#air-traffic

VATSIM, the Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network, as an API — the largest online flight-simulation network, where tens of thousands of virtual pilots and air-traffic controllers fly and control in real time on flight simulators. This API exposes the live VATSIM network feed. /v1/pilots returns the pilots currently flying online, each with their live position (latitude, longitude, altitude, ground speed, heading), transponder, aircraft type and filed flight plan (departure, arrival, route, cruise altitude, flight rules); filter by airport (matching the departure or arrival ICAO, e.g. airport=EGLL) or by callsign prefix. /v1/controllers returns the air-traffic controllers currently online, each with callsign, radio frequency, facility (Delivery, Ground, Tower, Approach/Departure, Center), rating and logon time; filter by airport prefix (e.g. airport=KLAX matches KLAX_TWR, KLAX_APP), with an observers=true option. /v1/stats returns the network status — total connected clients and the number of pilots, controllers and ATIS positions online, with the snapshot timestamp. The network snapshot updates roughly every 15 seconds. Ideal for flight-simulation tools, live online-ATC and traffic maps, event and staffing dashboards, and community bots. Data from VATSIM (free to use; please credit VATSIM). This is the live virtual flight-simulation network — distinct from real-world ADS-B flight tracking.

api.oanor.com/vatsim-api

Live air traffic as an API, powered by the OpenSky Network — a community network of thousands of volunteer ADS-B/Mode-S receivers tracking aircraft worldwide in real time. This is live flight tracking, the FlightRadar-style picture of what is in the sky right now, distinct from static aircraft registries, airline directories, airport metadata and scheduled-flight status. /v1/flights returns every aircraft currently airborne inside a geographic bounding box (give the box as lamin/lomin/lamax/lomax in degrees, kept under roughly 20° latitude by 30° longitude), each with its ICAO 24-bit address, callsign, origin country, live longitude and latitude, barometric and geometric altitude, ground speed, true heading, vertical rate and transponder squawk — a real-time radar snapshot with the network timestamp. /v1/aircraft looks up a single aircraft by its 6-hex ICAO 24-bit address and returns its current live state (or airborne:false when it is grounded or out of receiver range). /v1/arrivals and /v1/departures list the flights that arrived at or departed from an airport (4-letter ICAO code such as EDDF Frankfurt or EGLL Heathrow) over the last N hours (1-48), each with callsign, the estimated airport at the other end and the first/last-seen timestamps. Ideal for live flight-tracking maps, aviation dashboards, geofencing and proximity alerts, spotting tools, and research into air-traffic patterns. Positions are in degrees, altitudes in metres and speeds in metres per second. Data from the OpenSky Network, free for non-commercial use — please credit OpenSky. Coverage depends on volunteer receiver density.

api.oanor.com/opensky-api