About SkyWarden
Free, real-time geofenced aircraft tracking demo.
SkyWarden Web is a free portfolio demonstration of a real-time aviation monitoring stack. It pulls live ADS-B / Mode-S aircraft data from OpenSky Network and lets you draw geofenced monitoring zones, build a watchlist of callsigns or ICAO24 hex codes, and replay historical sightings.
How it works
- A Python / Flask backend polls OpenSky on a fixed interval and stores sightings in a relational database (MySQL in production, SQLite locally).
- Each visitor gets an anonymous browser session. Your zones and watchlists are tied to that session and persist between visits.
- Geofence math is performed server-side using Shapely, with browser-side rendering via Leaflet, Leaflet.Draw, and Turf.js.
- The same provider abstraction supports OpenSky out of the box and ships with ADS-B Exchange and FlightRadar24 adapters that activate when you bring your own API key.
Free to use, fair use expected
SkyWarden is offered free of charge as a portfolio demo. Please respect OpenSky's terms of use and don't hammer the API with automated tools through this interface. Sessions are subject to soft limits (max 25 zones, 100 watchlist entries) so the demo stays responsive for everyone.
Privacy
We don't ask for an account and don't track you across the web. A signed cookie holds a random session ID so we can recall the zones you drew. Aircraft data is public broadcast information. There is no advertising and no third-party analytics.
Open source
SkyWarden is MIT-licensed. The desktop client and the web client share a common Python core (providers, geofence engine, GeoJSON utilities) and are intended to be a useful reference implementation for aviation monitoring, OSINT, and emergency-management workflows.