u/TwinVision_0J

Real-time ADS-B position data is fascinating raw material — thousands of data points per second, each one representing an actual aircraft moving through space. The challenge I set myself: how do you make that data feel alive rather than just dots on a 2D map?

The result is Airport Live Traffic Viewer (altv.live) — a free 3D visualization that renders live airport traffic using ADS-B data from airplanes.live

Every takeoff, landing and taxi movement you see is a real aircraft, rendered in its actual position on a 3D globe.

830 airports worldwide, no sign-up, runs in browser and as a free app.

👉 www.altv.live

What would you do differently with this kind of data?

Captured with Airport Live Traffic Viewer

ADS-B source www.airplanes.live

Captured with Airport Live Traffic Viewer

ADS-B source www.airplanes.live

Added a new visual to Glider Viewer — each glider now sheds a pair of curling wake trails off its wingtips whenever it's actually banked into a turn.

A few things I tried to get right:

• They only show up once there's a real bank, and fade away in straight flight
• The outer wingtip curls more than the inner one, since it's moving faster through the turn
• Color shifts from a calm blue in a gentle turn toward red in a tight one
• No fixed attitude sensor needed — it's derived from the glider's own flight track, so it works for any aircraft already showing up on OGN

Still tuning the exact look (curl tightness, trail length, fade timing).

For details about the feature, see the airplanes.live Discord

Been working on a wind visualization for my app and wanted to share how it works. The core of the app is real-time data — live OGN positions, tracks, and flight state for everything in the air right now. The wind layer falls into that same "real-time first" philosophy, just from a different angle: since I'm not reading from onboard inertial/pressure sensors, I don't have access to the kind of hyper-local, sensor-derived wind. What I can do is pull a live GFS/Open-Meteo forecast and overlay it spatially on the paragliders, hang gliders and gliders so you get some sense of the synoptic wind field they're operating in.

Instead of one wind arrow for the whole map (useless once you're covering any real distance), it's a 5×5 grid of arrows anchored around each active aircraft. So, if you're tracking three aircraft spread across different valleys, each one gets its own local wind picture nearby it — not some averaged number from 50km away that means nothing where they actually are.

Each arrow is color-coded by wind speed, so you can read the gradient at a glance instead of squinting at numbers. There's also a small UI panel showing the raw speed/direction for the nearest sample, for when you want the actual figure.

Data comes from Open-Meteo's GFS feed, refreshed periodically — so it's a model forecast layer, not a live mast reading. Good for getting a general sense of where the wind's doing something interesting (convergence-ish patterns, a stronger band along a ridge, etc.), not a substitute for what your vario and the real sky are telling you.

It's still evolving — happy to hear what would actually be useful to see overlaid on top of the OGN traffic

Been working on a wind visualization for my app and wanted to share how it works, since it's directly built around how we actually use wind info in flight.

Instead of one wind arrow for the whole map (useless once you're covering any real distance), it's a 5×5 grid of arrows anchored around each active aircraft. So if you're tracking three aircraft spread across different valleys, each one gets its own local wind picture nearby it — not some averaged number from 50km away that means nothing where they actually are.

Each arrow is color-coded by wind speed, so you can read the gradient at a glance instead of squinting at numbers. There's also a small UI panel showing the raw speed/direction for the nearest sample, for when you want the actual figure.

Data comes from Open-Meteo's GFS feed, refreshed periodically — so it's a model forecast layer, not a live mast reading. Good for getting a general sense of where the wind's doing something interesting (convergence-ish patterns, a stronger band along a ridge, etc.), not a substitute for what your vario and the real sky are telling you.

It's still evolving — happy to hear what would actually be useful to see overlaid on top of the OGN traffic.

The event was recorded live (no replay) on May 30, 2026, at 1:15 p.m.

This is a demo, so it's not perfect. However, it shows that it's possible to render the race in 3D. You can watch a longer version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wt1zeNkuvo4

What if you could see every paraglider and hang glider currently in the air—worldwide, in real time, in 3D?

That’s exactly what I’ve been building.

This is a private project, not a product. I’m not trying to sell anything—I just want to share what I’ve created. If you’re curious, feel free to try Glider Viewer. If you’re only interested in polished products, this might not be for you.

The goal is simple (but ambitious): show all gliders, paragliders, and hang gliders currently flying, globally and in real time, in a 3D view.

The 3D visualization (“digital shadow”) lets you explore paraglider and hang glider flights from any perspective. You can follow individual flights or just see what’s happening in the air—how you use it is completely up to you.

Important
This is NOT a commercial project. It’s something I built because I enjoy it. A lot of time and passion went into it—and maybe there are others here who also enjoy watching flights from around the world.