Where’s that plane going?
Overhead Flights brings the old airport departure board to Chrome, with rows filled by the aircraft closest to you.
A plane passes overhead while you’re halfway through an email. You catch a glimpse out the window and wonder where it’s going. By the time you’ve opened another tab, the plane is already out of sight.
That’s the moment we built Overhead Flights for. Click its icon in Chrome and an airport-style board opens beside the page you’re on. The closest aircraft appear at the top, so there’s a place to start looking while the sound is still fading.
The airport board, turned inside out
A departure board tells you where people at an airport are about to go. Overhead Flights borrows that familiar grid and fills it with aircraft already in the air near you. Depending on where you open it, the rows might include a flight climbing out of a nearby airport or one passing far above on its way somewhere else.
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The board shows up to 25 airborne aircraft, sorted by distance. You can see the callsign, aircraft type, altitude, and distance, along with the origin and destination when route data is available. If there are fewer aircraft nearby, the search expands automatically. Leave the board open and it refreshes every 15 seconds.
Why split-flap?
An old airport board is fun to watch even when you’ve already found your gate. Your eye catches a row changing, follows the letters as they turn, then moves on to the next one. That makes it a good fit for something you might glance at while reading or working. You can choose a black or white board and switch the mechanical flap sound on if you miss the clatter.
The display is powered by my split-flap library on GitHub, a framework-agnostic web component for building Solari-style boards.
You can start with an approximate location based on your IP address, let Chrome use your device location, or enter coordinates yourself. The extension works without an account.
The next time a plane makes you look up, open the board and see what’s nearby. You might recognize the flight you just heard. You might also spot one you’d never have noticed.
