About TailNav

TailNav is a live flight tracker. It shows the aircraft we can hear in real time, with their route, aircraft details and flight history, and keeps a record of every flight it sees.

Where the data comes from

Most aircraft carry a transponder that broadcasts their position, altitude and speed on 1090 MHz, several times a second. This is called ADS-B. A small radio receiver and an antenna can pick these signals up from aircraft up to about 250 miles away.

Our picture is built from receivers run by people at home: on rooftops, in lofts and on windowsills. When several receivers hear the same aircraft, we can also work out the position of aircraft that don't broadcast one, by timing when each receiver heard the signal. This is called multilateration, or MLAT.

Why we built it

Flight tracking depends on volunteers, but most of them never see much in return. We wanted a tracker that treats the people feeding it properly. Every station gets its own statistics, earns TailTokens for genuine coverage, and its exact location is never published.

Feeding TailNav

If you already run a receiver for another network, you can feed us at the same time with one command. Your other feeds carry on as before. If you don't have one yet, our hardware list shows what to buy. See how feeding works.

Thanks

Airport information comes from OurAirports, aircraft details from the OpenSky Network and national aircraft registers, and maps from OpenStreetMap. Thank you to everyone who runs these projects, and to everyone who feeds us.

Get in touch

The quickest way to reach us is on Discord, where the team and other feeders hang out. For anything about your data or privacy, email privacy@tailnav.com.