OpenATC is best viewed with Google Earth.
Click here to download the Google Pack containing Google Earth:Truly Worldwide Flight Tracking
openATC (Open Air Traffic Control) is a worldwide network of ADS-B receiver stations, permitting anyone to see where airplanes were located 5 minutes ago. Look at it as Air Traffic gone Open Source!
This system can be used to visualize both in 2D and 3D the flight paths of any flight we ever recorded. Applications range from flight training to air traffic control training, positional awareness for dispatchers and last but not least, the enthusiast that wants to track flights.
To view traffic, select either the Google Earth or Google Maps interface from the menus. To find a specific flight, enter either its flight number or any part of the 3 letter ICAO airline code in the search box on the top of this page. You can also enter the full callsign.
If you own an SBS-1, share your data! Click here to find out how easy it is to share your data!
Each airplane currently being tracked in the system is drawn with a yellow dot:
14 JAN 07 News: FAA data feed is live!
We now have a data feed from the FAA which enables us to track flights in the US as well as in the Oceanic Areas, such as over the Atlantic and the Pacific! Some information is not available for these flights:
- Vertical speed
- Transponder code
- Tail number / airframe ID
- Type (is available, but not put in the database at the moment due to problems synchronizing this with the ADS-B based data feed
05 JAN 07 News: Updated search functionality
The power search function now lets you search for aircraft type as well. See if you can find the Airbus 380! (hint: Search for A38,or A388)
All other search functions have been sped up by a factor of at least 20!
The Google Maps interface has also been revamped, and displays more information along with 15 second updates. You can also track a random flight now (see the top right menu on this main page)
The openATC system is running off donated hardware, software and time. If you feel this project is worthwhile, please consider supporting it not only by feeding air traffic data but also by
- purchasing books from our Amazon links
- donating (working) hardware
- donating your programming expertise and time to help the project advance
Some screenshots and animations
| Screenshots | Animations (require Quicktime 6 or later to play) |
 Click here for a screenshot |
 Bird's eye european air traffic as the night falls (11 MB)  Heathrow traffic (1.7MB) |
OpenATC is best viewed with Google Earth.
Click here to download the Google Pack containing Google Earth: