How to identify a plane overhead by address
You don't need binoculars, an aviation radio, or a $10/month app subscription. Identifying any aircraft over any US address takes about ten seconds with public data. Here's the exact method, plus the tricks that make you good at it.
Step 1: Pin your exact point
Open WhatsAbove and give it your address. The parser accepts three formats:
- A street address — "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC" (geocoded via the US Census Bureau, so it works for essentially any US address);
- Coordinates — "38.8977, -77.0365" pasted straight in;
- A Google Maps link — paste the URL; we extract the coordinates.
Precision matters more than you'd think: "identify the plane overhead" is a geometry problem, and moving the center point two miles changes which aircraft is closest to your zenith. Use your actual address, not just your city.
Step 2: Set the ring to match your eyes and ears
The scope shows a circle of sky — 10, 25, or 50 nautical miles (pinch or scroll to change). Calibrate it to your senses:
| Ring | Use it for |
|---|---|
| 10 nm | "The plane I can hear right now." Anything audible is almost always inside this ring. |
| 25 nm | The default. Catches everything visible to the naked eye, including high cruisers approaching your zenith. |
| 50 nm | Situational awareness: what's inbound, what the arrival flow looks like, where the streams are. |
Step 3: Match the glyph to the sky
Every aircraft is drawn as a chevron pointing along its actual heading, colored by altitude — dim and warm near the ground, bright at cruise. Three matching techniques, in order of reliability:
- Direction of travel. If the plane you can see is moving left-to-right toward the southwest, find the chevron near your center pointing southwest. Direction is the fastest unambiguous filter.
- Altitude vs. sound. Loud and slow-crossing = low (dim glyph). A faint high hiss or a silent contrail = 30,000+ ft (bright glyph). Sound also lags: at 35,000 ft, the noise you hear left the aircraft ~35 seconds ago, so the real plane is well ahead of where the sound points.
- The overhead chip. If a chevron's track crosses your center, WhatsAbove shows "overhead in 0:38" with a live countdown. When it hits zero, look straight up.
Step 4: Click it and read the card
The telemetry card gives you callsign, airline, origin → destination, aircraft type, registration, altitude, ground speed, climb/descent arrow, squawk, and the aircraft's distance and bearing from your point. Tap FOLLOW and the scope re-centers on the aircraft continuously — useful for tracking an arrival all the way to the runway.
Pro techniques
Learn your local flows
Airports flow in one direction at a time (into the wind). Watch your scope for ten minutes and you'll see it: a conveyor of arrivals descending along one line, departures climbing along another. Once you know today's flow, you can predict what you'll see before you look up. Wind shifts flip the flow — that's why "the planes changed direction this week" is almost always just weather.
Registration tells you more
The registration (like N125DU) on the card is the aircraft's tail number. For N-numbers, the FAA registry is public and free — type it into the FAA's N-number inquiry to see the owner, aircraft age, and airworthiness data. A callsign flying as its registration (no airline prefix) is general aviation: flight schools, private owners, medevac, survey aircraft.
Spot the non-airliners
- Circling track, 1,000–3,000 ft: police, news, survey, or flight training.
- Long straight lines at 500–2,000 ft, back and forth: aerial survey or pipeline patrol.
- Fast, high, no route data: business jets and military transports.
- Type codes: B738 = Boeing 737-800, A321 = Airbus A321, C172 = Cessna 172, PC12 = Pilatus PC-12, H60 = Black Hawk. The type field on the card decodes the silhouette you're squinting at.
What you can't identify (and why)
Public ADS-B misses three categories: aircraft in FAA privacy programs (the position shows but identity may be scrambled), most active military flights, and older light aircraft without ADS-B Out in uncontrolled airspace. If you clearly saw something and the scope is empty at low altitude in a rural area, receiver coverage is the likeliest explanation — the network is volunteers' antennas, and someone has to be within radio range.
Frequently asked
Do I need to install an app to identify planes overhead?
No. WhatsAbove runs in any modern browser on your phone or computer. Enter an address or coordinates and every trackable aircraft within up to 50 nautical miles appears live — no account, no install.
How accurate is the position I see on screen?
ADS-B positions come from the aircraft's own GPS and are typically accurate to a few meters. The bigger factor is timing: data arrives every few seconds, so we extrapolate along the aircraft's track between updates — errors are usually well under a wingspan.
Can I identify a plane I saw earlier today?
WhatsAbove shows the live sky only — we don't store history. For after-the-fact lookups, note the exact time and your location, and use a flight history service; knowing the runway direction and nearby airports (shown on our city pages) narrows it fast.