How To Use
Welcome to the ultimate flight tracking experience. Discover how to find flights, customize your radar, and use our pro tools.
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Learn the basic
Smart Search
Find flights by airline, search routes, airports or locate the closest airport to your location.
Airport Panel
Click on a airport to open the panel. View live arrival and departure boards, real-time METAR weather, airport disruptions, and online ATC bookings.
Aircraft Panel
Click any aircraft to see detailed flight data, flight progress, and aircraft photo. Access extra tools like 3D View, Follow Mode, and to view the full route.
Filters
Filter traffic by airline, registration, aircraft type, and create a custom fleet.
Weather Layers
Overlay live weather on the map. Toggle rain, wind vectors, and cloud coverage to see the conditions pilots are flying through.
Map Settings
Decide how your FSR looks. You can choose a different map layer, change the aircraft icon color or the size, and choose how labels are displayed.
Intelligence
How the radar works
Due to network limitations from VATSIM & IVAO, traffic only updates every 15 seconds. FSR uses an advanced smoothing algorithm that interpolates movement in real-time, allowing you to see aircraft glide smoothly across the scope with a high-frequency refresh rate.
We monitor Scheduled (SOBT), Estimated (EOBT), and Actual (AOBT) block times. If a pilot is delayed at the gate, FSR automatically calculates the rolling delay and dynamically adjusts the Arrival ETA based on live groundspeed and remaining track distance.
FSR automatically scans for Similar Flights. It find aircrafts flying to the same destination, or the same airline. Helping you to see other users flying with you.
Clean up your map by setting custom filters. You can toggle traffic based on airline, aircraft type, callsign, or specific inbound and outbound flows for any airport.
Aircraft Panel Tools
FAQ
Your questions answered
What are the benefits of FSR Premium?
Premium is for the power users. It unlocks unlimited 3D View access, removes the 30-minute session timeout, and gives you 'Custom Fleet Filtering' to build your own permanent list of aircraft to track.
Can I track my own flight?
Absolutely! Once you are connected to the network, simply type your callsign in the top search bar to find yourself.
VATSIM vs IVAO: What's the difference?
They are the two largest online flight simulation networks. Flightsimradar tracks both simultaneously. You can toggle them on or off in the Traffic menu.
How does FSR save my flight?
We automatically save every tracked flight in our database. Standard users can view flight history up to 30 days back. If you have FSR Premium or an account, you unlock extended history beyond 30+ days.
Why does a flight say 'Position Data Only'?
The pilot connected to the network hasn't filed a flight plan yet, or is flying VFR without a route. We track their speed and altitude, but don't know the destination.
Why are planes jumping or teleporting?
We receive data every 15 seconds. If a pilot has a bad internet connection, they might drop off the network briefly, causing a 'jump' when they reconnect.
Why can't I see an aircraft photo?
We match photos based on the exact real-world registration. If a pilot uses a generic registration (like 'PMDG' or 'GFENX') or leaves it blank, we cannot retrieve a photo.
How does FSR decide the active runways?
Our system looks at the live ATIS. If there is no ATIS available, we'll look at the latest METAR and analyze the actual flow of arriving and departing traffic in the last 20 minutes to highlight the active runways.
Why did my session timeout?
To save server bandwidth, inactive radar sessions are automatically paused after 30 minutes for standard users. Simply reload the page to continue tracking.