map.flights - ads-b
Hi all,
I've built https://map.flights/, a live flight map I've been working on for the past few weeks. The hard part now is the data, so I'd like to ask for your help: would you add it as one more feed target?
The important bit up front, so you don't find it out from someone else: this is heading for commercial operation. Today I read from community aggregators — one of them declined to give me access and another is personal-use only. Both are entirely their call, and it's exactly why I'd rather build my own receiver network than argue about it.
This isn't a switch, it's one extra line. Please keep feeding wherever you feed now — I want to be an additional target, never a replacement. For readsb:
--net-connector=feed.map.flights,30004,beast_reduce_plus_out,uuid=<your uuid>
The protocol matters: beast_reduce_plus_out is the one that carries the UUID, so your station shows up as yours. You mint the UUID yourself at map.flights/receivers — no email to anyone, no approval queue. Without a UUID it still works and the positions still help, you just show up anonymous. Ultrafeeder and the adsb.im image take it like any other network.
What you get back:
– A station score with the formula published and frozen. The API returns the raw inputs and the per-component points, so you can recompute your own score in a spreadsheet. If I ever change a constant, it goes in the changelog with a date — I changed one today and it's there.
– Measured coverage gaps. I compute daily where traffic should be and isn't, so I can tell you whether a receiver at your location actually adds anything, instead of asking everyone everywhere to feed.
– Location privacy by default. Public pages show a grid cell and a country — never your town, never the antenna position — and per-sector range is rounded to 5 km. Trilateration from published neighbour distances is a real attack and I treat it as one.
What I don't have: no MLAT server (it needs density I don't have yet), and the network is brand new — two stations today, both mine. The map currently shows about 6 900 aircraft from aggregators plus 1 300 estimated positions over areas nobody covers. No ads, no tracking, sources credited at map.flights/transparency.
If you'd rather just look at it and tell me what's wrong, that's nearly as useful as the feed. Thanks!
