Frequently asked questions

MyFlightVue is invite-only. Ask someone who uses it for an invite link: open it, enter your email address, then sign in. Each link works once and expires after a week. Or ask an admin to add your address, then open myflightvue.com and sign in.

Open Settings (gear button) → Invite a friend → Create invite link, and send the link to one person. It works once and expires after 7 days; you can see who used it, or cancel it, on the same page.

Choose Google, or type your email address and enter the one-time code that arrives by email. No password to remember. You stay signed in for about a month on each device.

Use exactly the address you were invited with (the Google account must be that same address). Check spam for the code; it can take a minute. If it still fails, ask the person who invited you to check your address.

Yes. It runs on free data sources and free hosting. Nothing to pay, no ads.

Yes. Settings are saved to your account and load on every device you sign in on. Open screens pick up changes within about two minutes. The logbook is saved to your account too: every device adds what it sees, and all of them show the combined totals.

Settings belong to your account, so every screen signed in as you shows the same setup. For a different setup on one screen, sign it in with another invited address.

A few common reasons:

• It's outside your radius or below the lowest angle above horizon (Settings → Flights overhead). Try a bigger radius or a lower angle.
• No volunteer receiver near you is picking it up. Coverage is great near cities, thinner in rural areas.
• Some aircraft (many small planes, some military and private jets) don't broadcast their position, or hide their identity.

Routes are looked up by flight number from a community database. Private, cargo, military and charter flights often have none, and a route that doesn't fit where the plane actually is gets hidden instead of shown wrong. Turn routes off in Settings if you don't want them.

Aircraft refresh every 10 seconds and are typically a few seconds behind reality. Weather updates every few minutes.

Planes are sorted by how high they appear above your horizon, so the first one listed is the one you're most likely to see out the window. Switch to "closest first" in Settings if you prefer.

Callsign: the flight's radio name, e.g. DAL123 (Delta 123). Type code: the aircraft model, e.g. B738 (Boeing 737-800), A388 (Airbus A380). Squawk: a 4-digit transponder code; 7500, 7600 and 7700 mean hijack, radio failure and emergency.

Settings → Spotting alerts. Add aircraft type codes (A388, B748), airline codes (UAE, BAW) or callsigns and tail numbers (N12*, where * matches anything). Emergencies, military, widebodies and helicopters can be switched on or off.

Use the 4-letter ICAO code. In the US it's usually K + the 3-letter code on your luggage tag: LAX → KLAX, JFK → KJFK. Elsewhere search "airport name ICAO code"; e.g. Heathrow is EGLL, Toronto Pearson CYYZ. Up to 10 airports.

Small airfields often have no weather station. Pick the nearest larger airport instead.

A quick color scale for how good the weather is for flying, from green (clear) to magenta (thick fog or very low cloud). See Reading the weather.

No. MyFlightVue is for fun and curiosity. Pilots must use official briefings.

By default only passes you can actually see are listed: the station must be lit by the sun while your sky is dark (around dawn and dusk). Turn off "Only passes you can see" for all passes.

Any, by its NORAD number: 25544 ISS, 48274 Tiangong, 20580 Hubble. Find others at celestrak.org.

Anything with a modern web browser: smart TVs, Fire TV and Chromecast with Google TV browsers, tablets, phones, laptops and Raspberry Pi kiosks. Nothing to install.

Open myflightvue.com/app/?kiosk and press F for full screen. See TV & kiosk.

That's the device's power setting. Turn off auto-lock / screen timeout, or on Android enable "Stay awake" while charging in developer options.

Settings → Night: pick the hours and brightness, and the screen dims on its own.

Yes: FlightVue started as a home-built LED sign on a Raspberry Pi. The LED panel look in Settings shows what it looks like.

Reload the page. If data sources are down, the screen keeps the last good data and catches up when they come back.

Your email address (to let you in) and your settings. Your location is rounded to about 1 km before it's used to fetch nearby aircraft. With Follow me on, the live position stays in your browser: it's never saved to your account. Follow me is set on each device. No ads, no tracking, nothing sold.

Ask the person who invited you to remove you. That signs you out everywhere and deletes your saved settings.

Aircraft from adsb.lol (© adsb.lol contributors, ODbL 1.0), routes from adsb.im, weather from aviationweather.gov, satellite orbits from CelesTrak. All free, public sources.