Switching Airports

Pre-configured Hubs — Use the dropdown at the top-left to instantly switch between major airports (LSZH, EGLL, EDDF, LFPG, EHAM, KJFK, RJTT, and more).

Any Airport Worldwide — Click the + button next to the dropdown, enter any 4-letter ICAO code (e.g. KSFO, VHHH, WSSS), and click Search.

Direct Links — Bookmark or share a specific airport: ?icao=EDDF or ?airport=KJFK

Flight Information

• Flight — Callsign.
• Destination / Origin — Cycles between ICAO code and airport name every 4 seconds.
• Time — Scheduled departure or arrival time (UTC). When a departure enters "Departing" status, the time switches to the actual departure time and pulses amber.
• Gate / Stand — Assigned position. UK airports pull real data from UKCP when available.
• Check-in — Desk assignment for departures, based on airline and terminal.
• Status — Current flight phase. Cycles every 6 seconds between the phase label and delay / gate information.

Status Colours

• Blue — Pushback / Departing / Approaching
• Green — Boarding
• Yellow — Check-In / Landing / Taxiing
• Orange — Late Arrival / Wait
• Red — Delayed
• Pink — Go To Gate

Flight Tracking

Click any flight row to open the Flight Info card — showing the airline logo, callsign, aircraft type, status, gate, time, and a live SVG route arc from origin to destination.

Click Track on Live Map in the card to start tracking that callsign and jump straight to the Live Radar Map. A chip appears in the header showing the flight and route. When the tracked aircraft departs and goes airborne, the board automatically switches to the destination airport. Press × on the chip to stop tracking.

While tracking is active, the map icon in the header pulses green. The Live Radar Map automatically opens the tracked flight's detail panel and draws its planned route. Other aircraft on the map cannot be selected while tracking is active.

Header Widgets

• ATC (radar icon) — Green when controllers are active. Hover to see positions and frequencies.
• Weather (cloud icon) — Live METAR-based icon with temperature in °C. Hover to reveal a decoded METAR popover showing wind, visibility, cloud layers, temperature/dewpoint, and QNH alongside the raw METAR string.
• Map (waypoint icon) — Opens the Live Radar Map. Pulses green when a flight is being tracked.
• Clock — Current UTC (Zulu) time.

Visual Features

• Auto-Pagination — Splits into pages and cycles automatically when flights exceed screen space.
• Airport Themes — EDDF uses an animated Solari split-flap display; each airport has its own branded colours.
• Responsive Layout — Landscape: tables side-by-side. Portrait: tables stacked (great for dedicated monitors).
• Event Ticker — Scrolling banner above the footer when a VATSIM event is active or starting within 24 hours.
• Fullscreen — Click ⛶ in the footer. Press ESC to exit.

Gate Display

Full-Page Mode — Navigate directly to /gate/ICAO/CALLSIGN (e.g. /gate/EGLL/BAW123). The page waits for the flight to appear, then displays live gate, status, and departure time updates.

Gate Status — Shows CLOSED while the flight is still at the origin or en route. Switches to TBA (or an assigned gate number) once the flight is on approach or has landed at the destination.

Dynamic Branding — The page accent colour automatically adapts to match the airline's logo. Perfect for OBS overlays or streaming.

Live Radar Map

Open the Map — Click the compass icon in the header, or navigate directly to /map/ICAO (e.g. /map/EGLL).

Aircraft Markers — Each flight appears as a rotated plane icon colour-coded by phase: green (ground), blue (arriving), orange (departing). Airline logos and callsigns are shown on a label connected by a stalk line.

Draggable Labels — Click and drag any callsign label to reposition it. Double-click to reset to auto-placement.

Breadcrumb Trails — Airborne aircraft leave a fading dot trail showing their recent flight path.

Tracked Flight Route — When a flight is being tracked, its planned route is drawn as a dashed amber line with the destination ICAO labelled at the far end. The tracked aircraft's label is highlighted and shows speed, heading, and altitude.

Flight Detail Panel — Click any aircraft to open a side panel with callsign, status, aircraft type, route, altitude, speed, and gate assignment. When tracking is active, the panel opens automatically and other aircraft cannot be selected.

Gate Display Link — From the detail panel, click Gate Display to open the full-page gate monitor for that flight.

Boarding Pass — Click Print Boarding Pass in the detail panel to generate a printable boarding pass with flight details, seat assignment, and airline-branded accent colours.

Nearby Traffic — While a flight is being tracked and airborne, all other airborne VATSIM aircraft are shown on the map as small white markers with fading trails, giving a live global traffic picture around the tracked flight.

ATC Panel — An expandable panel in the bottom-left lists active controllers. When tracking a flight, the list is automatically filtered to show only controllers at the origin and destination airports plus any relevant sector (CTR) controllers along the route.

Conflict Detection — En-route and approaching aircraft are continuously checked for proximity conflicts using ICAO-aligned separation minima. Conflicting pairs are joined by a dashed coloured line and the aircraft icon pulses with a coloured ring: yellow (<10 NM / <2,000 ft), orange (<5 NM / <1,000 ft), red (<2 NM / <800 ft). When tracking a flight only conflicts involving that flight are shown. Toggle off via the Conflicts button in the legend; the setting persists across sessions.

Weather Radar — Toggle a live global precipitation overlay via the Weather button in the map legend. Powered by RainViewer and refreshed automatically every 10 minutes. State persists across sessions.

Live Updates — The map refreshes in real time via WebSocket — no page reload needed.

Tips

• Bookmark your favourite airport with ?icao=XXXX in the URL.
• Works great on a spare monitor in landscape or portrait orientation.
• Track your own flight — click the row, hit Track on Live Map, and the map opens straight to your aircraft.
• Click any flight for the info card; the gate shows CLOSED en route and updates to TBA or your gate number on approach.
• Print a boarding pass from the map's flight detail panel — great for immersion.
• Data refreshes every 20 seconds via live VATSIM data, pushed instantly via WebSocket.

Legal & Branding

Simulation Use Only — This tool and its branding are for immersion purposes and are not for real-world travel or navigation.

Trademarks — Airline logos are trademarks of their respective owners, used here for non-commercial community simulation.

View full usage & branding policy

v1.3.8 — 2026-03-15

• Live Map: ATC Sectors toggle added to map legend — hides/shows sector boundary overlays, preference persisted across sessions; boundaries skipped on load if previously turned off
• Live Map: Conflict colour key in legend now hides when conflicts are toggled off
• Live Map: Retina tile support enabled for sharper map tiles on high-DPI displays (iPad, Retina Mac)
• Live Map: Vector layers (runways, taxiways, sector polygons, conflict lines) switched to Canvas renderer for smoother pan/zoom on mobile

v1.3.7 — 2026-03-14

• Live Map: Flight panel now shows simplified destination weather (condition, wind, temperature, QNH, visibility if reduced) fetched from live METAR
• Live Map: Weather shown for origin airport until within 150nm of destination, then switches to destination conditions
• Live Map: QNH displayed as hPa globally; US airports (K-prefix) additionally show inHg

v1.3.6 — 2026-03-13

• Live Map: OpenWeatherMap cloud cover layer added beneath the RainViewer radar overlay — both layers toggle together via the Weather button
• Live Map: RainViewer radar tiles smoothed with CSS blur to reduce pixelation at high zoom levels
• Live Map: Weather overlay now defaults to OFF (state persisted via localStorage)

v1.3.5 — 2026-03-13

• Live Map: RainViewer global weather radar overlay — toggleable from the map legend, state persisted across sessions, auto-refreshes every 10 minutes

v1.3.4 — 2026-03-13

• Google Analytics tracking added to admin, login, gate, index, and map templates
• EHAM theme: Inter font, lowercase text styling
• ATIS regex extended to handle LDG/TKOF without RWY prefix, reversed RWY IN USE phrasing, and pipe-separated runway lists

v1.3.3 — 2026-03-12

• UKCP stand definitions now fetched live from the UKCP API at startup — fixes missing gate names for recently added stands (IDs 1529–1742, e.g. stand 1740 → "178L"). Falls back to cached ukcp_stands.json if the API is unreachable. The file is refreshed on disk each successful fetch.

v1.3.2 — 2026-03-12

• Live Map: preferred runway fallback for calm and light wind — when no ATIS is online and wind is below a per-airport threshold (or variable), the system now returns documented preferred runways instead of leaving it to a wind-heading calculation that degenerates under low-wind conditions
• Preferred runway data sourced from official vACC SOPs and AIPs for 11 airports: EGLL, EGKK, EGSS, EGLC, EGCC, LSZH, LSGG, ESSA, EDDF, LFPG, RJTT

v1.3.1 — 2026-03-12

• Flight tracking: returning to the flightboard from the map now switches to the destination airport if the tracked flight is En Route, Approaching, or has landed — so the flight is always visible on the board

v1.3.0 — 2026-03-11

• Live Map: active runway detection — parses VATSIM ATIS text to identify landing and departing runways in use, highlighted in blue (arrivals), green (departures), or yellow (both)
• Live Map: runway HUD overlay shows active runway identifiers, ATIS information code, frequency, and data source (ATIS or wind calculation)
• Live Map: wind-based fallback calculates into-wind runways from METAR when no ATIS is online
• Live Map: ATC controllers now correctly displayed for US airports (K-prefix ICAO to 3-letter FAA code matching)
• Admin: ATIS Log tab shows airports where runway parsing fell back to wind, with full raw ATIS text for debugging

v1.2.6 — 2026-03-11

• Flight Info Modal: clicking any flight row opens a card with airline logo, status, gate, aircraft, and a live SVG route arc
• Track on Live Map: one-tap button in the modal starts tracking and navigates directly to the Live Radar Map
• Right-click gate display replaced by the unified left-click modal
• Live Map: map header no longer shows "Arrived" for boarding departures at elevated airports

v1.2.5 — 2026-03-11

• Live Map: dead-reckoning interpolation moves aircraft markers smoothly between VATSIM data updates
• Live Map: pilot name and VATSIM CID shown in the flight detail panel
• Live Map: auto-pan only triggers when a tracked aircraft nears the map edge

v1.2.4 — 2026-03-11

• Non-themed airports now use Inter as the default UI and data font for improved readability

v1.2.3 — 2026-03-11

• Live Map: map header now correctly shows real airport names for both origin and destination

v1.2.2 — 2026-03-10

• Stockholm Arlanda (ESSA) theme and check-in desk assignments
• Live Map: OSM taxiway data cached per airport — faster reloads and more reliable display during flight tracking
• Live Map: map no longer zooms away from the airport when tracking a ground flight

v1.1.9 — 2026-03-09

• SID/STAR route segments drawn as smooth curves; procedure now inferred from waypoints when not filed, with live METAR wind as tiebreaker
• Admin panel: Nav Data tab with AIRAC cycle info and NAVDATA upload

v1.1.4 — 2026-03-08

• Live Map launched with real-time aircraft markers, airline logos, breadcrumb trails, ATC overlays, conflict detection, and boarding pass printing
• Flight locator button and auto-follow mode
• All airborne VATSIM traffic shown globally when tracking a flight
• Actual departure and arrival times shown on the board

Earlier — 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-07

• Gate display page at /gate/ICAO/CALLSIGN for OBS overlays and streaming
• METAR popover with decoded weather data
• Paris CDG (LFPG) and Manchester (EGCC) themes added
• Multi-language footer — Arrivals/Departures/Gates translate based on airport country