Skip to content

Evilander/ghosttrack-live

Folders and files

NameName
Last commit message
Last commit date

Latest commit

 

History

2 Commits
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Repository files navigation

GhostTrack Live

Real-time global flight tracker with a dark ATC radar aesthetic, built with vanilla JavaScript and MapLibre GL JS.

Features

Core Tracking

  • Live ADS-B data from adsb.lol — aircraft positions update every 5 seconds with smooth interpolation at 100ms for near-real-time motion
  • Altitude-band coloring — orange (ground-10k ft), cyan (10k-25k ft), white (25k+ ft)
  • Callsign labels and heading-rotated chevron icons on the map
  • Click any aircraft to open a full detail panel with altitude, speed, heading, vertical rate, squawk, ICAO hex, ADS-B category, VIP/military badges, and more
  • Follow mode — lock the camera to any aircraft and track it across the map
  • Search — find any aircraft by callsign instantly

Aircraft Enrichment

  • Route & airline data from adsbdb.com — see origin, destination, airline name, and aircraft type
  • Aircraft photos when available from the adsbdb database
  • Great circle route arcs — dashed orange line showing the flight path between origin and destination airports
  • Satellite ground view — mini-map showing terrain directly below the aircraft
  • Google Earth link — one-click to open the aircraft's position in Google Earth

Watchlist & Anomaly Detection

  • Emergency squawk alerts — 7500 (hijack), 7600 (comms failure), 7700 (emergency) with klaxon sound effect and slide-in banner notification
  • VIP jet tracking — 18 tracked aircraft including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Taylor Swift, Drake, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah, Trump, Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z/Beyonce, Air Force One (x2), and E-4B Nightwatch Doomsday planes (x4)
  • Military detection — flags military aircraft by ADS-B dbFlags and callsign prefix matching (USAF, NATO, RAF, etc.) with sub-type classification across 150+ ICAO designators: Fighter, Helo, Bomber, Tanker, Recon, Trainer, Transport
  • Private jet detection — identifies business/private jets by ICAO type designator (Gulfstream, Bombardier, Citation, Learjet, Falcon, etc.)
  • Interesting flight profiles — extreme altitude (>45k ft), high speed (>600 kts), rapid climb/descent (>5000 fpm)

Leaderboard

  • Fastest — highest ground speed aircraft currently airborne
  • Highest — aircraft at the highest altitude
  • Top MIL (Clements Approved) — fastest military aircraft in the sky
  • Deep Dive — steepest descent rate
  • Rocketship — fastest climbing aircraft
  • Slowpoke — slowest airborne aircraft
  • Live counts — military, VIP, and private jet totals
  • Click any leaderboard entry to fly to that aircraft

TCAS Proximity Alerts

  • Traffic Advisory (TA) — aircraft pairs within 5nm and 1,000ft vertical separation
  • Resolution Advisory (RA) — aircraft pairs within 2nm and 500ft — triggers audio alarm
  • Spatial grid optimization for efficient detection across thousands of aircraft

Map Overlays

  • Day/night terminator — solar shadow polygon showing real-time day/night boundary
  • Conflict zones — highlighted regions for active conflicts (Ukraine, Gaza/Israel, Iran/Epic Fury, Sudan, Myanmar) with click-for-details popup explaining each conflict
  • Iran theater intelligence — Operation Epic Fury / Roaring Lion briefing panel with verified strike locations, casualty tracking, GDELT real-time news feed, Strait of Hormuz blockade overlay, and affected airport status
  • Points of interest — 15 notable locations including Joint Base Andrews, Area 51, Nellis AFB, Mar-a-Lago, Van Nuys, Teterboro, SpaceX HQ, and more
  • VIP landing markers — tracks where VIP and private jets have landed
  • Aircraft trails — breadcrumb trail showing recent flight path

Interactive Modes

  • Theater Mode — cinematic auto-tour that cycles through VIP jets, emergencies, military aircraft, and interesting flights with 12-second dwell time and letterbox bars
  • Intercept Game — timed spotter challenge: find and click aircraft matching mission criteria (country, altitude, heading, military, speed). Scoring with streak multipliers and high score tracking

Live ATC Audio

  • LiveATC integration — stream real-time ATC audio for airports near the selected aircraft
  • Auto-discovery — probes for available feeds (Tower, Approach, Ground, Delivery, Departure, ATIS, Center)
  • Real-time frequency visualizer using Web Audio API
  • Volume control with visual waveform display

Ambient Soundscape

  • Radar ping synced to the sweep animation
  • Static noise bed — bandpass-filtered radio static
  • Data blip on each successful fetch
  • TCAS alarm — two-tone alert on Resolution Advisory
  • Emergency klaxon — sawtooth wave alarm on new emergency squawk detection

Co-Op Mode

  • Host mode — share your session with friends via a room link
  • Follower mode — join a host's session and see their aircraft selections in real-time
  • Server-Sent Events for low-latency sync

HUD & Interface

  • Dark radar aesthetic with CRT scanline overlay and radar sweep animation
  • UTC and local clocks with cursor lat/lon readout
  • Top origins ticker — shows the most common aircraft origin countries
  • Altitude legend with color-coded bands
  • Unit toggle — switch between aviation (knots/feet) and freedom (mph/feet) units
  • Collapsible panels — watchlist, TCAS, leaderboard, and filters can all be toggled
  • EVLNDR ghost — a phantom aircraft that orbits your geolocation

Tech Stack

  • MapLibre GL JS 5.17 — WebGL map rendering
  • Vite 7.3 — dev server and build tool
  • Vanilla ES modules — no framework, ~25 source files
  • Web Audio API — all sounds synthesized, no external audio files
  • Node.js — optional local proxy server for portable deployment

Data Sources

  • adsb.lol — live ADS-B aircraft positions (free, no API key)
  • adsbdb.com — aircraft registration, photos, and route data (free, no API key)
  • LiveATC.net — real-time ATC audio streams
  • ICAO hex address ranges — country-of-origin lookup from hex codes

Run

npm install
npm run dev

Build

npm run build
npm run preview

Portable Deployment

A standalone version can be run without any dev tools:

  1. npm run build to generate the dist/ folder
  2. Use server.cjs with Node.js: node server.cjs
  3. Or use START.bat with the portable node.exe for zero-install deployment

Notes

  • dist/ is generated output and is ignored by git
  • node_modules/ is ignored by git
  • Aircraft data refreshes every 5 seconds with 100ms interpolation ticks
  • Maximum 3,000 aircraft rendered simultaneously to prevent WebGL crashes
  • VIP hex codes are sourced from public ADS-B tracking communities

Created by Evilander

About

Real-time global flight tracker with cinematic theater mode

Resources

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Packages

 
 
 

Contributors