What Is Real-Time Flight Tracking and How Do You Track a Flight Live?

Real-time flight tracking means watching an aircraft's actual position, speed, and altitude update continuously on a map, rather than reading a static schedule. On Flight Viz, you can do this free and without logging in: it renders 10,000+ live aircraft on an interactive 3D globe in your browser, drawing position data from OpenSky Network and FlightRadar24. You need JavaScript and WebGL2 enabled, since the map is built with Rust compiled to WebAssembly and raw WebGL2 shaders. If you just want to follow one flight, search its flight number; if you want to understand the whole picture, use the globe and airport boards.

How real-time flight tracking works

Aircraft broadcast their position, and tracking services collect those broadcasts, merge them into a live feed, and draw each plane on a map. Flight Viz refreshes this continuously and can render thousands of aircraft at once at up to 60fps.

What you can read from a tracked flight:

• Live position on a 3D globe or flat map
• Speed and altitude
• Route and aircraft type, with a photo
• Estimated landing time
• Delay status, calculated from scheduled vs. actual times

Different icons distinguish commercial jets, cargo planes, propeller aircraft, helicopters, and military aircraft, so you can tell at a glance what kind of aircraft you're looking at.

Track a specific flight by number

1. Open Flight Viz in a browser with JavaScript and WebGL2 enabled.
2. Enter the flight number in the search field.
3. The aircraft appears on the map; click it to open its details panel.
4. Read type, photo, route, speed, altitude, and estimated landing time from that panel.

Expected result: you see the aircraft's current position and can follow it as it moves. If the flight number returns nothing, see the troubleshooting section below before assuming the flight doesn't exist.

Use airport departure and arrival boards

Flight Viz covers 192 major airports worldwide, including ATL, ORD, DFW, DEN, LAX, JFK, LHR, CDG, DXB, HND, SIN, and SYD.

• Click any airport dot on the map to open its live departure and arrival board.
• The board is styled like a real airport FIDS display, so scheduled and actual times sit side by side.
• Use it when you know the airport but not the flight number, or when you want to check whether a flight has actually departed or landed.

This is often the faster route for a status check: find the airport, scan the board, then click through to the aircraft on the map.

Interpret delay information correctly

Delay is not a single number — it comes from comparing scheduled against actual departure and arrival times. When you open a flight's details, check both ends:

• A late actual departure with an on-time estimated arrival usually means the airline made up time in the air.
• An on-time departure with a slipping arrival estimate suggests en-route or destination conditions.
• Toggle the weather radar overlay to see storms relative to the flight path, which helps explain routing changes and delays.

Why a flight may not appear or update

Coverage gaps are normal: position data depends on receivers on the ground and aircraft broadcasting, so some regions and some phases of flight update less reliably than others. A flight that doesn't show up is more often a data gap than a cancelled flight.

Quick reference

• Best for one flight: search by flight number, click the aircraft, read the details panel.
• Best for status checks: click the airport dot, read the FIDS-style board.
• Best for context: use the 3D globe with weather radar and country/airline filters.
• Requirements: JavaScript and WebGL2; free and no login required.