u/XuhaiLuo

I’ve always liked watching the aircraft flying around me, but most flight tracking apps feel more like maps than actual radar displays.

So I built Plane Radar, an iOS app that presents nearby ADS-B traffic on a classic circular radar-style display.

The main screen has range rings, bearing markers, aircraft targets, a radar sweep, and flight trails. There’s also a Classic Radar mode where aircraft update as the sweep passes over them, which gives it a much more old-school radar feel.

You can tap any aircraft to see details like its callsign, registration, aircraft type, altitude, speed, heading, distance, airline, and route when available.

One of the features I’ve been enjoying most is nearby aircraft alerts. You can create alerts based on things like:

• distance
• altitude
• aircraft type

So, for example, you can get notified when a certain type of aircraft flies close to you without keeping the app open and watching the radar.

You can also view flight trails, switch between radar/map/satellite views, filter the aircraft shown, and change the radar location and range.

For the ADS-B enthusiasts, it can also connect to a local dump1090/readsb receiver.

I’m still actively working on it, and some things I’m considering next are saved locations and support for custom community ADS-B API sources.

Would love to hear what you think about the radar-style UI and what you’d want to see added next.

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/plane-radar-aircraft-tracker/id6796849076

I’ve been building a small iOS app called Plane Radar for watching nearby ADS-B traffic.

The main idea was to make the display feel more like a traditional radar scope rather than a standard moving map. It has range rings, bearing markers, aircraft targets, flight trails, and a Classic Radar mode where targets update as the sweep passes over them.

For data, it can use community ADS-B sources, but it also supports connecting directly to a local dump1090/readsb receiver on your network.

A few other things I’ve added recently:

• nearby-aircraft alerts based on distance, altitude, and aircraft type
• map / satellite overlays
• aircraft details such as callsign, registration, type, altitude, speed, heading, and distance
• filters for narrowing down the traffic shown on the scope

Obviously it isn’t actual radar — the aircraft positions are still coming from ADS-B. The radar part is mainly the visualization and interaction model.

I’m currently thinking about adding:

• saved locations
• custom community ADS-B API endpoints
• more options for people running their own receivers

I’d especially be interested in feedback from people here who run dump1090/readsb or use multiple ADS-B data sources. What would make something like this more useful for your setup?

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/plane-radar-aircraft-tracker/id6796849076