u/mja0342

Android version is live. iOS has been out since July.

The idea: your phone's GPS is a receiver. It listens to satellites and transmits nothing, so airplane mode doesn't stop it. Download map regions on the ground, switch to airplane mode, and SkyDot tracks your actual flight the whole way — no wifi, no roaming, no in-flight data purchase.

• Offline map from local storage — world basemap 126 MB, regional packs 90–140 MB
• Altitude, ground speed, heading, distance flown and remaining, landing countdown
• Tells you what you're flying over by name, offline
• Auto travel log and visited-countries map

Not a plane spotter. No other aircraft, no ADS-B. Your flight, your seat.

Free forever for tracking, no account. Free saves 5 flights (15 with rewarded ads); Premium is $19.99 one-time or $12.99/yr and adds unlimited saves, high-detail region packs, and no ads.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evolveratechnologies.skydot https://skydotapp.com

Keen on battery reports across devices — that's the thing I can't test broadly.

App Name: SkyDot - Flight Tracker

What it does: SkyDot tracks your own flight on a live map while your phone stays in Airplane Mode - no wifi, no mobile data, no roaming, no inflight purchase. Airplane Mode switches off the transmitting radios, but GPS is receive-only, so your phone still works out its position at cruise altitude; the part you actually have to solve is caching the map on the ground first.

Key Features:

- Live position, altitude, ground speed and heading, fully offline

- Downloadable offline map regions (Europe, North America, North Atlantic, South Asia and more)

- Names the town or city you are passing over from an on-device gazetteer (~69k places, ~4k airports)

- Automatic travel log: distance, duration, top speed, max altitude, countries crossed

- Landing countdown on the lock screen, and a window-seat sun almanac telling you which side to sit on

What it is not: it does not show other aircraft around you. That needs a live data feed, which is exactly the thing that stops working at 38,000 feet. This tracks your flight, from your seat.

Cost: Free with ads and a small daily save quota. Optional premium removes ads and unlocks the full travel log. No account needed to start.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evolveratechnologies.skydot

Solo developer here. Happy to answer anything technical and genuinely want bug reports - packaging the offline map regions small enough to be practical was the hardest part by far.

Every flight app I tried went blank the moment we left the gate, because they're all fetching positions over a network that isn't there at cruise.

But Airplane Mode only switches off the transmitting radios. GPS is a receiver — it listens to satellites and sends nothing back, so your phone still works out exactly where it is at 38,000 feet. It just can't fetch a map, and that's the part you actually have to solve.

So SkyDot caches map regions before you fly and draws your own position on them. No wifi, no data, no roaming. It names the city you're passing over from an on-device gazetteer, and logs the flight automatically.

To be clear about what it isn't: it doesn't show other aircraft around you. That needs a live feed, which is exactly the thing that stops working up there.

Solo dev. Free on iOS and Android, ad-supported with optional premium. Happy to answer anything technical — packaging the offline maps small enough was the hard part.

skydotapp.com