MilitarySpend
Defense Economics Research
Live · OpenSky Network

Live globe

Military aircraft radar.

Aircraft broadcasting ADS-B positions right now, worldwide. Likely-military flights are flagged in red by a transparent callsign heuristic — not a positive identification.

Live feed unavailable — showing sample flights · Source: OpenSky Network
Aircraft tracked
Military (heuristic)
Avg altitude
m

This globe plots aircraft currently transmitting ADS-B position data collected by the community-run OpenSky Network. Flights whose callsign matches known military patterns — Air Mobility Command RCH (Reach), Army PAT, RAF RRR (Ascot) and similar — are highlighted in red with a motion trail. Treat the military flag as a heuristic signal, not certainty: callsigns can be shared, spoofed, or blocked, and many military aircraft do not broadcast at all.

Interactive globe · sample flights
Likely military (heuristic) Civil / otherDrag to rotate · hover a point for callsign

Tracked flights — highest altitude

CallsignOrigin countryAltitudeSpeedMil?
AAL88United States11,887 m260 m/s
UAL245United States11,582 m255 m/s
BAW117United Kingdom11,582 m256 m/s
UAE202United Arab Emirates11,582 m258 m/s
CCA981China11,582 m258 m/s
QFA12Australia11,582 m256 m/s
SPAR19United States11,278 m250 m/sYES
RRR7211United Kingdom11,278 m250 m/sYES
AFR274France11,278 m252 m/s
JAL5Japan11,278 m254 m/s
SIA326Singapore11,278 m252 m/s
ACA118Canada10,972 m248 m/s
DLH400Germany10,972 m248 m/s
RRR2340United Kingdom10,972 m250 m/sYES
SAA221South Africa10,972 m248 m/s
KAL85South Korea10,972 m250 m/s
TAM3301Brazil10,972 m248 m/s
RCH508United States10,668 m240 m/sYES
KLM641Netherlands10,668 m246 m/s
RCH271United States10,668 m245 m/sYES
ELY26Israel10,668 m244 m/s
ANA210Japan10,668 m250 m/s
AIC102India10,668 m246 m/s
RCH445United States10,668 m245 m/sYES
DAL1420United States10,363 m244 m/s

Live feed is temporarily unavailable — the globe and table above show representative sample flights.

Source & method

Positions come from the OpenSky Network public REST API (/states/all), queried over regional bounding boxes so the feed returns quickly, refreshed roughly every 20 seconds and cached briefly at the edge. Only aircraft actively broadcasting ADS-B with a valid position are shown; coverage is best over Europe and North America and sparse over oceans and conflict zones.

The military flag is a heuristic. We infer it from callsign prefixes historically associated with military and government air arms (for example RCH, PAT, RRR, GAF, FAF). This cannot perfectly identify military aircraft: many fly with blocked or civilian callsigns, some civilian flights coincidentally match, and the most sensitive missions do not transmit at all. Do not rely on this page for operational or safety purposes.

Related: Defense spending by state · Top contractors · Methodology