Flightradar24 is a monitor of all commercial and private flights around the world. What at first appear to be data that might only be available to civilian and military air traffic controllers now have on your computer or your mobile phone in real and free time, in certain cases.

But besides the novelty of having all air traffic in the world at our disposal, Flightradar has some surprises. Among them, the possibility of identifying to any plane in flight that happens over our heads. How do we do it? Just focus on it with your mobile phone or Tablet and you’ll know which line it belongs to, where it comes from and where it also goes with the type of radar that counts, altitude, heading and speed. For more data, also it will show us its registration number.

The technology used in the real-time collection of such data is the ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast). First each aircraft receives its location by GPS coordinates; then, each ADS-B transponder located in the aircraft transmits the signals containing its location and other data, which are received by one of the 2000 antennas and receiving stations connected to Flightradar24 worldwide. The stations transmit data feed directly to the website and the applications installed on phones.

Currently, only 60% of all passenger aircraft equipped with ADS-B transponder, but it is estimated that this figure will be higher as this system replace to the radar systems, such as monitoring method of choice for air traffic. But the most important thing is that everyone can receive the data wherever we find ourselves through the applications.

Flightradar24 is a payment application for mobile, including Android, iPhone and Windows Phone, plus Windows and Mac desktop. In the latter it is free, although with certain ads that appear from time to time. But to make the most, the most suitable seems to be the latest version, with the function of augmented reality, which costs about 2 euros.