See the latest from the  FlightAware ADS-B Network, a community of aviation enthusiasts hosting a network of over 34,000 receivers in almost 200 countries and on all seven continents. If you're interested in joining or adding to our network, you can learn more about hosting a receiver here, or use the link below to check out our PiAware kits, which make it easy to get started.

Last month...

We welcomed 255 new PiAware hosts and 18 FlightFeeder hosts to the network.

As a reminder to both our new and current users, it’s important to keep your receivers healthy and online 24/7/365. You can set alerts to notify you of any issues with your receiver at https://www.flightaware.com/account/manage/notifications. 

Search our surface coverage map for a particular airport near you or any airports you have connections to and let us know if you think you can help improve it! If you don’t see coverage for a particular airport you’re able to help with, reach out using the button below. 

Featured Sites for October

This combo PiAware and Weather Underground station was submitted to us by jongbj from the Netherlands. It sits on a rooftop 10 meters above the ground giving him a great 360-degree field of view. The cables run inside to his server room where a virtual machine on a Synology NAS provides his flight information to FlightAware.

This antenna setup resides in the middle of the mountains of Oregon and was sent in by tominthetrees. His receiver provides flight coverage of a nearby state airport and aircraft that fly in and out of Seattle Tacoma International. He came across FlightAware in an article in the Amature Radio magazine, QST, in 2017 and has been a contributor to FlightAware ever since.

Aircraft Identification in SkyAware

This month, we’ll be talking about the columns in the SkyAware aircraft table that relate to aircraft identification. 

The ICAO, or hex code of an aircraft, is a 24-bit hexadecimal address assigned to an aircraft by government regulatory agencies in the country it is registered in. It is programmed into the transponder of the aircraft and is primarily used in the low-level radio protocol between radar and the transponder. At FlightAware, we use this hex code to associate data we receive to a particular aircraft.

The Ident field, better known as the flight number, is what you look up when searching for a particular flight you’re traveling on. It is a combination of alphanumeric characters up to 8 characters long that an airline assigns to a flight in its network. It is used to identify and track an aircraft during communication with air traffic control. For commercial flights, it is typically a 3-character ICAO airline code followed by a flight number (e.g. “UAL429” being the ident of the United Airlines flight number 429). Private and general aviation aircraft often use their tail numbers or registration numbers as their identifier (e.g. the idents that start with “N” in the table above.)

Fun Fact: Typically, flights going eastbound or north are assigned even flight numbers, while flights headed west or south will be assigned odd numbers.

The Registration number or “tail number” is a unique identifier given to an aircraft at the time it is produced. It is linked to the aircraft’s current owner and operator and found on the exterior of an aircraft, much like a license plate on a car. The format of aircraft registration numbers varies from country to country, but the first letter of a registration number identifies the airplane’s country of origin. In the United States, all tail numbers start with “N” as you can see in the table above.

If you have any comments or questions regarding identifying an aircraft, let us know at [email protected]!

Help increase our coverage! 

Our ADS-B network spans across 194 countries on all 7 continents thanks to you all. Our goal is to expand our terrestrial ADS-B coverage across the entire world, especially around airports to improve our surface coverage. If you or someone you know has connections to airports and FBO’s or live in areas where we lack coverage, we’d love to send you a FlightFeeder! You can apply for one here. If we already have coverage in your area, you can still contribute to FlightAware by building your own PiAware. It’s a fun little weekend project!

STAY IN TOUCH

Click the link below to visit the ADS-B Flight Tracking discussion forum on our website, or follow us on social media to stay up to date with the latest news!