Reading the Aircraft Info Panel
Summary: What’s shown when you click an aircraft: the plain-English summary, the Listen on frequency, the rows of detail, and the folded airspace reference.
Click any aircraft on the map to open its info panel. It opens with three things, in this order: a one-sentence summary of who and what the aircraft is and what it is doing, the Listen on block with the frequency it is most likely working, and then the rows of detail.
The summary sentence
For example: British Airways Airbus A320 from Heathrow (EGLL) to Aberdeen (EGPD), cruising at 36,000 ft heading north-east at 450 kt. The phase of flight is worked out from the aircraft’s own data: on the ground, just departed, climbing at so many feet a minute, cruising, descending, on approach, on final approach, flying low level, or hovering. A transponder emergency is spelt out in the sentence too.
Heard as: the spoken callsign
A military callsign on the transponder is not what you hear on the radio. When the callsign matches a known callsign family, the header shows the spoken form under it: RCH572 is heard as “Reach 572”, RRR4128 is “Ascot 4128”. The word comes from the UKAFG military callsigns list and the number is whatever the aircraft transmits after its letters. The live military board shows it too.
Listen on
Directly under the summary is the map’s answer to “what do I tune”: the best frequency in large type with what it is (for example Approach ICF — RAF Coningsby), a line saying why (heard 19% of the time here, from squawk 3650, 6 nm away, squawk agrees, heard 4 min ago), and a confidence badge you can hover for its meaning. Underneath, Also try gives the next best two with a word each: departures, heard 13%, same sector, VHF, if the sectors are split.
When the live UKAFG feed has heard the headline frequency today, a chip says so: 📡 heard on the live feed 2 min ago. If another likely frequency was heard more recently than the headline, it takes the headline’s place and the prediction drops to the Also try line. Every member gets this; Active Mil members also see who owns the frequency. The full story of how the frequency is chosen is in Listen On: How the Map Predicts a Frequency.
Predictions only cover UK airspace (the London and Scottish FIRs): they stop 20 NM past its edge for an aircraft heading away, and start 40 NM out for one heading in. Further out the block says Outside UK airspace — no frequency prediction, and over the Atlantic Shanwick Oceanic — HF / datalink. The Channel Islands are the exception. An emergency is headlined on the frequency the aircraft is already working, because that is where a crew declares it and stays; Guard (121.5, or UHF 243.0 for a military aircraft) is the first alternative, for when contact is lost. An aircraft on the ground with no airfield known says so rather than guessing, and ground equipment gets no prediction at all (see Not every blip is an aircraft below).
The rows of detail
Every row is labelled in full words, and hovering a label explains it. You’ll see, depending on the aircraft:
- Aircraft, Reg, Size class — the type code and model, the registration (with the year built), and the weight class the transponder reports.
- Route — origin and destination for scheduled flights where known; flagged unverified when the source isn’t confirmed.
- From (military aircraft) — military flights have no published schedule, so the panel shows where the aircraft took off, worked out from its own track. A plain airfield name means it was seen on the ground there; likely in front means it was first picked up climbing out nearby. Hover the dashed from track tag for how it was worked out. No From row appears when the aircraft was first seen already at height.
- Base, Unit, Sqn — for military aircraft with a known airframe or callsign match: the home base, the squadron, and the squadron’s air-to-air and ops frequencies. A named flight with no squadron number, such as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, gets its own frequency (122.065 for the BBMF, used in formation) and never the station’s fast-jet ops. The callsign family itself is in the header as heard as; a Callsign row appears only when the aircraft is sending no callsign.
- Mil area — the Swanwick Mil sector, refuelling area, training area, TACAN route, range or corridor the aircraft is inside.
- Altitude, Selected altitude, Ground speed, Airspeed, Heading, Distance — with the rate of climb or descent, the Mach number at cruise, the assigned heading when ATC is steering the aircraft, and the distance from your radar location or this device.
- Squawk — the transponder code with its meaning and who assigns it, and how many other uses the code has.
- Pressure setting, Wind aloft, Outside air, Autopilot, ICAO address — the altimeter setting, the wind at the aircraft’s level, the air temperature, what the autopilot is doing in words, and the transponder’s fixed identity.
Airspace and other frequencies
The rows that used to sit in the middle of the panel are now folded under Airspace and other frequencies, beneath the table. Open it for the en-route ATC sector the aircraft is in and its frequency, each zone it is inside (CTR, ATZ, MATZ, CTA, TMA) with its class, limits and frequencies, the next sector or zone it is heading into, the Destination airfield’s frequencies once it is descending, and the Likely runway, worked out from the wind in the airfield’s METAR and upgraded to confirmed by track once the aircraft lines up. The fold stays open or closed as you last left it.
Callsigns this airframe has used
For a military aircraft a second fold, Callsigns this airframe has used, lists every callsign the map has logged that airframe with, newest first: the spoken form in bold with the transmitted callsign beneath, the one in use now marked, and for the others when each was last used and first seen. A Hawk might show UAY13 in use now, UAY83 last used 17 hours ago and TONGA1 four days ago. The map keeps this memory from 27 September 2026 onwards, so the lists grow with time. Like the airspace fold, it stays open or closed as you last left it.
Status badges and warnings
Small tags next to the callsign flag anything worth a second look: MIL, a live or practice QRA scramble, TANKER, ON STATION, 🔒 PIA (a temporary ICAO address under the FAA’s privacy programme), 🚫 LADD (the owner has opted out of public display), ⭐ Notable, the phase of flight, and any emergency. A ⚠ GPS accuracy degraded banner appears when the aircraft’s own reported position quality is poor. Military aircraft that stop sending a callsign show the one they last used, in italics with a last seen tag.
Not every blip is an aircraft
The live feed includes things with transponders that are not aircraft: tower and ground-station transponders at airports (type and registration TWR), airport service and emergency vehicles, and fixed obstacles such as masts and cranes. Their panel says so, for example Not an aircraft: a tower transponder, fixed ground equipment at an airport, an Equipment row replaces Aircraft and Reg, and Listen on gives no frequency. On the map they are small grey squares that never turn. They are hidden unless the Equipment chip in Live Flights is on; see Live Flights.
On a wide screen
When the aircraft table is open along the bottom of the map and there is room, the panel runs down the right past the map’s bottom edge and the table steps aside for it, so neither hides the other. On narrower screens the panel stops above the table as before.