3D Flight Radar

Overview

3D Flight Radar displays real-time aircraft positions on an interactive 3D globe using ADS-B data from the OpenSky Network. Aircraft within the current viewport are polled automatically and displayed with data blocks. Weather overlays including NEXRAD radar and turbulence data from the AWC (Aviation Weather Center) can be layered on the map.

Navigation

Controls Panel

The controls panel is located at the bottom-left of the screen. Drag the handle on its right edge to collapse or expand the panel.

Toggles

• All aircraft — Show/hide all aircraft icons, trails, and data blocks. A selected aircraft always remains visible even when this toggle is off.
• Data blocks — Show/hide callsign and flight data labels on aircraft.
• IR — Toggle the GOES satellite infrared (IR) imagery overlay. Shows cloud-top temperatures from the GOES Clean Longwave Infrared Window (Band 13), useful for identifying cloud cover and estimating cloud-top heights. Data is provided by NOAA GOES via the Iowa State Mesonet and refreshes every 10 minutes.
• Radar — Toggle the NEXRAD weather radar overlay (composite reflectivity). Data is provided by the Iowa State Mesonet and refreshes every 5 minutes.
• SIGMETs — Toggle turbulence and convective SIGMET 3D volume overlays. When altitude data is available, SIGMETs are rendered as extruded 3D volumes showing their vertical extent. Data refreshes every 5 minutes.
• AIRMETs — Toggle G-AIRMET turbulence 3D volume overlays (TURB-HI and TURB-LO). Like SIGMETs, these are rendered as 3D volumes when altitude bounds are available. Data refreshes every 5 minutes.
• PIREPs — Toggle Pilot Report (PIREP) turbulence dot overlays. Data refreshes every 5 minutes.
• GTG — Toggle the GTG (Graphical Turbulence Guidance) forecast heatmap. When a selected flight has a filed altitude, the forecast is shown at that cruise level. Otherwise the MAX (HI) forecast is displayed. The layer refreshes every 15 minutes.

All toggle states are saved and persist between sessions.

Dropdowns

• Map — Base map layer. Choose from Simple, Simple (Labels), Gray Canvas, Satellite, OpenStreetMap, Topographic, or VFRMap.com VFR/IFR charts with multi-zoom support.

Right-click menu

Right-click anywhere on the map to open the context menu.

• Go home — Return to your saved view, or the default starting location.
• Save view — Save the current camera position as your home view.

Buttons

• North ↑ — Rotate the view so that north is up.
• CONUS — Zoom out to show the continental United States.
• 2D / 3D — Switch between 2D map and 3D globe view.
• Auto rotate — Toggle automatic camera rotation around the current viewpoint (3D only).
• Settings — Open the settings window.

Flight Search

Enter a flight number (e.g. UAL123, DAL456, AAL789) or a natural language query (e.g. flights from SFO to LAX today) in the search panel at the top-left and press Enter. The app queries FlightAware’s AeroAPI for matching flights and presents a results panel showing recent and upcoming flights. Each result is labelled with its status:

• EN ROUTE — Flight currently in the air.
• UPCOMING — Future scheduled or delayed flight.
• PAST — The most recently completed flight (one shown).

Click a result to select that specific flight and display its planned route on the map. If only one flight is returned it is selected automatically.

Natural Language Search

Natural language queries are detected automatically when the input contains spaces or flight-search keywords. Supported patterns include:

• BOS to LAX — Search by origin and destination airports.
• flights from SFO to LAX today — Limit results to today.
• united from JFK to LAX — Filter by airline (United Airlines).
• delta from ATL tomorrow — Departures from an airport on a given day.
• flights from ORD between 8am and 12pm — Flights within a time window.
• flights from BOS this morning — Morning departures (06:00–12:00).
• flights from LAX this afternoon — Afternoon departures (12:00–18:00).
• flights from JFK this evening — Evening departures (18:00–00:00).
• jetblue from BOS — All JetBlue departures from Boston today.

Airport codes can be IATA (3-letter, e.g. SFO) or ICAO (4-letter, e.g. KSFO). You can also use city names instead of airport codes — e.g. Boston to LAX, from Denver to Miami, NYC to Vegas. City names and airport codes can be mixed freely. At least one of origin, destination, or airline is required. Date and time are optional — omitting them searches the current day by default.

Recognized airlines: United, American, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Alaska, Spirit, Frontier, Hawaiian, Allegiant, Sun Country, Breeze. You can also use ICAO codes (e.g. UAL, AAL, DAL).

Search history: Click the clock icon next to the search box to see up to 10 recent successful searches. Click any entry to re-search that flight. History is saved in your local settings and persists across sessions.

• Filed route — Dashed line from origin to destination through decoded waypoints fetched from FlightAware’s route API with actual coordinates.
• Origin — Green dot with airport code label.
• Destination — Red dot with airport code label.
• Waypoints — Blue dots along the filed route with fix names.
• Flown track — Solid orange line showing the actual path flown so far (only for airborne flights).
• Live aircraft — If the flight is airborne and in the ADS-B feed, the live aircraft is automatically selected and highlighted. If the flight is outside ADS-B coverage, a synthetic aircraft entity is created from FlightAware position data with the same velocity extrapolation, icon, and trail behavior as all other aircraft.

The info panel shows flight details including route, aircraft type, status, progress, altitude, ground speed, and scheduled departure/arrival times. When FlightAware does not provide an arrival time, an estimated ETA is computed from flight progress or great-circle distance and ground speed, labelled (EST). Use the close button on the info panel to deselect the aircraft and remove the route.

Selected aircraft always stay live: Any selected aircraft — whether found via search or clicked on the map — receives the same treatment. FlightAware route data (filed route, flown track) is automatically fetched and displayed. The aircraft remains visible with live position extrapolation regardless of other visibility settings, including when the Aircraft toggle is off.

Note: Flight plan search requires a FlightAware AeroAPI key. In the web version, the key is stored server-side in creds.json. In the Electron version, configure it in Settings under API credentials. When FlightAware is not configured or unavailable, the search bar, airport delays, and airport flight filtering are automatically hidden. They reappear once the API becomes available.

Flight Plan Timeline

When a flight plan is active (either from a search or by clicking a live aircraft), a timeline scrubber appears at the bottom center of the screen. The slider spans from departure to arrival, labelled with the origin and destination airport codes. The predicted surface weather (icon and temperature in °C) is shown below each airport code — at departure time for the origin and at estimated arrival time for the destination.

• Elapsed time — The current slider position shows the elapsed flight time and the corresponding UTC time.
• Scrubbing — Drag the slider to move through the estimated flight plan. A cyan marker shows the estimated aircraft position along the filed route at that time.
• Other aircraft — When the slider is more than 5 minutes from the current time, other aircraft are hidden since their positions cannot be predicted.
• Weather filtering — SIGMETs and AIRMETs that are not valid at the selected time are automatically hidden.
• Historical position — When scrubbing into the past, the marker shows the aircraft’s position from its recorded track history.
• Live button — Click Live or double-click the slider to return to real-time mode, restoring all aircraft and weather overlays.

Weather & Turbulence

GOES IR

The IR toggle displays GOES infrared satellite imagery over CONUS via WMS tiles from the Iowa State Mesonet. The imagery shows cloud-top temperatures using the Clean Longwave Infrared Window (Band 13 at 10.3 µm), which is useful for identifying cloud cover and estimating cloud-top heights. Brighter areas indicate colder (higher) cloud tops. The overlay refreshes automatically every 10 minutes.

NEXRAD Radar

The Radar toggle displays composite NEXRAD reflectivity over CONUS via WMS tiles from the Iowa State Mesonet. The overlay refreshes automatically every 5 minutes.

Weather Hazard Overlays (SIGMETs / AIRMETs / PIREPs toggles)

The SIGMETs, AIRMETs, and PIREPs toggles independently enable weather hazard overlays sourced from the FAA Aviation Weather Center (AWC):

• PIREPs (Pilot Reports) — Colored dots indicating pilot-reported turbulence intensity, positioned at the reported altitude. Click a dot to see the full report.
• Turbulence SIGMETs — Semi-transparent red 3D volumes marking areas under active turbulence SIGMETs. When altitude bounds are available, volumes are extruded to show their vertical extent; otherwise they are displayed as flat polygons.
• Convective SIGMETs — Semi-transparent yellow volumes marking areas of severe thunderstorm activity (severe TS, tornadoes, hail, high winds).
• G-AIRMETs — Semi-transparent orange volumes marking areas under graphical turbulence AIRMETs (TURB-HI and TURB-LO), extruded to their altitude bounds.

PIREP Color Legend

GTG Turbulence Forecast (Turbulence checkbox)

The Turbulence toggle overlays the Graphical Turbulence Guidance (GTG) model forecast as a heatmap image covering CONUS and Alaska. When a selected flight has a filed cruise altitude, the forecast is shown at that flight level. Otherwise, the MAX (HI) composite is displayed. The forecast image refreshes every 15 minutes. This layer is independent of the SIGMETs/AIRMETs/PIREPs toggles.

Aircraft Info Panel

Click on any aircraft to open the info panel in the top-right corner. Use the collapse arrow button to roll up the panel so only the callsign title is visible; click again to expand it. It displays detailed information:

• Callsign and ICAO24 hex address
• Squawk transponder code
• Origin country
• Altitude (feet), Ground speed (knots), Heading (degrees)
• Vertical speed (feet per minute)
• Latitude / Longitude coordinates
• Trail points count and last ADS-B contact time

When an aircraft is selected, its trail history is extended and a higher-resolution track is fetched from the OpenSky API. Two buttons appear at the bottom of the panel: Track is a toggle button that flies to and continuously follows the aircraft’s current position; clicking it again (or clicking Show Route) stops tracking. Zoom and orbit still work while tracking is active. Show Route flies the camera to show the full route (if available) or the aircraft’s flight history trail from a top-down view.

Clicking on a turbulence feature (PIREP, SIGMET, or G-AIRMET) opens the same panel with details about that report, including intensity, altitude, validity times, and raw observation text when available.

Airport Flight Filter

Click on any airport marker to open an airport info panel showing the airport name, ICAO/IATA codes, and type. The app queries FlightAware for all flights currently en route to or from that airport and filters the map to show only those aircraft. While the airport info panel is open, only matching flights are visible on the map. The flight list refreshes automatically every 5 minutes to keep aircraft positions and the priority list up to date. Close the panel to clear the filter and restore all aircraft. The airport filter works independently of the All aircraft toggle — clicking an airport will display matching flights even if the aircraft toggle is off. A FlightAware API key is required for this feature (configure in Settings).

Airport Delays

Enable Airport delays in Settings → Aviation data to see real-time FAA delay information. When enabled, the app fetches system-wide airport status from the FAA every 15 minutes, covering ground delay programs, ground stops, arrival/departure delays, and airport closures.

Airport markers are color-coded by delay severity: an orange-to-red gradient where longer delays show deeper red. Airports with no delays remain the default color. The same color coding applies to flight plan endpoint markers and timeline dots.

When you click an airport, the info panel shows each active delay with its type, duration, and reason. If no delays are active, the panel shows “None”. When the Airport delays setting is off, no delay information is shown anywhere.

HUD (Heads-Up Display)

The top-right bar shows:

• Clock — Current UTC time.
• Tracks — Number of aircraft currently tracked.
• Updated — Time of the last data update.
• Lat, Lon — Camera center coordinates.
• Alt — Camera altitude above the surface.

Airspace Colors

Map Layers

Settings

Open via Edit > Settings (Ctrl+,) or the Settings button.

Cloud Sync

Sign in with your Google account to sync settings across devices. When signed in, all your preferences (display mode, colors, toggles, saved view, etc.) are automatically saved to the cloud whenever you make a change. If you sign in on a new device, your cloud settings are applied automatically.

• Sign in with Google — Click to authenticate via Google OAuth. A popup window will open for Google sign-in.
• Sign out — Disconnects cloud sync. Settings continue to be saved locally on this device.

Cloud sync is entirely optional. API credentials (OpenSky, FlightAware) are never synced to the cloud and remain local to each device.

Display Mode

• Dark / System / Light — Dark mode uses a custom accent color aesthetic; light mode uses a clean white basemap. System mode automatically follows your OS dark/light preference.
• Mute map colors — Desaturate the base map to reduce visual noise so aircraft, weather overlays, and airspace boundaries stand out more clearly.

UI Color

• Dark mode color — Customize the accent color used in dark mode. Choose from presets or pick a custom color.
• Light mode color — Customize the accent color used in light mode. Choose from presets or pick a custom color.

Aircraft Display

• Font Size — Size of data block labels on the map.
• Trails — Choose trail display mode: None (no trails), History (position history lines), or Velocity (predicted heading/speed vectors).
• History Length — How long trail history is retained (1–10 minutes). Only applies in History mode.
• Color by Altitude — Aircraft and trails are colored by altitude band (red at low altitude through magenta at FL400).
• Trail Thickness by Altitude — Trail width varies with altitude (thinner at low altitude, thicker at high altitude).

Aviation Data

• Major airports — Show airport markers on the map (large, medium, and small airports appear progressively as you zoom in).
• Airport delays — Fetch and display real-time FAA delay information. See Airport Delays for details.
• Airspace — Show Class B, C, and D airspace boundaries on the map.
• Volume edges — Draw outline edges on airspace, SIGMET, and AIRMET volume polygons.
• Navaids — Show VOR, NDB, and DME navigation aids on the map.
• 3D airspace — Extrude airspace boundaries to their floor and ceiling altitudes.
• Nav fixes — Show named waypoint fixes along with navaids.
• 3D turbulence — When enabled, the GTG turbulence forecast is displayed as stacked semi-transparent surfaces at each flight level altitude (FL180–FL420) instead of a single flat overlay. Each layer is shown at 10% opacity to create a volumetric 3D effect.

Other

• Rotation Speed — Speed of automatic camera rotation (degrees per second).
• Weather Overlay Opacity — Controls the transparency of all weather imagery layers (NEXRAD radar, GOES satellite IR, and GTG turbulence forecast). Range is 10–100%.
• Radar Thinning — When enabled, NEXRAD radar tiles are filtered to remove ground clutter and non-precipitation blues/grays, keeping only saturated weather colors (green, yellow, orange, red). Disable to see the full unfiltered radar imagery.
• Altitude Exaggeration (1–10×) — Scales all entity altitudes by the chosen factor to make vertical separation more visible. Affects aircraft, trails, airspace volumes, turbulence surfaces, PIREPs, and flight plan routes. At 1× altitudes are shown at their true scale.
• API Credentials — Click the disclosure triangle to expand. Enter OpenSky Network client ID/secret for authenticated access (higher rate limits), and FlightAware AeroAPI key for flight plan search. You can also drag and drop a creds.json or credentials.json file to populate all fields at once.

Data Sources

• OpenSky Network — Real-time ADS-B aircraft surveillance data. Anonymous access is rate-limited to one request every 10 seconds. Register for free API credentials at opensky-network.org for higher limits.
• FlightAware AeroAPI — Flight plan data including filed routes, origin/destination airports, aircraft type, and real-time flight status. Requires an API key from flightaware.com.
• FAA Aviation Weather Center (AWC) — Weather hazard data including GTG turbulence forecasts, PIREPs, turbulence and convective SIGMETs, and G-AIRMETs.
• Iowa State Mesonet — NEXRAD composite radar reflectivity and GOES satellite IR imagery.
• FAA — Airspace boundaries, airport data, and navigation aids.
• VFRMap.com — VFR/IFR aeronautical charts.