LIVE · SYDNEY (SYD)

Live flights over Sydney

See every aircraft over Sydney Airport (SYD/YSSY) in real time, its type, operator, altitude, origin and destination, and an attention score, fused from public ADS-B networks and refreshed about every seven seconds.

Open the live map over Sydney ↗How to read it
Quick answer. Sydney Airport (SYD / YSSY) sits at -33.9461, 151.1770 near Sydney (Mascot), Australia, at 21 ft elevation. To see what is flying over it right now, open AeroScope centerd on those coordinates: it lists every aircraft overhead with type, operator, altitude and a 0–100 attention score, fused from public ADS-B networks and de-duplicated by ICAO 24-bit address.
Airport data

Sydney at a glance

IATA codeSYD
ICAO codeYSSY
AirportSydney Kingsford Smith International Airport
CitySydney (Mascot), Australia
Coordinates-33.9461, 151.1770
Elevation21 ft

Track flights over Sydney now ↗

What you will see

Reading the sky over Sydney (Mascot)

Around a hub like Sydney, most of what is overhead is routine: airliners and cargo aircraft on published arrival and departure procedures, general aviation, and helicopters. AeroScope is observer-relative, instead of asking “where is flight X,” you fix the map on Sydney and it continuously evaluates everything above it. Each aircraft carries a transparent 0–100 attention score built from eight rule-based factors (emergency squawk, military hex allocation, proximity, altitude and speed anomalies, loitering patterns and integrity-check failures), so the one worth a second look rises to the top instead of hiding in the traffic.

Spoofed or self-inconsistent broadcasts are flagged too: AeroScope runs a DO-260B integrity check (NIC/NACp/NACv/SIL), a Kalman normalized-innovation test and geometric-versus-barometric altitude residuals, and only raises a flag when at least two independent detectors agree.

Nearby

Other airports near Sydney

See also: military aircraft tracking, is that aircraft a threat?, and how AeroScope works.

FAQ

Flights over Sydney. FAQ

What planes fly over Sydney (Mascot)?
Most traffic over Sydney (Mascot) near Sydney Airport (SYD) is scheduled airline and cargo flights on published arrival and departure routes, plus general aviation and helicopters. AeroScope shows each aircraft overhead in real time with its type, operator and altitude, open the live map centerd on Sydney to see the current picture.
How high do planes fly over Sydney?
It depends on distance from the runway. Aircraft on final approach or initial climb near Sydney (SYD) may be only a few thousand feet up, while overflights cruise at 30,000–40,000 ft. AeroScope shows the barometric altitude of every aircraft, so you can tell an arrival or departure from a high overflight.
Can I see military or unusual aircraft over Sydney (Mascot)?
Sometimes. A large share of military and state aircraft broadcast ADS-B just like airliners, and AeroScope surfaces those over Sydney (Mascot) with an explanation of why each was flagged, plus a 0–100 attention score. Some sensitive flights operate without ADS-B and cannot be seen by any crowdsourced tracker.
Is it legal to track flights over Sydney?
Yes. AeroScope uses only public ADS-B broadcasts that aircraft transmit openly on 1090 MHz and that volunteer receiver networks republish freely. Viewing this public data over Sydney Airport is legal; AeroScope simply adds fusion, integrity checks and anomaly analysis on top of it.