Flights overhead: the 25 planes nearest you
A live split-flap board of the 25 aircraft nearest you: callsign, aircraft type, where each flight is from and going to, altitude and distance, refreshed every 15 seconds.
Your browser will ask for your location. It stays in your browser.
About this board
Airport arrival boards used to be mechanical: rows of small flaps that flipped through the alphabet to spell each flight. This is one for the sky above you. Every few seconds it flips to the 25 aircraft nearest to where you are, with where each is coming from and going to, and how high and how far away it is.
Flight positions are community data from adsb.lol (ODbL licensed) and routes come from adsbdb.com. The data is live but can be a few seconds old, and it is not for navigation or safety use.
Questions about the board
How does the flights overhead board work?
Press Show flights near me and your browser asks for your location. The board then lists the 25 aircraft nearest you that are in the air, closest first, and updates every 15 seconds. Each row shows the callsign, aircraft type, the airport it left from, the airport it is flying to, altitude in feet (or a flight level above 18,000 ft) and distance in miles.
Where does the flight data come from?
Positions come from adsb.lol, a community network of ADS-B receivers, and origin and destination airports from adsbdb.com. ADS-B is the signal most aircraft broadcast with their position. Aircraft that don't broadcast it, including some military and private flights, don't appear.
Is my location shared?
Your exact location stays in your browser and distances are worked out there. Seats Frog's server receives only your position rounded to about 7 miles (0.1 degree) so it can ask adsb.lol for aircraft in that area, and it keeps no record of it. Flight callsigns, not your location, go to adsbdb.com to look up where each flight is from and going to.
Why do some flights show --- for FROM or TO?
The origin and destination are looked up from the flight's callsign. Private, cargo and military flights, and flights without a published route, have none, so the board shows ---. A row shows ... for a moment while its airports are being looked up.
Why are fewer than 25 flights shown?
The board searches about 50 miles around you, then widens to roughly 115 and 288 miles until it finds 25 airborne aircraft. In very quiet airspace there may be fewer than 25 in range, and the board says how many it found.