Something just flew over. Here’s what it was.
Straight answers to the questions everyone asks when they look up.
00What does “bogey” mean?An aircraft whose identity is unknown. The word, where it came from, and why every plane starts as one.Read the answer →01What plane is flying over me right now?Almost every aircraft broadcasts its identity and position by radio. Open an app that reads those broadcasts, look in the direction of the sound, and tap the aircraft that's there. You get its type, operator, route, altitude and speed.Read the answer →02Why are military helicopters flying over my house?Usually training. Military crews have to practice navigation, formation and night flying over real terrain, and they move aircraft between bases, airports and exercise areas. Pairs are normal: helicopters often train as a two-ship.Read the answer →03Why is a plane circling over my house?The most common reasons are holding for a busy airport, a police or news helicopter watching something on the ground, flight training, or a survey aircraft photographing the area. An airliner circling for a long time may be burning fuel before an unplanned landing.Read the answer →04Why is that plane flying so low?Usually because it's taking off or landing: on final approach an airliner is only about 3,000 feet up when it's ten miles from the runway. Helicopters, crop dusters, survey and military training flights are also allowed to fly lower than you might expect.Read the answer →05How to identify planes in the skyWork from big clues to small: how many engines and where they are, where the wing meets the body, what the tail looks like, then the nose and wingtips. Helicopters: count the rotors.Read the answer →06Why isn't that plane showing on the map?Either it isn't broadcasting its position, it's broadcasting without saying who it is, or no receiver nearby can hear it. Military aircraft, older small planes and low flights in remote areas are the usual suspects.Read the answer →07Why are planes suddenly flying over my house?Usually the wind changed. Aircraft take off and land into the wind, so when it shifts, the airport switches runways and the arrival and departure paths move to different neighborhoods. Runway work, weather and new procedures can do it too.Read the answer →08What are those lights in the sky?If it blinks, it's almost certainly an aircraft: red on the left wingtip, green on the right, white strobes and a red beacon. A steady light gliding silently across the sky is usually a satellite or the space station, and a bright light that seems to hang still is often a plane coming straight at you with its landing lights on.Read the answer →09Why is a helicopter hovering over my neighborhood?Most often it's a police helicopter searching for someone or watching an incident, or a news helicopter covering a story. Utility crews working on power lines, film and photo shoots, and traffic reporters also hold over one spot for a while.Read the answer →10What is a contrail?A contrail is a cloud made by an aircraft. Jet engines put out hot, humid exhaust, and when it meets very cold air high up, usually colder than about minus 40 degrees, the water vapor freezes into ice crystals. Whether the trail vanishes or lingers depends on how humid the air is at that height.Read the answer →11Why was that plane so loud?Usually it was departing at high thrust, was lower than the usual traffic because the runway or flight path changed, or the weather carried the sound further, since low cloud and temperature inversions bend sound back toward the ground. Military jets, older aircraft and helicopters are louder in their own right.Read the answer →12How high do planes fly?Airliners usually cruise between about 30,000 and 42,000 feet. Business jets can go up to around 51,000 feet, regional turboprops fly in the 20,000s, small private planes are usually a few thousand feet up, and helicopters often fly below 1,500 feet.Read the answer →13Boeing or Airbus? How to tell them apartStart with the nose: Airbus noses are round and blunt, Boeing's narrow-body nose is pointier. Then check one tell per pair: the 737's uncovered main wheels, the 777's six-wheel landing gear, the 787's four cockpit windows, the A380's full-length upper deck.Read the answer →14Which planes have four engines?The four-engine airliners you're most likely to see are the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380, with a shrinking number of A340s and BAe 146s. Most others are military: the C-17, C-130, C-5, A400M, An-124 and the KC-135 family. The B-52 has eight.Read the answer →15What plane has a hump on top?Almost always a Boeing 747: the hump is its upper deck, with the cockpit at the front. If the whole top of the plane bulges, it's an outsize freighter like the Airbus BelugaXL or Boeing Dreamlifter. A 747 with a second bump behind its hump is an E-4B.Read the answer →16Which helicopters have two rotors?Two big rotors, one at each end and no tail rotor, is a CH-47 Chinook. Two rotors on the wingtips that tilt forward is a V-22 Osprey, which is a tiltrotor rather than a helicopter. Rotors that mesh side by side (the K-MAX) or stack on one mast (Kamov) are rare in US, UK and Australian skies.Read the answer →17How to identify military aircraftLook for gray or camouflage paint, a national insignia like the US star-and-bar or a roundel instead of an airline logo, and a serial number on the tail. Then read the shape: twin tails usually mean a fighter, a high wing and fat body mean a transport, and a disc on top means an airborne radar.Read the answer →18What does squawk 7700 mean?Squawk 7700 means the aircraft has declared an emergency. The crew has set the code on its transponder so every controller can see at a glance that it needs priority. Most 7700 flights end in a normal landing at the nearest suitable airport.Read the answer →19What is a holding pattern?A holding pattern is a racetrack-shaped oval that an aircraft flies around a fixed point while it waits for clearance to continue, usually to land. Planes hold at different altitudes, stacked 1,000 feet apart, and leave from the bottom one at a time.Read the answer →20What is ADS-B?ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) is a system where an aircraft works out its own position by GPS and broadcasts it by radio, along with its identity, altitude and speed, about twice a second. Anyone with a receiver can pick it up, which is how live flight maps work.Read the answer →21What do airline callsigns mean?A callsign is the name an aircraft uses on the radio and in its transponder broadcast. Airlines use a three-letter ICAO code plus a flight number (BAW117), spoken with a radio name like SPEEDBIRD. Private planes use their registration, and military flights use mission callsigns like REACH.Read the answer →22Why are planes flying over my house at night?Mostly cargo. FedEx, UPS and DHL run their biggest hubs overnight, so freighters fly while everyone sleeps. Add red-eye passenger flights, medical and police helicopters and military night training, and the sky is never fully quiet. Night air also makes them sound louder.Read the answer →
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Every aircraft around you, live, with a card for each one. Bogey answers “what was that?” in about five seconds.
- A live map of every aircraft around you, at its real position.
- Tap one and it flips into a trading card: type, airline, route, photo.
- Catch rare ones. Build a collection. Climb the leaderboard.