Live · the Skydex network
Live globe
Every aircraft and every vessel the Skydex network hears right now, on a 3D Earth. Aircraft sit at their real altitude, vessels are the ones our own AIS receivers hear, and the stations are the volunteer antennas behind it all.
- Aircraft heard right now: 2,779
- Vessels our AIS receivers hear right now: 403
- ADS-B receivers online: 313
- AIS receivers online: 10
- Countries with a Skydex receiver: 41
Counted at 00:27 UTC. The globe updates every 10 seconds.
Put your antenna on this globe · Fly over it: play free
What the globe shows
Every dot is a live contact heard by the Skydex network: aircraft picked up by volunteer ADS-B receivers, and vessels picked up by our own AIS receivers. Positions refresh every 10 seconds, and in between each contact keeps moving along its course and speed.
Zoom in and the dots turn into silhouettes that point the way they travel: airliners, turboprops, helicopters, gliders, moving ships and moored ones. Aircraft sit at their real altitude, so climbs and descents near airports show up once you get close.
Layers and views
You can switch aircraft, vessels and receivers on and off, show the coverage the network measured over the last 30 days, colour aircraft by altitude, or add Starlink satellites for fun. The Earth itself can be drawn as an outline, a filled map or NASA Blue Marble satellite imagery. Tap any contact to see what it is.
Where the data comes from
Aircraft positions come from ADS-B, the signal transponders broadcast on 1090 MHz. Volunteers receive it with small antennas at home and send it to Skydex. Vessel positions come from AIS on marine VHF, received by Skydex AIS stations. None of it is bought from a commercial flight or ship tracker.
Receivers are drawn on the 0.1° square their antenna sits in, never at the antenna's exact position. Private aircraft appear without a registration, callsign or tail number, and private vessels without a name.
Put your antenna on the globe
Anyone with an ADS-B or AIS receiver can feed the network for free. Your station gets its own page, a place on the station leaderboard and coins to spend in the game, and the area it hears lights up on this globe.
Fly over it
Skydex is also a free browser flight game over the real Earth. Fly a seagull or a drone over photorealistic 3D cities, see the same live aircraft and ships around you, and catch them into your collection.
Beyond the Earth
The Solar system navigator shows the Sun, the eight planets, the Moon and the Tesla Roadster at their real positions for any date from 2000 to 2049, at real scale or a readable one.
On this globe, the Roadster button pulls the camera back to a sketch of the Solar system and shows where the car is today.
More of the network
- Connect a receiver: Register an ADS-B or AIS antenna and send its data to Skydex. Free, and it takes a few minutes.
- ADS-B network: How the aircraft network works, who feeds it and how to join it.
- AIS network: The water side: AIS receivers on marine VHF and the coasts they cover.
- Station leaderboard: Every receiver ranked by Signal, each with a page of its own.
- Aircraft live map: The whole aircraft network on a flat world map, with every station on it.
- Ships live map: Every vessel our AIS receivers hear right now, on a flat world map.
- Coverage maps: Where the network heard something over the last 30 days. Aircraft coverage · Ships coverage
- Interactive map: A street-level map with live aircraft, ships, airports and flying spots.
- Live feed: Catches, photos, new stations and rare aircraft as they happen.
- Aircraft and ship directory: Every aircraft type, airline, ship, flag and airport the network knows.
From the news
Questions
How much does the network hear right now?
At the last count it heard 2,779 aircraft and 403 vessels, through receivers in 41 countries.
Is this real time?
Within seconds. The page asks the network for fresh positions every 10 seconds, and between updates each contact moves along its last known course and speed.
Where does the data come from?
Aircraft come from ADS-B received by volunteer receivers that feed Skydex. Ships come from AIS received by Skydex AIS stations. We do not buy positions from a commercial tracker.
Why is the sky empty over my area?
The globe only shows what our receivers hear. A rooftop ADS-B antenna hears aircraft up to roughly 300 to 400 km away, and an AIS antenna hears ships within a few tens of kilometres. Where nobody runs a receiver yet, nothing is drawn. Connecting your own antenna fills that gap.
Why do some aircraft have no name?
Private aircraft are shown without registration, callsign or tail number. We show the aircraft type when its transponder reports it, never who is flying.
How do I add my receiver?
Register it at skydex.online/feed and add one line to your decoder: readsb, ultrafeeder, adsb.im or AIS-catcher all work. It takes a few minutes, and the station appears on this globe as soon as it delivers data.
Can I share the view I am looking at?
Yes. The address bar keeps the camera, the layers and the object you picked, so a copied link opens the same view for anyone. The Share button copies it for you.
Are the altitudes exaggerated?
No. Aircraft sit at their real height. At cruise that is about 0.17% of the Earth's radius, so the difference only shows when you zoom in.
Where is the satellite imagery from?
It is NASA Blue Marble, a cloud-free composite of the whole Earth. It is not today's weather, and it gets soft when you zoom right in.
What is the Roadster button?
It pulls the camera back to a sketch of the Solar system with the Tesla Roadster SpaceX launched in 2018, at its real position today. The Solar system navigator does the same at real scale for any date from 2000 to 2049.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Drag to turn the globe and pinch to zoom. It needs a browser with WebGL; without it the page links to the flat live maps instead.