We all at one time or another have looked up in the sky at an airplane and wondered where it came from and where it was going.
We would like to tell you about a free aircraft tracking website where you can see detailed flight information such as name of the airliner, altitude, speed, route and aircraft type about the planes flying directly above you in real time. Believe it or not, the sky above us is quite busy 24 hours a day!
The website we are talking about is Flightradar24 https://www.flightradar24.com
Flightradar24 is free to use, on your desktop, laptop, tablet or cell phone. It also offers optional paid subscription tiers (Silver and Gold) that remove ads and unlock extra features, but the free version is just as fun to use.
On a desktop, laptop or tablet, there are no programs to download. Just visit their website and bookmark it and every time you want to see what is above you, just bring up the bookmarked page. On cell phones its optional if you want down load their free app but it does things the desktop version cannot do.
At this website you can identify commercial airliners and smaller aircraft such as Cessna, Piper Cherokee and even some military aircraft and helicopters. You can see planes take off and land if you go to local airports on the app such as Staunton Shenandoah Regional Airport, Charlottesville Albemarle Airport, Washington Rogald Reagan National Airport or Washington International Airport etc. FlightRadar24 has more than 50,000 receivers on seven continents and in space, to track hundreds of thousands of flights each day all around the world.
You can search by Flight number, airport, route or registration number. Can also search flight by route, live flights by airline, airports by country and aircraft nearby.
On any given day, there are lots of planes flying above us even if you don’t see or hear them.
Above photo shows a helicopter flying above the Town of Shenandoah.
Above is screen shot of Flightradar24 showing details of the helicopter that flew over Shenandoah. When you click on the aircraft icon with your mouse, it highlights the path the aircraft has taken up to its current location.
If you scroll the map down to the coast of Hampton Roads Va area, (above image) you can see aircraft flying around in the waters off the Virginia and North Carolina coast. Some of these aircraft fly out of Newport News Williamsburg International Airport.
Above is another screen shot of same area off Virginia and North Carolina coast.
Above is screen shot of FlightRadar24 showing adversary/aggressor aircraft (ATAC3) for military training. What you don’t see is the military fighter aircraft training with them. Once these training aircraft get to their training location, they block their tracking data and become invisible to FlightRadar24.
You can download to an iOS and Android phones an app that you can use on your cell phone and point your phone up towards the sky and it will show you the aircraft that is around you. A point-phone Augmented Reality (AR) mode to scan the sky, can be download for free at the Flighradar24.com/apps website or Google Play Store or the Apple App Store for iOS devices.
Shown above is screen shot of a cell phone after downloading Flightradar24 from their website. You can tap any aircraft on the screen to get the details about that plane. If you tap AR (Augmented Reality) and point your phones camera at the sky to see real-time flight labels overlaid on your screen. Displays flight details and information like the flight number, airline, aircraft type, altitude, ground speed, and route. Includes a mini-map: Features a small reference map in the corner to help track the surrounding airspace.
Above shows screen shot of a cell phone after pressing the AR button, showing real-time flight labels overlaid on your screen.
Above screen shot was taken Sunday November 8, 2026 showing a United Airlines plane in a holding pattern over Luray Virginia. This B737 aircraft was from Santa Ana and was going to Washington IAD, which is Washington Dulles International Airport.
The above screen shot shows an US Air Force C17 aircraft doing touch and goes at Martinsburg Eastern WV Regional Airport.
The above screen shot shows aircraft taxiing at Washington Dulles International Airport.
The above screen shot shows two Us Air Force KC-135 Stratotankers in the sky near Honolulu. This aircraft delivers jet fuel and they are performing air to air refueling to the fighter jets which we cannot see. After each jet is refueled, the KC-135 makes a circle and the next jet gets connected to the Stratotanker to get refueled.
Above Screen shot: On Monday November 9, 2026 we saw a high-altitude balloon in the sky above Colorado. Its barometric altitude was 55,700 feet.
The above screen shot was taken late Monday evening November 9, 2026 showing a United States Army Priority Air Transport Black Hawk helicopter flying along the Massanutten Mountain.
Above screen shot shows a US Navy EC45 helicopter departed from Patuxent River and flying above Black Water National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland.
The above screen shot shows a US Coast Guard C130 coming from Elizabeth City N.C. and flying above the waters of Albemarle Sound near the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
The above screen shot show a US Marine Corps V-22 Osprey flying above the Potomac River and headed toward Quantico Marine Corps Air Facility in Virginia.
Additional notes:
This app will show you the live overhead aircraft traffic in the sky above you. Not all aircraft will be seen. Tracking depends on local receiver coverage, the plane's equipment, or privacy blocks. Certain aircraft owners, government agencies, or military operators can request to block or mask their tail numbers and tracking data which display real-time aircraft positions using ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) signals.
Most small, consumer, or hobbyist drones do not show up on Flightradar24. Flightradar24 relies primarily on ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) transponders, Mode S/MLAT, and radar feeds, which standard commercial or consumer drones do not carry. Pointing the app at a local hobbyist drone or DJI quadcopter will not display anything.
There are other plane tracking websites in addition to Flighradar24, such as FlightAware and Plane finder.
Remember the famous quote from Forrest Gump "My momma always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.'" Well, the same is true of looking at FlightRadar24 each day, you never know what interesting planes you are going to see!
There is a Facebook group page called Flightradar 24 Flight Spotters where you can see a lot of interesting aircraft that others have seen in the sky.
