ADS-B Exchange API

Name: ADS-B Exchange API API
Brand: ADS-B Exchange API
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentMaps GeolocationPlaces SearchapiKey13 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Look up aircraft positions, military flight tracks, and registration details from the unfiltered ADS-B Exchange feed by location, ICAO hex, callsign, or registration.

Quickstart

Get started with ADS-B Exchange API in minutes using your preferred integration method.

# Add to your MCP client config (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf)
{
  "jentic": {
    "url": "https://api.jentic.com/mcp",
    "auth": "oauth"
  }
}

# Then ask your agent:
"find aircraft near coordinates"

# → Jentic returns the GET /events tool with parameter schema, agent executes.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with ADS-B Exchange API API.

Find aircraft within a radius of a latitude/longitude using GET /aircraft/json/lat/{lat}/lon/{lon}/dist/{dist}/

Look up a specific aircraft's current position and metadata by ICAO hex code via /aircraft/icao/{icao}/

Track flights by callsign or registration to follow a known aircraft across its route

Pull the live military aircraft feed and the LADD/PIA-restricted lists that other trackers filter out

GET STARTED

Start building with ADS-B Exchange API API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI document for ADS-B Exchange API, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for ADS-B Exchange API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. ADS-B Exchange exposes real-time and historical aircraft tracking data sourced from a global network of community-run ADS-B receivers, with no filtering of military, government, or blocked aircraft. The API returns aircraft positions by latitude/longitude radius, ICAO hex code, callsign, registration, or aircraft type, and includes specialised feeds for military aircraft, LADD-listed aircraft, and PIA registrations. Distribution is via RapidAPI, with all 13 endpoints accepting an X-RapidAPI-Key header.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use ADS-B Exchange API API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Live Aircraft Map for a Region

Power a flight-tracking dashboard or alerting tool by polling ADS-B Exchange for every aircraft inside a geographic radius. The /aircraft/json/lat/{lat}/lon/{lon}/dist/{dist}/ endpoint returns position, altitude, speed, heading, and squawk for matching aircraft so a UI or notifier can render them on a map. Useful for airport noise monitors, plane-spotting apps, and emergency response dashboards covering up to several hundred miles in one call.

Call GET /aircraft/json/lat/40.6413/lon/-73.7781/dist/50/ and return a list of all aircraft within 50 nautical miles of JFK with their callsign, altitude, and ground speed

Specific Aircraft Lookup by Hex or Registration

Identify a single aircraft and pull its latest telemetry without scanning a region. Agents can resolve an ICAO 24-bit hex (/aircraft/icao/{icao}/), a tail number (/aircraft/registration/{reg}/), or a callsign (/aircraft/callsign/{callsign}/) into the same telemetry payload. This is the right path when a user references a specific airframe by N-number, G-registration, or filed callsign.

Call GET /aircraft/registration/N628TS/ and return the current latitude, longitude, altitude, and last-seen timestamp for the requested tail number

Military and Restricted Aircraft Feeds

ADS-B Exchange is one of the only public sources that does not filter government, military, or blocked aircraft. The /aircraft/mil/, /aircraft/ladd/, and /aircraft/pia/ endpoints expose the live military feed, FAA Limiting Aircraft Data Display list, and Privacy ICAO Address registrations. OSINT analysts and journalists use these feeds to monitor government and corporate flights that disappear from filtered providers.

Call GET /aircraft/mil/ and return every military aircraft currently transmitting, grouped by aircraft type

Agent-Driven Flight Investigation via Jentic

An AI agent investigating a sighting, news event, or aviation incident can use Jentic to discover and call ADS-B Exchange operations from a natural-language prompt. The agent searches Jentic for an aircraft-tracking intent, loads the matching operation schema, and executes the call with credentials managed by the Jentic vault. No code generation, no manual key handling, and no separate RapidAPI subscription wiring inside the agent context.

Use Jentic to search for 'find aircraft near coordinates', load the ADS-B Exchange radius lookup operation, and execute it for the user's chosen lat/lon and radius

Key Endpoints

13 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for ads-b exchange api, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/aircraft/json/lat/{lat}/lon/{lon}/dist/{dist}/

Aircraft within a radius of coordinates

GET

/aircraft/icao/{icao}/

Lookup by ICAO 24-bit hex code

GET

/aircraft/callsign/{callsign}/

Lookup by callsign

GET

/aircraft/registration/{reg}/

Lookup by tail number or registration

GET

/aircraft/type/{type}/

All aircraft of a given type code

GET

/aircraft/mil/

All currently tracked military aircraft

GET

/aircraft/ladd/

Aircraft on the LADD restricted list

GET

/aircraft/pia/

Aircraft using Privacy ICAO Addresses

GET

/aircraft/json/lat/{lat}/lon/{lon}/dist/{dist}/

Aircraft within a radius of coordinates

GET

/aircraft/icao/{icao}/

Lookup by ICAO 24-bit hex code

GET

/aircraft/callsign/{callsign}/

Lookup by callsign

GET

/aircraft/registration/{reg}/

Lookup by tail number or registration

GET

/aircraft/type/{type}/

All aircraft of a given type code

Why though Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

The X-RapidAPI-Key for ADS-B Exchange is stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Agents receive scoped execution access and never see the raw RapidAPI key in their context, so leaked traces or transcripts cannot exfiltrate the credential.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent (for example 'find aircraft near coordinates' or 'get military aircraft feed') and Jentic returns the matching ADS-B Exchange operation with its full input schema, so the agent calls the right endpoint without scraping vendor docs.

Time to first call

Direct ADS-B Exchange integration via RapidAPI: roughly half a day to register, subscribe, and wire the X-RapidAPI-Key into client code. Through Jentic: under 15 minutes — search, load schema, execute.

Related APIs

Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.

Alternative

Aviation Data Systems API

Aviation reference and airport data — different scope from real-time aircraft positions

Choose Aviation Data Systems when you need airport reference data rather than live aircraft tracking; choose ADS-B Exchange for live positions

Complementary

Stripe

Pair flight data with billing for paid flight-alert or fleet-tracking subscriptions

Use Stripe alongside ADS-B Exchange when building a paid product where users subscribe to alerts on specific tail numbers

Complementary

Quotable

Lightweight unauthenticated API often paired in demos and prototypes alongside other Jentic-generated specs

Useful as a no-auth content source when prototyping a flight-tracker UI before wiring real RapidAPI credentials

FAQs

Specific to using ADS-B Exchange API API through Jentic.

Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for ADS-B Exchange API?

ADS-B Exchange does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call ADS-B Exchange API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started at https://app.jentic.com/sign-up.

What authentication does the ADS-B Exchange API use?

The API is distributed via RapidAPI and uses an apiKey scheme. Requests must include an X-RapidAPI-Key header (an alternative api-auth query parameter is also defined). When called through Jentic, the RapidAPI key is stored in the Jentic vault and injected at request time so the agent never sees the raw key.

Can I track military aircraft with the ADS-B Exchange API?

Yes. Unlike most flight-tracking APIs, ADS-B Exchange does not filter military or restricted aircraft. The dedicated GET /aircraft/mil/ endpoint returns every military aircraft currently transmitting ADS-B, and /aircraft/ladd/ and /aircraft/pia/ expose the LADD and PIA restricted lists.

How do I find aircraft near a specific location through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'find aircraft near coordinates', load the ADS-B Exchange radius operation, and call GET /aircraft/json/lat/{lat}/lon/{lon}/dist/{dist}/ with your coordinates and search radius. Jentic returns the structured response so the agent can iterate over aircraft directly.

What are the rate limits for the ADS-B Exchange API?

Rate limits are set by the RapidAPI subscription tier you select on adsbexchange-com1.p.rapidapi.com — the OpenAPI spec itself does not declare programmatic limits. Choose a paid tier matched to your polling frequency before running production workloads.

Can I look up an aircraft by tail number?

Yes. GET /aircraft/registration/{reg}/ accepts a tail number or registration mark (for example N628TS) and returns the latest telemetry. /aircraft/icao/{icao}/ accepts the ICAO 24-bit hex, and /aircraft/callsign/{callsign}/ accepts a filed callsign.