Building Python app to show my flights to family

FlightAware AeroAPI
1

I am a commercial airline pilot who is setting up a Raspberry Pi with a 10" monitor that will sit on the credenza that will display a live map of my flight so the family can see where I am at throughout the day. I am automating the backend with Python. I want the map to be fullscreen but without any ads. I’m having trouble understanding if I need to use the FlightAware API and if so, which API call specifically? If its “GET /flights/{id}/map” how do I show that in the Chrome browser? Thanks.

2

You can try using the flight map method to generate a static image of the flight.

However, if you need to customize the appearance more significantly than the capabilities of that method, you will probably want to do your own rendering of the raw flight data (lat, lon, origin, destination, waypoints, etc) on your own map.

3

I’m not sure what you mean by my own map? I like the idea but not sure what that entails.

John Vollmer

4

Rendering your own map will mean finding your own provider of map tiles (Google Maps, Bing Maps, OpenStreetmaps, etc) and then drawing the airports, aircraft, flight track using lat/lon positions, etc on top of it, plus any weather layers or other features. This path might be more complicated than you were envisioning.

5

I assume the flight map method does not update the flights position dynamically? It’s just an image file in binary form?

Couldn’t my script just open a web browser in KIOSK mode (to display in full screen) and go to the url https://flightaware.com/live/flight/map/UAL52/history/20230609/2200Z/KIAD/LSZH thereby avoiding making any API calls?

Thanks.

6

Sure, if that website map URL meets your needs then that’s certainly an option. That page is ad-supported, unless you have an account at the appropriate paid level (Enterprise or higher, i believe) and your browser is logged in with that account.

7

Consider trying Flight Visualizer, which lets you “play back” your flight in Google Earth. It’s currently set up only to “re-enact” flights which have completed, but once support for Google Earth’s “Network Links” is added, viewers will be able to see a flight’s position - and the “views outside of the windows” - in near real-time within Google Earth.

Check out this demo of similar software for flight simulation which already includes this feature. In the demo, you see Google Earth tracking what’s going on in the simulated flight in the same way as described above.