Two kinds of aeroplanes
- Gold: our pilots. Each gold aeroplane is a pilot flying a booked flight with the ACARS. Its position comes from the ACARS every 15 seconds, with the trail already flown and a dashed line to the destination.
- Grey: the airlines' timetable. Each grey aeroplane is a real scheduled flight of a member airline, placed where its timetable says it should be: departure time, block time and days of operation. It is not tracked and nobody of ours is flying it.
Using the map
- Click an aeroplane, or a flight in the list on the right, to open its card and draw its route.
- The search box finds a flight by its number, an airport code or an airline name.
- A timetable flight's card has a Fly it button: it opens that route in Schedules, so you can book it and fly it yourself.
- The map refreshes every 30 seconds by itself.
Appearing on the map
Start a booked flight in the ACARS (how to): you appear in gold as soon as the ACARS sends its first position. Your name shows only if your profile is public; otherwise the map says “Private pilot”. A flight that stops sending positions for 10 minutes leaves the map, and comes back when the ACARS resumes it.