Airspace widget

Primarily this is due to purpose and ease. Our operational networks, data and systems are not designed for public use. They are designed specifically for operational use. We have a high level of security we need to maintain for these systems and providing public access to them in a safe and efficient manner is technically complex.

AirNav Radar have readily available products, tried and tested with a variety of business users and the general public. They draw on a number of publicly available and commercially available data sources. These sources include Ground and Satellite based ADS-B, FAA SWIM, EUROCONTROL, MLAT, FLIFO, ACARS/Datalink and ADS-C. A large network of volunteer feeders in all parts of the world feed ADS-B data using ground receivers provided by AirNav Radar. The company currently has over 34,000 feeders who actively share data to the website.  These sources are combined to create a representation of airspace that we consider as suitably accurate to support our communication and educational purposes through a widget.

Put simply it is much easier to use a widget designed to our specification by AirNav Radar with their data sources than to create our own from scratch. Furthermore, their data provides a good illustrative picture of airspace that is similar to ours. In fact when we compare our radar data with the ADS-B data of AirNav Radar, the positions are typically very close. The image below demonstrates this with NATS radar plots shown in green and ADS-B plots shown in white.

ADS-B (white) and Radar (green) plots

The data provided in the widget comes from AirNav Radar and is NOT from NATS operational systems. It is created from a variety of data sources including Ground and Satellite based ADS-B, FAA SWIM, EUROCONTROL, MLAT, FLIFO, ACARS/Datalink and ADS-C.

Whilst we do not recommend the use of our widget for operational purposes, we believe the accuracy of the airspace is suitably high enough to support our communication and education goals.

In fact when we compare our radar data with the ADS-B data of AirNav Radar, the positions are typically very close. The image below demonstrates this with NATS radar plots shown in green and ADS-B plots shown in white.

ADS-B (white) and Radar (green) plots

You can use the widget as intended for communication and educational purposes on our website. However, you may not embed it on your own website or use in any way as a reference or source of information for operational purposes. If this is your desire, you should contact AirNav Radar to explore suitable options.

If your question is directly related to the functionality of the widget, it is probably best to contact AirNav Radar directly. If it is related to airspace or air traffic management, then please contact us using the form below.