New Features: Click on the airplane button above to launch the live flight track window. Once the flight track map is loaded, please note that clicking other links on the Web site will cause this window to automatically close. To continue browsing please open a new browser tab or window.

This feature allows you to watch the movement of flights and air traffic patterns currently in use within the Bay Area. This map will show flight tracks of aircraft arriving and departing from SFO, Oakland, and San Jose Airports as well as other nearby general aviation airports. Red aircraft are arrivals, green aircraft are departures, and blue aircraft are General Aviation or small propeller aircraft and helicopters. The white aircraft are transiting the area and bypassing local airports. The icon aircraft sizes are uniform regardless of the actual size of the aircraft.

These flight tracks, although taken from actual radar data, are not in real time. There is a delay of ten minutes, as indicated in the lower left corner of the map window. This can be helpful if you notice an unusual overflight in your neighborhood and you need time to bring up this website to study its altitude and flight path. It is not uncommon to see tracks occasionally disappear as the information is updated.

How to Navigate Live Flight Tracks

There are several ways to navigate the map.

*        The scroll bar on the right side and bottom of the map can be used to move it vertically and horizontally. Or, double clicking on any point on the map will cause it to re-center on that position.

*        The "Zoom" control on the bottom-left portion of the screen will allow you to zoom in and out.

*        Double-clicking on a plane icon will change its color to yellow and allow continuous tracking of the airplane to a destination or out of the coverage area.

Controlling Display of Information

Next to each aircraft is the Flight ID (Airline and Flight number, or Tail Number) and the current altitude (in feet above sea level). The Playback Control button (on the bottom/right corner of the screen) will bring up a window that will allow you to display further information, such as aircraft type, origin/destination airports, and airspeed. Also on this display, you can choose to see this text for all planes, or only for selected, moused-over planes. You can also enable or disable all General Aviation aircraft from the display, or commercial aircraft.