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Planespotter

Real-time aircraft tracking powered by ADS-B data

Planespotter tracks live aircraft positions using ADS-B data from the OpenSky Network. Search by registration, ICAO24 code, manufacturer, model, operator, or owner — and see real-time position data for airborne aircraft.

Live at planespotter.dreamfold.dev.

Aircraft Search

Query the full OpenSky aircraft database by registration, ICAO24 hex code, manufacturer, model, operator, or owner. Paginated results for browsing large datasets.

Live Positions

Real-time position tracking for airborne aircraft. The ADSB-Sync service continuously polls OpenSky and caches positions in Valkey for fast retrieval.

Microservices Architecture

Built as a multi-service application: a frontend serving the web UI, an API server handling queries, an ADSB-Sync worker polling live data, PostgreSQL for aircraft metadata, and Valkey for position caching. Each service runs in its own container with health check endpoints.

Tech Stack

FastAPI for both frontend and API server. PostgreSQL for the aircraft database. Valkey for real-time position caching. Docker Compose for local deployment, Kubernetes with Kustomize manifests available for cluster deployment.

Aircraft data sourced from the OpenSky Network. Position data is real-time but subject to ADS-B coverage and OpenSky API availability.