One search box for every aircraft and ship in the Directory
The Directory had nine sections and a filter inside each one. That works when you already know which list to open. Most people don't: they have a tail number from a photo, or a ship name from a port webcam, and no idea whether Skydex files it under types, airframes or something else. So there is one search field now, at the top of the Directory and of every section in it.
What it finds
- Aircraft types by designator, model or builder:
B738,737-800,dreamliner. - Caught aircraft by registration or ICAO24 address:
D-AIZC,daizcand3c4b26all work. Dashes and spaces don't matter. - Airlines by ICAO code, IATA code, name or radio callsign:
DLH,LH,Lufthansa,speedbird. - Airports a caught flight was going to or coming from:
EDDH,HAM,Heathrow. - Caught ships by name, MMSI or IMO number.
- Manufacturers, flag states, shipyards and ports by name.
Results come back in groups, up to five in each. Exact codes come first, then names that start with what you typed, then everything else. When there are more than five, the last line of the group opens the matching section with your query already in its filter, and the number it shows is the number of rows that list will show.
Press / anywhere in the Directory to jump into the field. Arrow keys move through the results and Enter opens one.
What it does not find
An aircraft has a page here only after somebody has caught it, so an airframe that nobody has caught yet is not in the results. If you search a registration and get nothing, the live aircraft map shows everything the receiver network hears right now, and the ships map does the same for the water. Privately flown aircraft are never searchable by tail: we don't keep their registrations at all.
How it works
The server keeps the whole Directory in memory as a small index and rebuilds it every ten minutes from the same lists the sections show. A search reads that index and never touches the database, so the box can ask on every keystroke without slowing the rest of the site. If one of the lists fails to load during a rebuild, its old entries stay in the index until the next one.
The Directory front page also tells search engines the search exists, so a query like skydex.online/directory?q=ever given opens straight on the answer.
Next
The same field in the site header, so you can search from any page, not only from the Directory.