Aircraft monitor

Script for monitoring and alerting on specific aircraft types within a certain radius of a given location, using the Flight Finder API.

Set up

Create .env from .env.example and set environment variables.

asdf install
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Run

Ensure to have the Flight Finder API running and accessible at the URL specified in the .env file.

Then run the monitor script:

python aircraft_monitor.py

Example output

$ python aircraft_monitor.py
Monitoring for A400s within 100km of (xx.xxxx, xx.xxxx)...
Fetching flights from: http://0.0.0.0:7478/flights-in-radius?lat=xx.xxxx&lon=xx.xxxx&radius=100
Response status: 200
Found 23 flights in radius.

--- 2 A400(s) detected ---
🚨 LOW ALTITUDE ALERT: A400 ASLAN78 at 267m, 127.7km away, inf minutes until closest approach.
Alert thresholds not met. Skipping email.
ℹ️ A400 detected: FLTOT49 at 1219m, 43.3km away, 6 minutes until closest approach.
Alert thresholds not met. Skipping email.
---

Deploy to Dokku

See docs/deploying-to-dokku.md for instructions on deploying to a Dokku server.

Alerts

Alerts are sent when a detected aircraft meets the thresholds defined in .env (distance, altitude, and estimated time to closest approach).

Supported alert channels (configured via ALERT_CHANNELS in .env):

• Email: via Postmark
• ntfy: push notifications via a self-hosted ntfy instance (see ntfy-dokku for Dokku deployment)

You can enable one or both channels:

# Email only (default)
ALERT_CHANNELS=email

# ntfy only
ALERT_CHANNELS=ntfy

# Both
ALERT_CHANNELS=email,ntfy