Track Airplanes up to 400km Away with a Raspberry PiAware - FlightAware

Guides
1

Tim just shared a new tutorial: “Track Airplanes up to 400km Away with a Raspberry PiAware - FlightAware”



It is time for an Airplane Tracking Raspberry Pi! The final setup here will let you personally collect data on the exact whereabouts of airplanes over 400km away. It will update one to four times each minute. Be passenger planes, cargo aircraft, sin…

Read more

1 Like
2

Hi,

With the Pi 5 out now, would it be wiser to go with the new model? And if so would your instructions remain the same for setting up the FlightAware tracker? This is someone who knows nothing about Pi computers at all.

Cheers,
John

3

Hi John. Welcome to the forums!!!

From a bit of digging it looks like PiAware can be run on the Pi 5 but other users are saying it could be a bit overkill for this application. It also looks like the installation method is different from what is outlined in this guide.

A good resource to look into is this forum thread on the Flight Aware forums would be a good starting point.

4

Nice project. Well done!

5

Hi All
And if all else fails there is always “Flight Radar 24” to fall back on.
One thing to think of here is there is a slight delay involved and you will probably find that the system is off at airports in troubled areas with terrorist etc problems.

The reason. An aircraft is at its most vulnerable at take off and landing where it is committed to a flight path and performance. This web site is accessible to anyone including the bad guys. Get the point.

If you are accessing aircraft directly there may be no delay unless it is built into the airborne equipment.
Cheers Bob

1 Like
6

Hi Tim,

New to this forum. I have some unique problems how do I contact you on the forum please?

7

Hi Jaco,

Feel free to ask any questions related to the FlightAware under this post and the rest of us will do our best to help you out.

If you feel like you have some broader, unrelated questions you can always go to the forum homepage and use the + New Topic button to create a new post relating to your specific issues.

Hope this helps!
Sam

1 Like
8

Just to add my view, with this, keep in mind that its jusy over 1ghz freqency, so good coax is needed. The shorter the coax, the better. Depending on your setup either a good lna near the antenne will help, or run the pi near the antenna via poe cable.
Height will be your friend as well as anything in the way will create range challeges.

So for me, i would run it on a cheaper pi and put the $ towards the other bits needed.
But it is fun

1 Like