How to tell where a plane is going
Everything the game rewards you for knowing — how to read altitude and heading, why routes curve, and what flight trackers can and can't tell you.
How to work out where the plane overhead is going
A practical guide to reading an airliner from the ground — altitude, direction, time of day and tail colours — and what each one tells you about where it came from.
· 3 min read
Why flight paths look curved on a map
Flights between Europe and North America pass over Greenland for a reason. An explanation of great circles, and why the shortest route rarely looks like it.
· 3 min read
Why some aircraft don't show up on flight trackers
Roughly a third of the aircraft above you have no route attached to them. The reason is a quirk of how aircraft actually broadcast their identity.
· 3 min read
London has six airports. Which one counts as London?
Luton is 45km from central London and Newark is in another state. How airports are grouped into cities, and why the official answer and the useful answer differ.
· 3 min read