Plane Finder is a

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

-based real-time

flight tracking Flight tracking is a service that involves the tracking of flights, aircraft and airport activity, often using software. Overview Flight tracking enables travellers as well as those picking up travellers after a flight to know whether a flight h ...

service launched in 2009, that is able to show flight data globally. The data available includes flight numbers, how fast an aircraft is moving, its elevation and destination of travel. Several variants of the service are available as

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s including free, premium 3D and augmented reality versions. The flight tracking map and database can be accessed by web browsers. Plane Finder allows registered users to share their ADS-B and MLAT data via the Plane Finder ADS-B Client, available for

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Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. Plane Finder supports VFR charts from NATS and was the first major flight tracking app to introduce a replay feature, allowing users to replay flights dating back to 2011.

Flight tracking

Plane Finder collects data from its own global network of receivers, using the following sources.

Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B)

A network of

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(ADS-B) receivers gathers aircraft data such as callsign, position and speed. Plane Finder serves supplement this data with additional information, including aircraft registration/tail number, departure airport, destination, artwork, and photographs. Plane Finder users can apply for an ADS-B receiver in exchange for their flight data.

Multilateration (MLAT)

To deliver aircraft position data where ADS-B is unavailable, Plane Finder uses

multilateration Trilateration is the use of distances (or "ranges") for determining the unknown position coordinates of a point of interest, often around Earth (geopositioning). When more than three distances are involved, it may be called multilateration, for emph ...

(MLAT). Using three or more receivers running Plane Finder client software, monitoring the aircraft simultaneously, the aircraft’s position is calculated using receiver location and accurate timestamps. While European airspace is widely covered, only some parts of North American airspace are covered.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) feed

ADS-B is prevalent across Europe and Australia, but not in North America. Where MLAT or ADS-B data is unavailable, a feed from the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

provides flight information. The FAA feed covers United States and Canadian airspace, including bordering areas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

FLARM feed

Plane Finder collects data from a centralised

FLARM FLARM is proprietary electronic system used to selectively alert pilots to potential collisions between aircraft. It is not formally an implementation of ADS-B, as it is optimized for the specific needs of light aircraft, not for long-range commun ...

feed, for monitoring

small aircraft A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a maximum gross takeoff weight of or less.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 308. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. Light aircraft are used as utility aircraft c ...

and gliders.

Flight data source

The Plane Finder website and database is widely used as an information source to support articles in the media. ''The Independent'' used Plane Finder flight tracking to demonstrate to readers the flight path of flight MT2706, which turned back as a result of last minute Egyptian government flight restrictions on 6 November 2015. ''The Independent'' also used Plane Finder information to demonstrate a timeline of the speed/altitude of flight 7K 9268, a Russian plane which crashed on 31 October 2015. The BBC cited Plane Finder in regard to the point at which at British Airways flight turned back to Heathrow Airport to make an emergency landing after smoke was seen coming from its engines. Plane Finder data has also been used to create original imagery for the media, such as the ''Washington Post'', which used Plane Finder as a source to show flight patterns immediately after the Brussels bombings in March 2016.

References

{{reflist Mobile applications Aviation websites Internet properties established in 2009 Flight tracking software