The OpenSky Network API Scraper

This project provides a simple way to pull live airspace information from the OpenSky Network API. It’s built for researchers, aviation enthusiasts, and anyone who needs real-time aircraft movement data without juggling raw API calls or complex parsing logic.

     

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Introduction

The scraper retrieves structured airspace data directly from the OpenSky Network, making it easier to analyze aircraft positions, movements, and identifiers.
It’s aimed at aviation researchers, data engineers, and systems that require ongoing telemetry for non-commercial use.

Real-Time Airspace Insights

• Fetch current aircraft positions in a defined airspace
• Get flight metadata including callsigns, transponder codes, and altitude
• Compatible with custom workflows for analytics, alerting, or dashboards
• Lightweight integration using a simple input schema

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Features

Feature	Description
Live Airspace Fetching	Retrieves real-time aircraft state vectors.
Structured Output	Delivers consistent JSON for easy downstream use.
Flexible Parameters	Configure geographic boundaries or leave defaults.
Rapid Integration	Simple API-style input and response format.
Aviation Research Ready	Suitable for mapping, trend detection, and telemetry analysis.

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What Data This Scraper Extracts

Field Name	Field Description
icao24	Unique 24-bit ICAO transponder address.
callsign	Aircraft callsign when available.
origin_country	The country of registration.
time_position	Last known position timestamp.
last_contact	Timestamp of last contact with the receiver network.
longitude	Aircraft longitude.
latitude	Aircraft latitude.
geo_altitude	Geometric altitude in meters.
baro_altitude	Altitude from barometric sensors when available.
velocity	Speed in m/s.
heading	Aircraft direction in degrees.
vertical_rate	Climb or descent rate.
sensors	Sensor IDs contributing data.

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Example Output

[
  {
    "icao24": "a1b2c3",
    "callsign": "UAL452",
    "origin_country": "United States",
    "time_position": 1711392040,
    "last_contact": 1711392050,
    "longitude": -118.4085,
    "latitude": 33.9416,
    "geo_altitude": 7620,
    "baro_altitude": 7550,
    "velocity": 245.5,
    "heading": 91.2,
    "vertical_rate": 2.4,
    "sensors": [1123, 1124]
  }
]

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Directory Structure Tree

opensky-network-api-scraper/
├── src/
│   ├── main.js
│   ├── services/
│   │   ├── opensky_client.js
│   │   └── parser.js
│   ├── utils/
│   │   ├── validator.js
│   │   └── logger.js
│   └── config/
│       └── input_schema.json
├── data/
│   └── sample_output.json
├── Dockerfile
├── package.json
└── README.md

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Use Cases

• Aviation researchers gather aircraft telemetry for modeling airspace behavior.
• Developers integrate live flight data into dashboards or internal tools.
• Enthusiasts monitor aircraft passing through local or global airspace.
• Analysts track movement trends for academic or safety-related studies.

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FAQs

Can this be used commercially?
No—OpenSky’s terms restrict use to research and non-commercial purposes.

Does it stream continuous data?
This scraper retrieves snapshots; continuous polling can be scheduled externally.

What geographic areas can I target?
Any bounding box supported by the OpenSky API—global or regional.

Is the data always complete?
Coverage depends on receiver availability, so some aircraft may appear intermittently.

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Performance Benchmarks and Results

Primary Metric:
Fetches several thousand aircraft state vectors in a single request within seconds.

Reliability Metric:
Consistent response handling even when partial telemetry is returned.

Efficiency Metric:
Low overhead on repeated polling; JSON output is lightweight for pipelines.

Quality Metric:
High positional accuracy relative to OpenSky’s receiver network coverage.

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