ADS-B Exchange API
Agent-ready OpenAPI document · curated by JenticMaps GeolocationPlaces SearchapiKey13 EndpointsREST
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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.
Use for: Find all aircraft within 25 miles of a given latitude and longitude, Look up the current position of an aircraft by its ICAO hex code, Track a flight by callsign while it is in the air, Retrieve the full feed of military aircraft currently being tracked
Not supported: Does not handle ticket booking, airport schedules, weather, or airline operations - use for live ADS-B aircraft tracking only.
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.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the ADS-B Exchange API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the ADS-B Exchange API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fadsbexchange.com%2Fadsbexchange" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fadsbexchange.com%2Fadsbexchange" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with ADS-B Exchange 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
Query aircraft of a specific type (e.g. A388, B744) to monitor a fleet or rare airframe
Retrieve aircraft data over RapidAPI with a single X-RapidAPI-Key header for quick agent integration
Use Cases
Patterns agents use ADS-B Exchange 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 your Jentic One instance. 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
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
Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring the ADS-B Exchange API by hand means handling its X-RapidAPI-Key header auth and building each lat/lon, ICAO, and callsign path yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import ADS-B Exchange from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.
Permission scoping
ADS-B Exchange takes its query values in the URL path for read-only lookups rather than a resource you own, so you limit the agent to the operations it needs, such as finding aircraft near coordinates or pulling the military feed. Every operation on this surface is read-only, so the agent reads live tracking without changing anything.
Credential isolation
Your ADS-B Exchange X-RapidAPI-Key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'find aircraft near coordinates' or 'get the military aircraft feed', and Jentic returns the matching ADS-B Exchange operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
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
FAQs
Specific to using ADS-B Exchange 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 with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer.
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 your Jentic One instance 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.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the ADS-B Exchange API?
Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which ADS-B Exchange operations and which stored RapidAPI key the agent may use, so you can allow only the lookups a task needs, such as finding aircraft near coordinates or pulling the military feed. Every operation on this API is a read-only lookup, whether by latitude and longitude radius, ICAO hex, callsign, registration, or aircraft type, so a scoped agent reads live tracking data without changing anything. You can, for example, permit the /aircraft/json/lat/{lat}/lon/{lon}/dist/{dist}/ radius search while withholding the /aircraft/mil/, /aircraft/ladd/, and /aircraft/pia/ feeds.
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