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Description
A small LED board that floats over any page and shows the aircraft passing overhead, one at a time. SkyBoard puts a small flight board in the corner of whatever page you are on and shows the aircraft passing near you right now. Not a map. Not a list. One aircraft at a time — the one passing closest — with the four things you actually want during the short time it is still above you: • Which airline it is, shown on a tail painted in that carrier's livery • Its callsign, running up the fin the way a registration is painted on a real aircraft • How far away it is, how high it is, how fast it is moving, and whether it is climbing or descending • Which way to look — with a compass pointing toward its bearing from your location and the angle to look up from the horizon, explained in plain language Everything is designed to be read at a glance rather than studied. Altitude reads cold, speed warm, heading green — a fixed visual key so you can find a number before you even read its label. Distance warms up as the aircraft gets closer. WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE The board lives directly on the webpage instead of opening in a separate tab, so it always looks and behaves the same. Drag it anywhere by its face. Resize it from the corner. SkyBoard remembers where you put it. With one click, you can lift it into a floating window that stays above your other windows when you want to keep watching the sky while doing something else. A Delta pass does not look like a JetBlue pass. The aircraft livery drives the tail, indicator lamp, and compass needle, so you can often tell what is overhead before you have read a word. HOW IT BEHAVES Left alone, SkyBoard follows the closest aircraft and only switches when another aircraft becomes decisively nearer. That prevents the board from constantly flickering between two aircraft at similar distances. Switch to "Each in turn" and SkyBoard cycles through the aircraft in range instead, showing one every few seconds with a departure-board-style transition. When a new aircraft arrives, SkyBoard can play a two-note airport-style announcement chime. An aircraft passing within two and a half miles can trigger the three-note version, followed by the sound of a jet passing underneath. You control: • How far out SkyBoard looks • How many aircraft it tracks • Which types of traffic it includes • How often live data refreshes • Whether it follows the closest aircraft or cycles through them SkyBoard starts with airline traffic only, since busy airspace can otherwise be filled with training flights, helicopters, and other general aviation traffic. TRY IT BEFORE TELLING IT ANYTHING SkyBoard ships with no location configured. When you first install it, it runs using clearly marked demo traffic so you can see exactly how the board works before entering any location information or OpenSky credentials. When you are ready for live traffic, register a free API client at opensky-network.org and enter the client ID and secret in SkyBoard settings. Your OpenSky credentials are stored locally in Chrome on this device, are not synced to your other devices, and are only sent to OpenSky for authentication. PRIVACY, PLAINLY There is no SkyBoard server, no SkyBoard account, no analytics, and no telemetry. Once you enable live traffic, SkyBoard sends OpenSky a geographic bounding box around the coordinates you selected so OpenSky knows which area of sky to return, along with your OpenSky credentials for authentication. Distances, bearings, aircraft selection, and filtering are calculated locally in your browser. SkyBoard does not read or transmit the content of the webpages where the board appears. The board is rendered in an isolated frame and does not use the content of the page underneath it. GOOD TO KNOW Chrome does not allow extensions to draw on certain protected pages, including chrome:// pages, the Chrome Web Store, and some built-in document viewers. When you are on one of those pages, SkyBoard can appear on the nearest ordinary webpage instead. OpenSky's free service is rate limited. SkyBoard is designed to minimize unnecessary requests, including sharing live aircraft data between open tabs instead of having every tab make its own request. Live aircraft availability, position accuracy, and update timing depend on OpenSky coverage and the data available in your area. SkyBoard is built for one simple moment: You hear an aircraft overhead, glance at the corner of your screen, and immediately know what it is and where to look.