Flight tracking.
Original observations, visible limits.

The Aviation workspace displays source-reported aircraft and other transponder targets on a dedicated 3D globe. It combines global aircraft-type and source military-tag queries with geographically bounded supplements.

Open Watchtower → Air / Aviation

What is collected

These are observed source targets, not a complete census of flights. Receiver coverage, aircraft equipment, source metadata, query coverage and access limits affect what is available. A missing target does not establish that an aircraft is not flying.

Clocks and units

• Position observed: the provider’s snapshot clock minus its reported position age. This is separate from last radio contact and Watchtower’s collection time.
• Recent: a usable reported position no more than three minutes old. Last-position objects remain explicitly last-known. Older positions are grey; the default selection is limited to fifteen minutes, with an optional thirty-minute view.
• Unknown coordinates: retained as unlocated targets when an identity exists. Missing coordinates and rough estimated rr_lat/rr_lon locations are not plotted as real positions. Missing values are not zero.
• Altitude: barometric and geometric altitude remain separate, in feet. The globe prefers geometric altitude; barometric altitude is a visualization fallback. Unknown-height targets are projected to the globe surface. Heights below the ellipsoid are clipped for display, without changing the reported values.
• Speed and direction: ground speed is in knots; ground track is degrees clockwise from true north; vertical rate is feet per minute. Ground track is not the aircraft’s nose heading. Non-directional markers are used when track is not supplied.

Identity, classification and trails

Records are deduplicated by exact source/ICAO identity, favouring the newest position observation. Non-ICAO addresses are retained in their own namespace and are not treated as established airframe identities. Callsigns may change between flights; the tracker follows reported aircraft identities, not independently established commercial flight legs.

Military labels come from the source’s database tag. Their absence does not establish civilian status. Aircraft-class filters follow the reported emitter category. MLAT positions are multilateration estimates; all surveillance reports may be incomplete, erroneous or spoofed.

Observed trails retain up to two hours of collected samples, with a minimum sampling interval of twenty-five seconds and coarser stationary-target sampling. Time gaps over three minutes, implausible jumps and antimeridian crossings are split. Lines connect observed samples; no intervening motion, destination, arrival or departure is inferred. Retention is bounded by a shared two-million-point capacity, so older points may expire earlier.

Refresh and source availability

The browser checks collected snapshots approximately every twenty seconds while the workspace is visible. The shared collector makes one source request at a time, with at least fifteen seconds between requests. Global type queries have a ninety-second minimum refresh interval and military-tag queries a three-minute minimum. Regional supplements rotate through the remaining collection budget and can be substantially older. Actual observation ages are always shown.

Provider rate limits are dynamic. Rate responses pause collection for the provider’s stated interval, or a conservative fallback; permission failures stop collection until reviewed. Requests to the browser interface do not force upstream polling. Last accepted evidence retains its original clocks through failures.

Airplanes.live returned HTTP403 from the production API probe and is not connected to this tracker. OpenSky and adsb.fi require an appropriate commercial agreement for a new Watchtower integration. Additional ADS-B Exchange data requires a contract. Their directory entries are not counted as connected data sources. The existing aircraft feed on Watchtower’s other main map is separate from this workspace.

Open-data access and attribution

Aircraft observations are derived from ADSB.lol under the Open Database License 1.0. Watchtower’s normalized observation database is made available under the same license. Attribution, source links, clocks and collection-query identities accompany the data.

• Current source and query register
• Current retained normalized aircraft (JSON)
• Complete retained normalized observations (SQLite snapshot) — regenerated approximately every ten minutes; the database metadata records its observation-state clock.
• Airport reference pages — use offset and limit to inspect additional records.

Saved watches are local to the signed-in account in that browser. They are not sent to the collector or included in the public database export. JSON/CSV selection exports and trail exports include the displayed evidence context; download copies if you need records beyond the retention window.

Methods version: aviation-tracker-v1 · October 2026. Source availability and target counts change continuously.