RadarThing: From Simple Radar to Full Flight Platform

12 January, 2026

How a bandwidth-efficient radar evolved into a complete flight tracking platform with logging, stats, ATC commands, and community features.

Back in November, I wrote about GeoFS-Radar and how it solved the bandwidth and accuracy issues with the official GeoFS map. What started as a simple radar replacement has since evolved into something much more comprehensive. The project has been renamed to RadarThing and has grown into a full flight tracking platform.

Flight Logging

The most significant addition is automatic flight logging. Every flight you take is now recorded and saved to your account. The system tracks your route coordinates throughout the flight, which means you can view a complete replay of your flight path after landing.

The logging system is smart about WiFi disconnections too. If you briefly lose connection mid-flight, the system uses a grace period before finalizing your flight. If you reconnect within three minutes, your flight continues as a single session rather than being split into two separate flights. This was crucial because nothing is more frustrating than seeing two flights logged when you only flew once.

User Statistics

With flight logging came the ability to track statistics. Your dashboard now shows:

Total flights completed
Total flight time
Total distance flown in nautical miles
Number of unique airports visited
Top aircraft you fly
Most frequent routes
Most visited airports

All of this is calculated from your actual flight data. The distance calculation uses the Haversine formula on your recorded coordinates, so it reflects your actual path rather than just the great circle distance between airports.

Remote Autopilot Control

RadarThing now supports sending commands to your own aircraft remotely. This is useful when you are away from your desktop but want to adjust your autopilot settings. From the radar interface on your phone or another device, you can:

Set speed
Set altitude
Set heading
Set vertical speed
Assign squawk codes
Change Waypoints
Disable NAV mode

Your userscript polls for commands every few seconds and executes them automatically. This means you can step away from your computer during cruise and still make adjustments if needed.

Aircraft Images

The community can now contribute aircraft livery images. When viewing an aircraft on the radar, you see the actual livery if someone has uploaded an image for that airline and aircraft type combination. There is an approval system in place to ensure quality, and contributors get credited by their Discord username.

The Technical Stack

The architecture has matured as well. The frontend runs on Next.js with the T3 stack. Real-time updates flow through a dedicated Server-Sent Events server that handles position broadcasts to all connected radar viewers. Convex handles the database for flight logs, user data, and aircraft images. Clerk manages authentication.

Each flight session tracks not just coordinates but also maximum altitude reached, maximum speed achieved, squawk code, and calculates duration automatically. This data populates both the individual flight view and the aggregate statistics.

What Changed Since November

Looking back at the original post, the core radar functionality remains the same. The smart polling, accurate altitude display, and Foo filtering all work as before. But the platform around it has expanded significantly:

November 2025:

Basic aircraft position on map
Real-time data only
Anonymous viewing
Desktop control only
No aircraft images

Now:

Full flight details with flight plan visualization
Flight history with route replay
User accounts with stats and dashboards
Remote autopilot control from any device
Community-contributed liveries

What Is Next

The roadmap includes more detailed flight analytics, possibly landing rate detection, and better route planning tools for controllers. The foundation is solid now, so adding features is more about polish than infrastructure.

If you are doing ATC for GeoFS or just want to track your flights, check out RadarThing. The userscript takes seconds to install, and you immediately get access to flight logging and the improved radar experience.