No matching aircraft. Try N300CAT, CAT101, Phenom, EMB-505, STL, or Naples.
Aircraft visuals are generic references. Missing data is not inferred. Live coverage is limited to the queried area.
MAP OPTIONS
Map layers
Select a style, then confirm. Zoom to 5 NM or closer for streets and cities. Detailed maps need an internet connection.
On map: Night
Night works offline. Other styles require internet.
Vector place labels stay crisp as you zoom. The Labels switch controls map, airport and aircraft labels. Raster fallback labels cannot be switched off.
General surface weather, not observed radar, an official METAR/TAF display, or a flight-weather briefing. Forecasts are labeled separately. Aircraft-altitude weather is not supplied.
Synthetic weather for design testing. Not an observation or forecast.
The demo contains six artificial frames. “Recent US radar” requests an external IEM / NEXRAD mosaic; it requires internet and is not a briefing product.
Reference data, not an airport status report or navigation source.
AIRCRAFT
Aircraft
STATUS
Looking up aircraft…
—Altitude—Ground speed—Track
RECENT ACTIVITY
Flight history
Observed ADS-B activity. Tap a flight to highlight its recorded path on the map.
WHY CENTRAL AVIATION TRACKING
Live flight tracking, with a clearer view of aviation.
Explore aircraft, discover airports, and see flight information in context—without losing the big picture.
Live aircraft tracking · ADS-B observations · interactive aviation map
A MORE CONSIDERED WAY TO EXPLORE
Built around your curiosity.
Map-first clarity
Explore maps and airport details without losing your place.
Aircraft, not just icons
Go deeper with live aircraft details, type-matched reference photography, airport context, and observed flight information.
Your aviation workspace
Choose your map layers and save the aircraft you want to return to.
Transparency by design
Clearly labeled simulations. Credited imagery. Sources within reach.
WHY WE’RE BUILDING CAT
The sky is worth exploring.
We’re building an independent aviation platform around clarity and useful context. A place for people who want to understand the aircraft, airports, and activity that connect our world.
A flight tracker designed around the entire aviation picture.
Central Aviation Tracking, or CAT, is an interactive live flight tracker for exploring aircraft, airports, weather radar, aircraft photography, and observed flight activity from one map-first interface.
Live aircraft tracking
Explore near-real-time ADS-B observations, search by registration or callsign, inspect altitude, speed and track information, and open aircraft details without losing your place on the map.
Airport exploration
Discover airports around the world, save frequently viewed airports to Favorites, and quickly return to local traffic and weather around the facilities that matter to you.
Weather in context
Overlay observed precipitation radar beneath live aircraft so weather and aviation activity can be viewed together. CAT clearly separates radar observations from general forecasts and is not a flight-weather briefing service.
Aircraft identity and history
CAT is being built to connect aircraft registrations with type-matched photography and available historical ADS-B observations, making it useful for aviation enthusiasts, plane spotters, operators, and professionals.
Why build another flight tracker?
Many aviation tools separate the map, aircraft details, airport information, weather, photos, and saved items into disconnected experiences. CAT is being designed around clarity: keep the map central, expose the source and limitations of data, and let people move naturally from an aircraft in the sky to the information surrounding it.
Search for a flight, follow an aircraft, explore an airport, watch weather move across a region, or simply see what is flying overhead. CAT aims to make aviation data easier to understand without hiding uncertainty or inventing unavailable information.
ABOUT THE LIVE-DATA BETA
Live mode uses provider observations where coverage is available. CAT is not for navigation or a flight-weather briefing.
THE CONTEXT BEHIND THE VIEW
Sources & Credits.
A clear view starts with knowing what you’re looking at. Here are the providers, references, and limits behind this CAT prototype.
Simulated aircraft · not a live feedLive Link 0.10.0
LIVE LINK · DATA PROVIDERS
What is real, and what is not
Aircraft · ADSB.lol
Aircraft observations come from ADSB.lol, under the Open Database License (ODbL 1.0). Queries cover a circle around the viewed area, up to 250 nautical miles in radius; they are not a complete worldwide traffic feed. Receiver coverage, delayed messages and missing fields limit what can be shown.
CAT requests updates approximately every 15 seconds while this map is visible. That is a request interval, not a guarantee of provider update speed. Source timestamps determine position age. Positions older than 60 seconds are marked stale; after 120 seconds they are removed. No smooth-motion extrapolation, inferred route or historical reconstruction is presented as an observation.
Only tracks collected in the current browser session are drawn. The latest snapshot replaces the previous query. At world zoom, most of the world is outside the queried circle. Aircraft without recent coordinates are not plotted; no result is not proof of no traffic. Check the provider’s current terms and contact it before production reliance. API availability and rate limits can change.
Surface weather · WeatherAPI.com
General conditions and a one-day forecast are provided by WeatherAPI.com after the site owner configures a server-side key. Location and provider-update time are displayed. Results can be cached for ten minutes; forecasts are not observations. No key is embedded in this website.
This is not an official METAR/TAF briefing product, observed weather radar, or weather at an aircraft’s altitude. Missing setup, quota exhaustion and unavailable services are shown as errors, never replaced with artificial weather.
Demo & privacy
Demo mode remains an explicitly selected local simulation. The wireframe and photograph are generic references in both modes. Map areas, aircraft lookup values and weather locations are sent to CAT’s hosting provider and the relevant data provider; do not enter personal data in those searches. Profile details, photos and favorites remain in this browser. Billing, login, cloud synchronization and live-flight notifications are not connected.
Maps & geographic detail
Detailed vector maps use OpenFreeMap with OpenMapTiles and OpenStreetMap data, rendered by MapLibre GL JS. The map keeps compact, source-specific attribution in its upper-right corner.
Online maps need internet access and WebGL. The embedded atlas or raster tiles remain labeled fallbacks when detailed vector resources are unavailable.
Satellite imagery & the world atlas
Satellite and hybrid layers use Esri World Imagery, with credits to Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and contributing providers. The bundled world atlas retains NASA Earth Observatory imagery and GSHHG/GMT geography from the earlier CAT build.
These layers are geographic references, not live aerial observations. Imagery dates and resolution vary.
Airports & facilities
The worldwide airport directory loads reference data from OurAirports. A small bundled reference list remains available when the full directory has not loaded. The interface reports its actual catalog status.
Facility records can be incomplete or out of date. A marker is not confirmation that an airport is open, suitable for a particular aircraft, or available for use.
Aircraft visuals & photography
The 3D wireframe is original, generic business-jet geometry—not manufacturer CAD, a maintenance inspection, or sensed aircraft state.
The Airport Photo view uses Coldstreamer20’s N780TW - KHPN - 4-10-23, a Gulfstream G650ER reference photograph at Westchester County Airport. The photograph is unmodified and displayed scaled to fit. It is not a photograph of the selected simulated flight.
In Demo mode, all eleven flights, identifiers, routes, and telemetry are locally generated simulations. CAT101–CAT110 are fictional demo callsigns, not verified registrations. The great-circle routes are not filed flight plans.
Demo-mode weather is illustrative; live-mode weather is off until requested. The optional IEM radar request is experimental; failures are reported rather than relabeled as live weather. This prototype is not a flight-weather briefing or an operational planning tool.
Profile details, resized profile pictures, favorites, and preferences are saved only in this browser when storage is available. There is no connected sign-in, cloud account, payment processing, or background notification service.
Public map, airport, and photo providers receive the network requests needed to load their content. Clearing browser data removes locally saved preferences; avoid storing private contact details on a shared device.
LIVE FLIGHT TRACKER
Track aircraft. Explore airports. Understand the airspace.
Central Aviation Tracking is a map-first flight tracker built to make live aircraft activity easier to explore. Search an aircraft by registration, callsign, model, airport, or city; inspect observed ADS-B position data; save aircraft and airports; and place precipitation radar in context with live traffic.
Aircraft tracking without losing the map
CAT keeps the aviation map at the center of the experience. Aircraft markers show observed traffic while airport information, aircraft photography, weather layers, favorites, and available historical observations add context without pretending that unavailable data is known.
Built for aviation enthusiasts and professionals
Whether you are following a business jet, checking activity near an airport, exploring commercial traffic, or learning what is flying overhead, CAT provides a fast interactive view designed for desktop and mobile browsers.