Open data

Publication principles

• Only aircraft flying under a known airline callsign are published. The rule is written to keep military, state and private aircraft (business jets included) out; detection is not perfect. This is the only scope in production; there is no mode that shows everything.
• The rule is applied at the source, as soon as the data arrives: an aircraft that is not published is never written to the live map, the flight record or the track. For the rule’s decision, the aircraft’s identity (hex code, callsign, registration and type) is held only in the memory of the process that handles the data, for at most 24 hours after the aircraft was last seen, and is never written anywhere. Reasons for not publishing are stored only as counts.
• The rule fails closed: if it cannot be established that an aircraft may be published, it is not published.

Publication rule

The rule is applied in order; the first step that fails is the reason an aircraft is not published.

1. Administrator blocklist. Aircraft on the administrator’s blocklist, whether added by hex code or by registration, are not published. If the list cannot be read, no aircraft is published. The contents of the list are not published; aircraft hide requests are applied through this list.
2. Military flag. Aircraft flagged as military in the source’s aircraft database are not published.
3. Database flags. Aircraft whose flags are unknown, aircraft flagged as “interesting” (a flag often used for state, VIP and police aircraft) and aircraft in the PIA or LADD programmes are not published.
4. ICAO address. Aircraft without an ICAO 24-bit address and positions that arrive with a non-ICAO address (such TIS-B and ADS-R records) are not published.
5. Aircraft category. If the category the aircraft broadcasts is not a passenger or cargo aircraft category (A1–A5), the aircraft is not published: helicopters, high-performance aircraft, gliders, balloons, parachutists, ultralights, unmanned aircraft and ground vehicles. An aircraft with an unknown category passes this step and is checked again at the operator step.
6. Callsign. If the callsign is empty, does not have the form of a three-letter ICAO operator code followed by a flight identifier of up to four characters starting with a digit, or is the aircraft’s own registration (even when sent in registration form), the aircraft is not published. If a sample has no callsign, the callsign seen for the same aircraft in the last 10 minutes is used.
7. Operator. If the operator code is in the table of denied codes, is not in the VRS standing-data operator table, or VRS lists all of the operator’s flights as charter or positioning flights, the aircraft is not published; charter airlines that fly holiday routes with airliners are exempted from this rule by a separate allow list. Small aircraft, aircraft with an unknown category and aircraft with an unknown type are not published either when the operator has no IATA code. If the operator table has not been loaded, no aircraft is published.
8. Business jet type. If the aircraft type is in the list of business jet types (ICAO Doc 8643 type designators), the aircraft is not published even when the operator is an airline.

The denied operator codes are public ICAO operator codes from VRS standing-data (CC0); 284 codes in total:

• Military: 127

  AAC ACW AFP AIO AKG ALF AME ASF ASY AYB BAF BFW BRS CAP CBY CEF CFC CFN CGD CHD CMB CNV COH CTM CWL DAF DAR DCN DEF DNY EEF EGY ETP EVY EXB FAC FAF FAG FMY FNF FNY FPR GAF GAM GDQ GGA GKA GNY HAF HNA HRZ HUF HVK IAF IAM IFC INP IRL ISF JMM KIN KIW KRC LAF LEE LMG LOP LOS LSV LYF MBR MJN MMF MRH NAF NDF NGR NOH NOW NRN NVY NWO NYB OAN OSY PAT PLF PNG PNY POA PON QID RCH RFF RFR RJZ RMF ROF RRF RRR RSF SAF SAM SHF SIV SMG SQF SRD SRG SUI SVF SYS TFU THN TNG TOF TOW TTF UAA UAD UAF UAJ UAS VLL VYT WAG WYT

• State: 48

  AUH BAH BAN BEC BFA BGF CIE DAM DOI DUB EVM FFS FGC FGP GGE GRZ HKG KRF KRH KUG LPD MET MRN MSP NEB NHK ONM ORF PLT PRD QAF QUE RGP RIF RSD SGF SGS SLG SNV SSG THK TQF TRI UCK UFA UKP UTS WDG

• Police, gendarmerie, customs, coast guard and border: 28

  BPO CGX CTG CWP EDL FDO FGN FNG GDB GRY HBT ICG LIB NRW OKL PBB PBW PHH PHS PIK PLC PMV POF POL PPH ROP SRP TRP

• Flight inspection and civil aviation authority: 17

  CBA CBN CFI CFU CIA CIV EXM FCK FII FLC FOC LTS RFI SDS VOR XMR ZZM

• Air ambulance, patient transport, humanitarian aid, search and rescue and firefighting: 35

  ALJ AMB AMD BIN BMD BZD CFH CHX CMF DIC DOC FDS FRU LRQ LUV MCD MCG MCL MCY MED MRZ NGF NSP OEC PHX RED RES RGA RHD RSQ SAZ SWE TKR TYW WPR

• Business jet and VIP: 29

  ABP BDJ BXA DER EJA EJM EJO FXF GAJ GLJ GMA IJM JME LEG LXJ MLM NJE PJS QQE ROJ TCJ TFF TRK VIC VIE VJT VNK VPV VUR

Two more lists used by the operator and business jet type steps:

• Charter allow list: 10 airlines

  AAE BUC EAF ENT EVE EZZ HST KRP OTF VAW

• Business jet types (ICAO Doc 8643 type designators): 83

  ASTR BE40 C25A C25B C25C C25M C500 C501 C510 C525 C526 C550 C551 C55B C560 C56X C650 C680 C68A C700 C750 CL30 CL35 CL60 E35L E50P E545 E550 E55P EA50 F2TH F900 FA10 FA20 FA50 FA5X FA6X FA7X FA8X G150 G280 GA5C GA6C GA7C GA8C GALX GL5T GL6T GL7T GL8T GLEX GLF2 GLF3 GLF4 GLF5 GLF6 H25A H25B H25C HA4T HDJT LJ23 LJ24 LJ25 LJ28 LJ31 LJ35 LJ36 LJ40 LJ45 LJ55 LJ60 LJ70 LJ75 LJ85 MU30 PC24 PRM1 SBR1 SBR2 SF50 SJ30 WW24

There is an administrator blocklist; its contents are not published.

Sampling

• Flight record: one uninterrupted flight of an aircraft is one record. A data gap of more than 30 minutes, a change between two callsigns and 20 minutes on the ground start a new record.
• 30-second track: at most one position sample every 30 seconds for each flight record.
• Full-resolution track: every position sample of aircraft within 30 km of a monitored airport’s centre that are on the ground or less than 10,000 ft above the airport; also aircraft on the administrator’s watch list.
• On the ground, a sample that has moved less than 20 metres from the last written point is not written.

Retention

Fields kept

Flight record (flights): id, hex, callsign, registration, type_code, first_seen_at, last_seen_at, status, created_at, updated_at

Track (track_points_sampled and track_points_fine): flight_id, ts, lat, lon, alt_baro_ft, alt_geom_ft, gs_kt, track_deg, vertical_rate_fpm, on_ground, source, seen_pos_s, baro_rate_fpm

User and visitor data

The derived database contains aircraft data only. No user account, visitor, IP address or analytics data ever enters it; the administrators’ action log is kept separately and is not covered by this document.

Dump

A dump of the database is not offered for now. ODbL section 4.6 allows the method of derivation to be described instead, as this document does.

Rule version

Version 1, effective 25 October 2026.