Data Sources & Aviation Disclaimers

1. What GlobalAirData shows

GlobalAirData combines observations from community-operated radio receivers with aviation, airport, airspace, map, weather, imagery, and aircraft-reference data from other sources. The result is useful for situational awareness, experimentation, network operations, education, and research, but it is not a complete or authoritative picture of the airspace.

“Live” means recently received, not instantaneous or guaranteed current. Time labels can reflect receiver time, provider time, processing time, or display time. Tracks and analytics can combine observations from multiple receivers and can include interpolation, deduplication, smoothing, rollups, identity enrichment, or other derived processing.

2. Source categories

• Community aircraft receiversADS-B, Mode S, UAT, MLAT-related observations, signal measurements, timestamps, and receiver health submitted by GlobalAirData feeder operators.
• Feeder ownersReceiver coordinates, antenna and hardware details, configuration, labels, notes, visibility settings, and operational status.
• United States aviation and weather agenciesFAA and AviationWeather.gov sources for airports, airspace, advisories, pilot or aviation reports, and METAR or related weather context; NOAA/NWS services for optional weather overlays.
• Open mapping and airport projectsOpenStreetMap data and services, including Nominatim where used, and OurAirports airport data.
• Map, imagery, and weather layersDepending on the selected layer and availability: Esri/ArcGIS, NASA Earthdata, NOAA services, Iowa Environmental Mesonet, DWD, Wikimedia-hosted mapping, ChartBundle, and other providers named in the map’s on-screen attribution.
• Aircraft identity and photosCommunity observations plus aircraft-reference or photo information that may be supplied by OpenSky Network, Planespotters.net, Airport-Data.com, or other identified providers.
• Apple platform servicesApple MapKit and Apple Push Notification service may support map presentation and requested iOS alerts.
• GlobalAirData-derived informationTracks, coverage rings, range, traffic summaries, signal health, aircraft histories, alert states, and research metrics derived from the sources above.

Not every source or feature is active in every view, region, or release. A source may be served through GlobalAirData’s cache or contacted directly by your browser or app.

3. Attribution and provider terms

• OpenStreetMap: map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License. OpenStreetMap Foundation-operated tiles and Nominatim are also subject to their respective usage policies and privacy notice.
• Government and public-agency sources: FAA, NOAA/NWS, AviationWeather.gov, NASA, DWD, and other agency names identify the source. Individual products can carry their own precautionary-use statements, notices, or terms, which remain applicable.
• Commercial, nonprofit, and community providers: Esri, Wikimedia, ChartBundle, Iowa Environmental Mesonet, OurAirports, OpenSky Network, Planespotters.net, Airport-Data.com, Apple, and other named providers retain their rights. Their displayed attribution, license, API terms, and usage policies apply.

On-screen map attribution is part of the display and must not be hidden or removed. Provider names and trademarks belong to their respective owners. GlobalAirData is not affiliated with or endorsed by a source merely because its data or service is referenced.

4. Known limitations

• Coverage gaps: terrain, buildings, antenna placement, radio interference, receiver outages, network failures, and geographic distribution can hide aircraft or break tracks.
• Broadcast limitations: not every aircraft broadcasts every field; some fields can be absent, malformed, spoofed, miscoded, delayed, or received from a non-ICAO address.
• MLAT limitations: multilateration depends on accurate receiver coordinates and timing plus reception by enough receivers. Estimated positions can be unavailable or wrong.
• Identity errors: addresses, registrations, callsigns, types, operators, and photographs can be stale, reused, mismatched, or incorrectly associated.
• Weather and advisory timing: weather, airspace, NOTAM-like advisories, reports, and imagery can lag the authoritative source or omit updates. Cached data may be shown when a source is unavailable.
• Derived results: histories, ranges, coverage, fuel or climate estimates, and other analytics depend on assumptions and incomplete observations. They are estimates, not certified measurements.
• Radio audio and transcripts: VHF reception can include noise, overlapping transmissions, incomplete audio, and transcription errors. A transcript is never an authoritative record of a communication.

5. Data access and reuse

You may use the interactive Service normally and use an API or download according to its documentation, rate limits, and accompanying license. Unless an API, dataset, download, or written permission expressly grants broader rights, public display does not permit bulk extraction, mirroring, resale, or republication of GlobalAirData’s compiled database.

Third-party data remains subject to the source provider’s license and terms. A GlobalAirData permission cannot grant rights that belong to another provider. Automated collection of map tiles is prohibited unless the tile provider expressly permits it.

6. Corrections and rights concerns

To report a suspected aircraft-identity mismatch, incorrect attribution, privacy concern, or intellectual-property issue, email privacy@globalairdata.com. Include the relevant URL, aircraft address or registration if applicable, a description of the issue, the basis for your request, and a way to contact you. Do not send passwords, authentication codes, or feeder secrets.

We may ask for information reasonably needed to verify a correction or rights request. Because the same observation may be independently broadcast, publicly available, or received from multiple sources, correcting one source does not necessarily remove or alter information supplied by another.