The Live Military Board

Summary: A board of every military aircraft airborne now: who it is, what it is doing in words, and the frequency it is likely working, over the map or as its own page.

The Live Military Board lists every military aircraft airborne now in the style of the airport boards: one row each, sortable and filterable, refreshing itself every few seconds. Open it with the shield button in the button stack on the right of the map, from the Full board link at the top of the Military Only panel, or as its own page at /map/?milboard=1, which switches Live Flights on for you.

What each row shows

• Aircraft — the callsign (or the registration when no callsign is sent), with the spoken form beneath it when the callsign family is known (“Reach 572” for RCH572), then the type and its class: fighter, tanker, transport, ISR, helicopter, trainer.
• Service — the service, unit and base where the airframe or callsign is known.
• Doing — what the aircraft is doing in words, most attention-worthy states first: a transponder emergency, a live QRA scramble, a tanker refuelling a named receiver in its refuelling area, on station for so many minutes, just launched from a named base, working a range, in a radar corridor, in a refuelling or training area, en route under a Swanwick Mil sector, climbing, descending, low level, hovering, on approach.
• Altitude, Speed — with the rate of climb or descent.
• Squawk — with its meaning.
• Listen on — the frequency the aircraft is likely working, from the same prediction as the aircraft panel (see Listen On), with a 📡 heard chip when the live feed has it, followed by the squadron’s air-to-air and ops.
• Dist — the distance from your radar location.

The headline counts the aircraft airborne, live QRA, refuelling, on station, tankers, and any base with two or more launching. Click a row to open that aircraft’s panel on the map.

Heard but not placed

After the placed aircraft, the board lists military aircraft the networks are hearing by Mode S or MLAT but cannot place, when they are likely over the UK. They are italic rows with a ≈ before the callsign, saying where the aircraft most likely is: Heard just now, not placed since; last fix 8 min ago, so within about 54 nm of there, or heard by receivers only. They carry the identity and squadron frequencies but no position-based frequency, and an approximate distance. The Military Only panel’s summary counts them too. Most are not drawn on the map, because an area is not a fix. The exception is one flying with a formation mate that is on the map, with the same callsign and a different number: it is placed beside that mate, its row says so (Heard just now, flying with KING32, so within about 3 nm of it), it gets a frequency prediction, and it is drawn on the map as a green dashed ring.

Filtering and sorting

Type anything in the filter box: a type, a service, a base, a squawk, a frequency. The two pickers narrow to one service or one activity. Sort by what they are doing, callsign, service, base, aircraft, highest first, fastest first or nearest first. Press Escape or the × to close.