skies-adsb

image of the skies-adsb app running in a browser showing air traffic around KMIA in Miami, FL

Introduction

skies-adsb is a real-time 3D browser based web app for tracking aircraft using ADS-B data obtained from a RTL-SDR receiver.

Features

• aircraft are tracked and rendered in real-time using unfiltered ADS-B data
• the app is hosted on a Raspberry Pi running on your local network
• flight status data is provided by the FlightAware AeroAPI v4
• aircraft photos are provided by Planespotters.net.
• responsive web app built for touch displays and mobile devices
• supports importing GeoJSON maps of your local area to use as a ground reference plane

recording of the skies-adsb app running in a browser demonstrating the use of the onscreen controls

Installation Guides

Below is an installation guide for setting up skies-adsb on a Raspberry Pi either as a new install or on top of an existing Raspberry Pi installation:

Raspberry Pi Install Guide

If you do not have an Raspberry Pi or you wish to use an existing ADS-B decoder already running on a network (or localhost) you can run skies-adsb as a local webapp by following this guide:

No Raspberry Pi Install Guide / Use Existing Decoder

HOWTOs

HOWTO create/update/use skies-adsb GeoJSON maps

HOWTO securely deploy skies-adsb with Cloudflare Tunnel

Development

The app is written using WebGL+HTML5+CSS+JavaScript and it works on all of the latest major browsers: Chrome (Desktop+Mobile), Firefox (Desktop), and Safari (Desktop+Mobile). For information on how to setup a development environment for skies-adsb see here:

HOWTO Development

Flight information and other data sources are managed via a local Flask API server proxy. See:

Flask API Server Docs

Contributing

Community GeoJSON maps are welcome. Please submit new maps via a pull-request.

Please report bugs via the issue tracker.

Please submit any feature requests via the issue tracker.

Thanks

I would like to give special thanks to the following people who gave me valuable feedback and helped me debug the app:

Andre Thais CFI

Frank E. Hernandez

Fallback Aircraft Photo Attribution

Pan Am Boeing 747-121 N732PA

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pan_Am_Boeing_747-121_N732PA_Bidini.jpg

by Aldo Bidini

References

https://mode-s.org/decode/index.html

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-quick-start-guide/

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/

https://www.adsbexchange.com/how-to-feed/

https://flightaware.com/commercial/aeroapi/documentation2.rvt