Plane spotting guides
Everything spotters actually want to know — identifying the aircraft overhead, looking up tail numbers and owners, digging into accident history, and building a spotting logbook you’ll keep for life.
Identify aircraft
How to identify any aircraft you see
The three methods spotters actually use — tail numbers, ADS-B, and photo matching — and how to combine them so no aircraft gets away unidentified.
Read the guide →What plane is flying over me right now?
The jet that just went over your house is identifiable in seconds. Here's exactly how to find out what it was — and keep a record of it.
Read the guide →How to read an aircraft tail number
N123AB, G-EZTL, JA829A — the registration on every aircraft follows rules. Learn to decode country prefixes, N-number formats, and military tail codes.
Read the guide →Registry & history
Tail number lookup: how to look up any aircraft
Type in a registration, get the aircraft's whole story — what the official registries show, what they hide, and how to search it all at once.
Read the guide →N-number lookup: searching the FAA aircraft registry
Every US aircraft's registration record is public. What each FAA registry field actually means — and how to see past the current-owner snapshot.
Read the guide →Who owns that plane? Finding an aircraft's owner and ownership history
Ownership is public record — if you know where to look. Find the current owner from a tail number, decode trusts and LLCs, and trace the owners before them.
Read the guide →How to check an aircraft's accident history
NTSB records are public, but accidents follow the airframe — not the tail number. How to run a history check that catches what a basic search misses.
Read the guide →Plane spotting
Plane spotting for beginners: how to start
Where to stand, what gear actually matters, how to identify what you see, and how to keep score — everything a new spotter needs on day one.
Read the guide →What makes the best plane spotting app?
Trackers show what's in the air. A spotting app keeps what you've seen. The feature checklist that separates a real spotter's tool from a radar with bookmarks.
Read the guide →How to find the best plane spotting locations near you
Every airport has its spots — you just have to read the wind, the fence line, and the light. How to scout any field, plus the locations spotters overlook.
Read the guide →Airshow spotting: how to log every aircraft you see
One airshow can add more rare airframes to your log than a year at the fence. How to work the static line, shoot the demos, and get every tail recorded.
Read the guide →Logging & tracking
How to keep a plane spotting logbook
Every spotter starts in a notes app or spreadsheet — and every spreadsheet eventually breaks. What a real spotting logbook records, and the automatic way.
Read the guide →How to track a plane by tail number
Following a specific airframe — live position, last-known location, and the paperwork changes that flight trackers never surface. Here's the full toolkit.
Read the guide →Start your collection today.
Free to download. Your next sighting could be your rarest yet.