Zephyr

A local flight tracker that actually looks good:) Runs entirely on your machine...

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What it does

• Shows every flight currently in the air, worldwide
• Click any plane to see altitude, speed, heading, route, and aircraft type
• Draws the actual flight path the plane has flown + a predicted line ahead
• Updates every 60 seconds automatically
• Search by callsign to jump straight to a flight
• Weather radar overlay (precipitation)
• Dark and light mode

Data comes from the OpenSky Network for live flights, adsbdb for route and aircraft info, and RainViewer for weather radar.

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Setup

You need Python 3.10+ and that's it.

git clone https://github.com/potterpk/Zephyr.git
cd Zephyr

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

pip install -r requirements.txt

Before starting, create a .env file in the project root (see below), then:

uvicorn backend.main:app --reload

Open http://localhost:8000 in your browser.

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OpenSky credentials

Without an account, OpenSky limits you to around 400 requests per day. If you run Zephyr for a while and flights stop showing up, you've likely hit that limit — it resets at midnight UTC.

To get 10x more requests, sign up for a free account at opensky-network.org. Then create a .env file in the project root:

OPENSKY_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
OPENSKY_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret

The .env file is gitignored so your credentials will never be pushed to GitHub. Each person who clones the repo needs to create their own .env.

If you're hitting rate limits and want to test on a different machine — just clone the repo there and set up a fresh .env. Rate limits are per IP, so a different network will work immediately.

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How to use it

Finding a flight — type a callsign into the search bar (e.g. BAW, UAE204) and the map will fly to it and open the details panel.

Clicking a plane — click any icon on the map. The right panel shows:

• Callsign and country
• Departure → destination airports
• Altitude (ft + m), speed (knots), heading, vertical rate
• Aircraft type and registration
• ICAO24 and squawk code

Flight path — when you click a plane, two lines appear:

• Amber line = where it has actually been (last hour from OpenSky)
• Dashed blue line = predicted path based on current heading and speed

Weather radar — hit the 🌧️ button to toggle precipitation radar over the map. Zoom in too far and the radar tiles won't load.

Theme — hit the ☀️ button to switch between dark and light mode.

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Coverage

Coverage is best over Europe and North America where there are more ADS-B ground receivers. Africa, oceans, and parts of Asia have thinner coverage — that's just the nature of free community-sourced ADS-B data, not a bug.

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Stack

• Python + FastAPI
• Leaflet.js
• Vanilla JS
• OpenSky Network API
• adsbdb API
• RainViewer API