Is that aircraft a threat?
Almost always, the answer is no, it’s an airliner, a trainer, or a medevac doing exactly what it should. But a few aircraft genuinely deserve a second look, and there are concrete, checkable signals that separate them from the noise. Here’s how to read your sky calmly and correctly.
What is over you at this moment
This asks your browser for your location, queries the live feed, and lists the aircraft within 30 NM. Your position is used for the query and is not stored.
Nothing listed does not mean empty sky. AeroScope only sees aircraft broadcasting ADS-B within range of a volunteer receiver. See limitations.
Most aircraft overhead are completely routine
An aircraft circling, flying low, or lacking a familiar airline name is usually benign: a flight-training circuit, a helicopter on a survey, an air ambulance, a police or news helicopter, or simple holding under ATC. AeroScope exists to help you confirm that quickly, and to flag the genuine exceptions, using transparent signals rather than guesswork.
The signals worth checking
Military / state hex
An ICAO address in a known military block, corroborated by callsign, a heavily weighted factor. See military tracking.
Emergency squawk
7500 (hijack), 7600 (radio failure) or 7700 (general emergency) is the clearest real signal there is. See squawk codes.
Loiter / orbit
Sustained circling or a racetrack over one spot can indicate survey, surveillance or holding, classified automatically by pattern-of-life.
Signal integrity
A track that fails its integrity checks may be spoofed rather than threatening. See detect spoofing.
The combined score
AeroScope rolls these into a 0–100 attention score so the few aircraft worth a look rise to the top. See threat scoring.
Awareness, not alarm
- A high attention score is a prompt to look, not a verdict, it means "unusual," not "hostile."
- A plane circling your neighbourhood is far more often a survey, training or news/police helicopter than anything aimed at you.
- AeroScope does not classify intent and cannot tell you a flight is dangerous, it gives you the facts to judge for yourself.
- If something is genuinely concerning (e.g. an emergency squawk or unsafe operation), the right move is to contact the relevant authorities, not to act on a score.
Four questions, in order
Work through these before concluding anything. Most concern dissolves at step one or two.
| 1 | How high is it? Above roughly 30,000 ft it is an overflight passing through your region and has nothing to do with you. Below about 3,000 ft and slow, it is approach, training, a helicopter or survey work. |
|---|---|
| 2 | What shape is it flying? A straight line is transit. Repeated circuits near an airfield are training. A wide racetrack is usually holding or refuelling. See why a plane is circling. |
| 3 | Who operates it? Type and operator resolve for most aircraft. A police, medical, news or survey operator explains almost every low, persistent presence. |
| 4 | What do the factors say? Open the attention score and read the contributing factors rather than the number. The reasons tell you far more than the total. |
What unusual behavior almost always turns out to be
| What you noticed | Usual explanation |
|---|---|
| Circling overhead for a long time | Aerial survey or mapping, police or news orbit, pilot training, medevac holding, or ATC holding during congestion. |
| Flying very low | On approach or departure, or a helicopter operating legitimately at low level such as an air ambulance or a powerline patrol. |
| No name or operator shown | Private aircraft, a gap in registry data, or a state aircraft. Missing information is common and is not itself suspicious. |
| Military type overhead | Transit along an established route, training, or a refuelling track. See military planes over my house. |
| Appeared then vanished from the map | Almost always a coverage gap rather than anything the aircraft did. See coverage. |
| An emergency squawk | A genuine declaration by the crew, and the system working exactly as intended. It is being handled by air traffic control, who know far more than any tracker. |
If something genuinely looks wrong
There is a narrow set of circumstances where acting is appropriate, and a much larger set where it is not.
Worth reporting: an aircraft in visible distress, signs of an accident, or a drone operating dangerously close to an airport or over a crowd. Contact local emergency services, or the national aviation authority for a drone or airspace complaint. They have radar, radio and legal authority. A public tracker has none of those.
Not worth acting on: a high attention score by itself, a military aircraft transiting, an aircraft with no operator listed, or a track that disappeared. None of these indicate a problem, and confronting or publicising individuals based on flight data is both unreliable and harmful.
The honest framing is that this platform is a tool for understanding, not for enforcement. It sees only what is broadcast, cannot verify authenticity with certainty, and is explicitly not suitable for operational use.