Dying to See a Real-Life Fighter Jet? Here’s the Easiest Way to Track Military Aircraft (2024)

• Thanks to a worldwide transponder system, you can track U.S. military aircraft.
• The system, known as ADS-B, allows you to quickly look up what’s flying in your vicinity, or even on the other side of the world.
• The system not only lends itself to greater aviation safety, but helps you get to know your military.

Back in the 2000s, I used to commute from San Francisco to Marin, California. On the way home from work, I frequently saw a dark jet fighter fly overhead around 5 p.m. It looked like an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet, but it was always too high overhead to get a good glimpse at it. I used to call it the “Five O’Clock Hornet,” and would occasionally see it over the Bay Area, though not always in the early evening.

The plane itself was a sort of low-level mystery: I had no idea where it came from, or why it kept such a routine. Even stranger was the fact that the “Hornet” appeared dark gray or black, not the light gray that U.S. Navy fighters are typically painted. It was particularly common in the North Bay, rarely sighted south of the north end of San Francisco. This was odd considering Navy jets would more likely come up from the south, from Naval Air Station Lemoore near Fresno or NAS North Island in San Diego.

More than a decade later, I discovered the Hornet’s true origin: the planes were actually T-38 Talon jet trainers flown from Beale Air Force Base. Known by the call sign ROPER, the flights were piloted by U-2 pilots maintaining their flight proficiency when not flying the high-altitude spy aircraft. The flights originated near Sacramento, and occasionally dipped down into the San Francisco Bay Area. The aircraft were painted the same dark gray color as the U-2.

I’ve been watching planes this way for decades, but being on the outside of the military-industrial complex, it’s difficult to know what you’re looking at, where the planes came from, and where they’re going. However, armed with a smartphone and one website in particular, I can find all that and more—and so can you.

A Global Surveillance Network

Civil aviation authorities around the world began rolling out the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) in the early aughts. ADS-B is a system of transponders mounted on aircraft that transmits a variety of information in real time, including the plane’s location, speed, direction, and a transponder code unique to every aircraft. This information, plotted on a map, gives pilots and ground controllers the ability to quickly get a sense of their local airspace (or the airspace of most places on Earth.)

💡 Who Uses ADS-B? As of 2021, ADS-B transponders are mandated in the U.S., Europe, Australia, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Taiwan and Vietnam, and the system is being implemented in China, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.

The information isn’t just available to the aviation community. The website ADS-B Exchange collates aircraft tracking data and makes it available in real time, allowing anyone to watch aerial traffic anywhere the system is working.

It was shortly after I started using the site that I noticed T-38 flights on a regular basis over Northern California. These flights all originated near Marysville, California, and often dipped down into the north Bay Area. The T-38 Talon is similar in appearance to the F/A-18 Hornet, but with a pointier nose and one vertical stabilizer instead of two. Viewed from a distance below, it was easy to confuse the two. Five O’Clock Hornet’s identity had at last been revealed.

The Exchange

ADS-B Exchange merges ADS-B data with other publicly known data about military and civilian aircraft, worldwide. Individual aircraft are plotted to OpenStreetMap—a free geographic database of the world—represented by icons that are color-coded according to altitude. The icons range from single-person autogyros and Cessna 182s to Boeing 747s and Airbus A380 four-engine civilian airliners. Military icons include U-2s, KC-135 Stratotankers, C-17 Globemaster IIIs, C-5M Super Galaxies, V-22 Ospreys, and so on, though fighter jets are often represented by a more generic swept-wing, stubby-nosed icon. A click on the icon includes spatial information, including ground speed, altitude, and location, ADS-B signal strength, and other data. It also includes the aircraft registration, country of registration, and helpfully adds a photograph or thumbnail of the aircraft when possible.

All of this means that, with the click of a button, you can instantly find out what is flying near you. I typically scan what’s going on over Northern California two or three times a day. The night I started this article, I heard a deep rumbling noise and the windows of my house shook. It was dark outside and I wouldn’t have been able to see the aircraft had I gone outside to look, but a quick scan at ADS-B Exchange revealed it was a V-22 Osprey that had just overflown my house.

Vanishing Aircraft

Military aircraft routinely broadcast their ADS-B data, but have the option of turning it off when necessary. The Pentagon is well aware that aviation enthusiasts—and potential adversaries—monitor ADS-B data, and that aircraft turn the transponders off when they don’t want anyone watching them. Several times, I’ve followed aircraft only to have them abruptly disappear from the map.

While writing this piece, I noticed a C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft that was nearing the San Francisco Bay Area. Using ADS-B Exchange, I tracked the flight all the way back to its starting point at the Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, the home of the 167th Airlift Wing. I expected the plane to land at Travis Air Force Base, an Air Mobility Command hub on the West Coast, but the transport flew past the base, to the Pacific Ocean, and just kept on flying. At 150 miles off the coast, it vanished from the system.

In mid-November, something new happened: a U.S. aircraft involved in combat apparently left its ADS-B on, and did so intentionally. An AC-130J Ghostrider gunship carried out an airstrike on a target that had launched a missile attack on U.S. forces at Al Assad Airbase, Iraq. The AC-130 gunship mounts a variety of weapons, including 30mm and 105mm guns, and precision guided bombs and missiles, and typically flies lazy circles above its target, pouring firepower down on targets below. In the Al Assad retaliation airstrike, according to The Aviationist, the Ghostrider involved apparently kept its transponder on the entire time, drawing large circles on the ADS-B map.

The Takeaway

If you’re a fan of military aircraft, or just like knowing what’s going when you hear the roar of airplane engines overhead, ADS-B is a free and reliable tool that you should use for tracking and identifying planes. Watching fighters, spy planes, and transports come and go can help you get to know your armed forces. Just keep in mind that, at least when it comes to military flights, you’re only going to see what the military wants you to see.