skytrack: A planespotting and aircraft OSINT tool

by do son · Published February 26, 2024 · Updated May 1, 2024

skytrack

skytrack is a command-line-based plane spotting and aircraft OSINT reconnaissance tool made using Python. It can gather aircraft information using various data sources, generate a PDF report for a specified aircraft, and convert between ICAO and Tail Number designations. Whether you are a hobbyist plane spotter or an experienced aircraft analyst, skytrack can help you identify and enumerate aircraft for general-purpose reconnaissance.

What is Planespotting & Aircraft OSINT?

Planespotting is the art of tracking down and observing aircraft. While planespotting mostly consists of photography and videography of aircraft, aircraft information gathering, and OSINT a crucial steps in the planespotting process. OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) describes a methodology of using publicly accessible data sources to obtain data about a specific subject — in this case, planes!

Aircraft Information

Tail Number 🛫
Aircraft Type ⚙️
ICAO24 Designation 🔎
Manufacturer Details 🛠
Flight Logs 📄
Aircraft Owner ✈️
Model 🛩
Much more!

Features

skytrack features three main functions for aircraft information gathering and display options. They include the following:

Aircraft Reconnaissance & OSINT

skytrack obtains general information about the aircraft given its tail number or ICAO designator. The tool sources this information using several reliable data sets. Once the data is collected, it is displayed in the terminal within a table layout.

PDF Aircraft Information Report

skytrack also enables you the save the collected aircraft information into a PDF. The PDF includes all the aircraft data in a visual layout for later reference. The PDF report will be entitled “skytrack_report.pdf”

Tail Number to ICAO Converter

There are two standard identification formats for specifying aircraft: Tail Number and ICAO Designation. The tail number (aka N-Number) is an alphanumerical ID starting with the letter “N” used to identify aircraft. The ICAO type designation is a six-character fixed-length ID in the hexadecimal format. Both standards are highly pertinent for aircraft reconnaissance as they both can be used to search for a specific aircraft in data sources. However, converting them from one format to another can be rather cumbersome as it follows a tricky algorithm. To streamline this process, skytrack includes a standard converter.