canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/adsbexchange.com/adsbexchange

# ADS-B Exchange API

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.

## For AI 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.

## Scope

Does not handle ticket booking, airport schedules, weather, or airline operations - use for live ADS-B aircraft tracking only.

## Capabilities

- 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

### 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.

Example prompt: 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.

Example prompt: 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.

Example prompt: 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.

Example prompt: 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

| 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 |

## Key resources

- **Aircraft by location** — Radius search by latitude, longitude, and distance
- **Aircraft by identifier** — Lookup by ICAO hex, callsign, registration, or aircraft type
- **Specialised feeds** — Military, LADD, and PIA aircraft feeds

## Why Jentic

- **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 handling:** 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.
- **Discovery method:** 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

- **Aviation Data Systems API** — Aviation reference and airport data - different scope from real-time aircraft positions
- **Stripe** — Pair flight data with billing for paid flight-alert or fleet-tracking subscriptions
- **Quotable** — Lightweight unauthenticated API often paired in demos and prototypes alongside other Jentic-generated specs

## FAQ

### 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.