspace between them — and everything beyond their range is filled in from open data. That difference matters for a logbook: an aircraft your own receiver picked up is yours to claim. Coverage grows wherever somebody points a receiver at us, so if you are spotting at an airfield outside that area, running a receiver puts your own patch of sky on the map, and makes your logbook the only one recording it.
Open the live radar, tap something in the air, and press Log. You can sign in afterwards — nothing is lost.
Common questions
Do I need an account?
To keep a logbook, yes — otherwise there is nowhere to keep it. Sign-in is Google only and takes one tap. The map itself needs no account at all.
Can I log an aircraft I saw yesterday?
Not yet. Entries come from aircraft currently on the map, because that is what we can verify. Manual back-entry is on the list.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. It is a website, not an app, so there is nothing to install and nothing to update.
What if I spot outside Europe?
You will need a receiver in range. Our receiver guide covers the hardware — about £25 for a dongle plus a Raspberry Pi — and feeding earns free API access on top.