I’ve been using this local database for a number of years to lookup and save everything my receiver sees, allowing me to lookup details on local air traffic in the future. If you’ve ever wanted to know how many 787’s you’ve ever seen, or how many times a plane has been in your area, you may like this.
It’s relatively easy to install on a Raspberry Pi with Flightaware installed, and is designed to keep running 24/7. So far, there’s over 30,000 planes in my local database, and it scales quite well. It can also read from multiple receivers at once, and even play sounds to alert you of certain flights if you install it on your desktop.
ADS-DB Plane Stats
----------------------------------------------
Plane Types: 465 24hrs: 147 New: 0
Plane Totals: 31433 24hrs: 1735 New: 80
$ ./ads-db.py -lts B7%
MFR TYPE CNT LAST_IDENT FIRST SEEN LAST SEEN MODEL
Boeing B738 1064 AA7E56 2019-07-17 13:13:50 2022-03-08 16:21:54 737-800/737-800 BBJ2/BBJ2
Boeing B737 682 A95A2B 2019-07-17 13:13:47 2022-03-08 16:21:54 737-700/737-700 BBJ/C-40/C-40 Clipper/Clipper/BBJ
Boeing B763 436 A0F4B5 2019-07-17 13:13:53 2022-03-08 14:55:44 767-300
Boeing B752 406 A0A8DF 2019-07-17 13:47:05 2022-03-08 15:15:16 757-200/C-32
Boeing B739 360 AC8D3C 2019-07-17 13:13:48 2022-03-08 15:52:39 737-900/737-900 BBJ3/BBJ3
Boeing B772 203 4007F9 2019-07-17 13:14:02 2022-03-08 15:59:16 777-200/777-200ER
$ ./ads-db.py -h
usage: ads-db.py [-h] [-D] [-st] [-rs RS] [-rf RF] [-db DB] [-lt LT] [-lts LTS] [-li LI] [-ld LD] [-lr LR] [-af AF] [-ad AD] [-fa FA] [-fc FC] [-fc0] [-fm] [-fd FD] [-sc SC] [-v] [--update_db] [--cleanup_db]
[--quiet]
Save ADS-B Data to SQLite
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-D Run Daemon
-st Database Stats
-rs RS Receiver IP List separated by commas (default 127.0.0.1)
-rf RF Refresh Interval (default 10sec)
-db DB Different Database File
-lt LT Lookup Planes by Type
-lts LTS Lookup Type Totals by type (use percent-sign for all type)
-li LI Lookup Planes by IACO
-ld LD Lookup Planes by IDENT
-lr LR Lookup Planes by Registration
-af AF Alert on Flight Name / ICAO
-ad AD Alert Distance from Receiver (default unlimited)
-fa FA Filter Low Altitude
-fc FC Filter Category Above int (A[3])
-fc0 Filter A0 no categories
-fm Filter Military Planes
-fd FD Filter by Days Seen Above Count
-sc SC Save Cycle (increase > 10 to reduce disk writes)
-v Debug Mode
--update_db Update all planes with latest DB info
--cleanup_db Cleanup excess plane days
Are you collecting aircraft or flights?
I am asking because an aircraft can pass your receiver several times a day on different flights.
I am currently using a script pulling the information from the json of dump1090/readsb, storing all flights as long as the aircraft hasn’t been shown up in the last hour with the same flight number.
What you also can do is a query against a basestation file containing all aircraft information. that would complete your records.
EDIT: Forget this, you are doing this already. But i’Ve found out that the Flightairmap-DB is missing lots of entries.
Maybe this is a better one:
Seems we think alike! Currently this only tracks planes, per day, but could easily be modified to tracks flights per day. The database is currently 80MB after three years, so it wouldn’t be a big deal to add a few more entries per day. I will be thinking about that, though I tend to look for specific planes personally rather than general commercial flights.
That said, I’m most excited about the updated basestation database. I’m waiting on my admin approval, and will test that out. The current database is certainly not completely accurate or up to date, so better data is always appreciated.
Thanks, it was most helpful using FlightRadar data over the previous BaseStation data. I have cleaned that up, referenced in the docs, and removed the flight-aware CSV requirement altogether.
I am using a Jetvision device (Airsquitter) which is also getting once a week a basestation.sqb file where the data is compiled from Planebase.
This is also pretty complete, but only eligible to be used on the Jetvision devices.
Interesting receiver, I haven’t heard of them before.
I also added flight tracking to the database for known call_signs, along with options to store all idents as flight plans each day. I’ve reset it a few times, and it seems pretty well tested so far. It will track a summary of first and last seen stats for each flight plan, and a daily entry for which aircraft flew the flight and that flights stats.
Thanks again for all the ideas and feedback,
Jonathan
Jetvision is the manufacturer/developer of the Radarcape devices and other professional solutions. These are very popular, some smaller Airports are using it as a backup solution or for special purposes.
If i am not totally wrong, the feeders provided by Flightradar24 are relabelled Radarcapes
It’s a hardware based decoder and a “fire and forget” solution, almost nothing to be configured.
The Airsquitter is similar but more consumer oriented. They started with a discount price where i got it, meanwhile it’s getting expensive for many users
I wanted to follow up, since after adding flight tracking, I am wondering if you know the best source for flight data in the StandingData.sqb format? I am testing with one from virtualradarserver.co.uk, but for many flights, it has the wrong destination airport.
That is the source am using as well. So far i haven’t found any better source.
The problem is indeed that many flights are incorrect or simply empty. I would assume that this is still the mpact from pandemic situation where many flights are operated differently.
The Basestation you linked to is great and very up to date. The open flight databases unfortunately are pretty out of date though. I check all flights against confirmed local flights for about 12 hours, and saw an 85% lookup failure rate with that VCS database.
After that I broke down and signed up for the personal AeroAPI account. Now I’m able to cache up to date data, which is great, other than it requires full time internet access and can cost money. It’s looking like I’ll spend $5 - 10$ the first month, and then it should be free after that if I do an update every three months or so based on my usage and the number of flights I’m seeing in my area. That good with me since my usage should drop off considerably here soon.
Jetvision may now be marketing the Radarcape and Beast but they were not the developer (FPGAADSB - A FPGA based decoder including one miniADSB+ receiver). Their initial interest was in ADSB software (RTL1090 and GlobeS) and antenna. Seems the developer has joined Jetvision to better support the hardware.
