Plane spotter
"What's that plane?" — point your phone at the sky and see the aircraft labelled where they are, with callsign, type, altitude and distance, using your location, the phone's compass and tilt, and optionally the camera; a sky plot and a list work everywhere else.
Added
Works with
- Flight tracker Aviationshares its receiver and relay, and opens the map on the same source
How to use it
Tap 📍 My location (or type an airport / lat, lon), pick a Source — the same ones as the
flight tracker, including your own receiver — and choose a view:
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Point your phone — tap Enable compass & tilt (iPhone asks for "Motion & Orientation Access": tap Allow), hold the phone up and look through it. Each aircraft is circled where it should be, with its callsign, type, altitude and straight-line distance; aircraft off the screen get an arrow at the edge. 📷 Camera backdrop puts the back camera’s picture behind the labels (optional — it works without). Tap a label for details. Without sensors (a laptop) drag the view or use the sliders.
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Sky plot — the whole sky as a circle: the centre is straight up, the rim is the horizon, north is up and east is to the right (as if lying on your back with your head to the south). When the sensors are on, a dashed ring shows where the phone is pointing.
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List — aircraft above the horizon, highest first, with the compass direction and angle to look.
The first visit shows the recorded sample from the flight tracker, seen from SFO.
How it works
From your position and each aircraft’s latitude, longitude and altitude (both converted to earth-centred WGS84 coordinates) the tool works out the east-north-up offset, and from that the azimuth (compass direction, from true north) and elevation (angle above the horizon). Positions are moved forward to "now" along the aircraft’s track at its ground speed, because a poll can be several seconds old. The phone’s orientation (W3C DeviceOrientation: alpha, beta, gamma → a rotation matrix, as in the compass) says where the back camera points; the phone’s compass gives magnetic north, so the World Magnetic Model (WMM2025) declination for your position turns it into true north. Each aircraft is then projected onto the screen like a pinhole camera with the field of view you set under Calibrate.
Limits
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Phone compasses are easily 5–15° off (more near steel, cars, magnets in cases); use Heading correction to line the labels up with a real aircraft. Some Android browsers give only a relative heading ("compass not tied to north").
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The field of view depends on your phone’s camera and zoom; the default (62° top to bottom) suits most main cameras in portrait.
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Elevation uses the geometric altitude when the feed provides it, barometric otherwise (a few hundred feet off in unusual pressure), no atmospheric refraction, and your GPS height (or the airport’s elevation, or 0). Close to the horizon, terrain and buildings hide aircraft the tool still shows.
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Public sources need the gitwebsite app (its companion relays them — tried first) or the relay script (see the flight tracker help); polls are every 10 s (2 s for your own receiver), so a fast, close aircraft can drift from its label in between.
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Sensors and the camera need https and, on iPhone, a tap to allow them. Nothing from the camera leaves your phone.
Related: Flight tracker, Compass and level, Mode S decoder, Aviation weather.
Linking to an example
Share link copies the view, source, radius, field of view and a typed place — never your GPS location
(a link with where=gps asks whoever opens it for theirs). The heading correction is per phone and is not
shared.
| Parameter | Meaning | Example |
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a place to stand (airport code or coordinates) and its height in metres |
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radius in nautical miles |
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vertical field of view in degrees; hide aircraft lower than this many degrees |
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a preset below; other parameters override it |
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Presets:
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sfo-sample— sky plot of the recorded San Francisco sample, seen from SFO -
sfo-camera-demo— the camera view in demo mode (drag to look around) -
heathrow-list— aircraft above Heathrow, highest first (needs the relay) -
my-receiver— your own receiver, from where you stand
Feedback is a gift. Something to improve, a feature to add, or a bug? Tell me.
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