A public, read-only MCP server so any MCP-capable assistant can query AeroScope's documentation and the live aircraft over any point on Earth, with the same verified, no-overstatement answers as the rest of the platform.
https://aeroscope.live/api/mcp. Any MCP-capable assistant, including Claude, Cursor and Cline, can connect to it and call three tools: search the AeroScope documentation, get a verified summary of the platform, and list the live aircraft over any latitude and longitude on Earth. It speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over Streamable HTTP, requires no authentication, and is rate limited. Opening the URL in a browser returns 405 by design, because browsers send GET and MCP uses POST.
The Model Context Protocol is an open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools and data. Instead of an assistant guessing about the world from training data that may be months or years old, an MCP server exposes a small set of named tools the assistant can call, with typed arguments and structured results.
That distinction matters for airspace. An assistant answering "what is flying over Heathrow right now" from memory can only produce something plausible. With this server connected, it makes a real call, gets real aircraft, and can tell you the difference between what it knows and what it just looked up.
AeroScope exposes an MCP server for the same reason it publishes an open dataset: the underlying data is public, and making it machine-readable costs nothing while making the platform genuinely verifiable.
| Endpoint | POST https://aeroscope.live/api/mcp |
|---|---|
| Transport | Streamable HTTP, JSON-RPC 2.0 |
| Authentication | None. The server exposes only data the public site already shows. |
| Access mode | Read-only. There is no tool that writes, configures or mutates anything. |
| Rate limiting | Applied per client. Keep polling modest so the shared upstream feeds stay healthy. |
| GET requests | Return 405 Method Not Allowed by design. This is an API endpoint for
AI clients, not a web page. |
| Tool | Arguments | Returns |
|---|---|---|
search_aeroscope_docs | query, optional limit |
The most relevant excerpts from the AeroScope documentation and guides, each with its source URL, so the assistant can cite where an answer came from. |
about_aeroscope | none | A verified summary of what the platform does, the methods it uses, its published limitations and the open dataset. Written to prevent an assistant inventing capabilities the platform does not have. |
aircraft_over_location | lat, lon, optional
radius_nm |
Live aircraft over that point: identity and callsign, type, altitude, distance and bearing from the point, plus military and emergency flags. Fused from more than 60 public ADS-B feeds and de-duplicated by ICAO 24-bit address. |
Read-only and passive. The server surfaces only what the live site already publishes. It sees only aircraft that broadcast ADS-B, it never claims a capability AeroScope lacks, and it cannot transmit, jam or interfere with anything.
Native Streamable HTTP clients such as Cursor and Cline. Add to your MCP config:
{
"mcpServers": {
"aeroscope": { "url": "https://aeroscope.live/api/mcp" }
}
}Claude Desktop, using the mcp-remote bridge:
{
"mcpServers": {
"aeroscope": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["mcp-remote", "https://aeroscope.live/api/mcp"]
}
}
}Verify it from a terminal before wiring it into a client:
# list the available tools
curl -s -X POST https://aeroscope.live/api/mcp \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'A successful response lists the three tools above. If you get
405, you sent a GET rather than a POST.
Because search_aeroscope_docs returns source URLs alongside each excerpt, a well-behaved
assistant can cite the specific page it drew an answer from rather than paraphrasing from memory.
The MCP server inherits every limitation of the platform, and it is worth being explicit because an assistant will otherwise fill the gaps with confident guesses:
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
405 Method Not Allowed | You issued a GET, usually by pasting the URL into a browser. MCP requires POST with a JSON-RPC body. |
| Client cannot connect at all | Older MCP clients only support stdio transport. Use the
mcp-remote bridge shown above to adapt the remote endpoint. |
| Empty aircraft result | Genuinely no ADS-B traffic in range, or the point is in an area with
sparse receiver coverage such as open ocean. Try a wider radius_nm or a point nearer a
populated region. See coverage. |
| Requests being throttled | Rate limiting is per client. Reduce polling frequency. For sustained programmatic access use the documented REST and WebSocket API instead. |