Flight Radar works well — until conditions change

You check a phone app while waiting at the gate, and the little aircraft icon crawls across a map with reassuring precision. Flight radar has made that kind of casual certainty normal, even as someone nearby mutters, “of course! please provide the text you would like me to translate.” as if the only thing that ever needs interpreting is language. The truth is, these feeds translate the sky for us - and it matters because people now use them to plan pick-ups, track delays, and make sense of disruption in real time.

Most days, it works beautifully. Then the weather shifts, a transponder misbehaves, a receiver drops out, and the map’s confidence can wobble in ways that feel personal.

The promise: a clear picture of a moving world

Flight radar isn’t one system so much as a patchwork that looks seamless from the sofa. Many services combine aircraft broadcasts (especially ADS‑B), ground-based receivers, multilateration, airline and airport data, and occasionally satellite feeds. What you see is a best estimate, refreshed frequently enough to feel like truth.

That’s why it has become part of modern travel culture. Families watch the last half hour of an inbound flight as if it’s a sports match. Avgeeks screenshot unusual routes. Even nervous flyers use the map as a small, rational anchor: it’s moving, it’s on track, it’s real.

But the map is not the aircraft. It is a story we reconstruct from signals, and stories get messy when conditions change.

What the signals actually are - and what they are not

Most public-facing tracking relies heavily on ADS‑B: aircraft broadcast their GPS-derived position, altitude, speed and identity. That data is picked up by networks of receivers, many run by enthusiasts who host a small antenna on a roof or windowsill. In good coverage, the result is crisp.

There are two key consequences hidden in that neatness. First, if an aircraft isn’t broadcasting what you expect - or if you can’t receive it - your “radar” turns into inference. Second, coverage isn’t uniform; it’s a quilt with strong patches and weak seams.

Common data sources you’ll see blended together

• ADS‑B: direct broadcasts from the aircraft; usually the most accurate in dense coverage.
• MLAT (multilateration): position estimated from the time a signal reaches multiple receivers.
• Airline/airport feeds: schedules, gate times, and operational updates layered on top.
• Satellite ADS‑B (for some services): improved ocean coverage, but often with different refresh and latency characteristics.

The display looks like a single instrument. Underneath, it’s several instruments taking turns.

When conditions change: the three failure modes people notice first

The odd moments tend to cluster in the same patterns, and once you’ve seen them, you can’t unsee them.

Weather is the easiest culprit to imagine, but it’s usually not “rain blocks the internet”. It’s the knock-on effects: antennas shifted by wind, water in connectors, local interference, or a sudden loss of a key receiver that was doing most of the work in that area. Then there are operational changes: reroutes, holding patterns, and altitude changes that alter what receivers can “see”.

Finally, there’s the aircraft itself. Transponders can be degraded, misconfigured, or switched to different modes; sometimes the broadcast continues but with gaps, and sometimes it becomes less informative. The map doesn’t always tell you which of these you’re watching.

The most common glitches - and what they usually mean

• The aircraft “jumps” a few miles: coverage handover, MLAT estimate shifting, or a brief data gap.
• The track freezes then resumes: receiver dropout, temporary loss of line-of-sight, or delayed feed.
• The route looks strangely straight: the app is interpolating between sparse points.
• The aircraft disappears near an airport: transponder filtering, ground coverage limitations, or deliberate data suppression.

None of these automatically signals danger. They signal uncertainty - which feels similar, especially when you’re refreshing the page.

Why “near the ground” is often where tracking feels worst

People assume the hardest part is mid-ocean. In practice, the most confusing moments can happen during climb-out and approach, exactly when you care most. Terrain blocks line-of-sight. Airports sit in RF-noisy environments. Some feeds deliberately smooth or delay low-altitude movement for safety, privacy, or policy reasons.

Then add the operational churn: a go-around, a last-minute runway change, a short hold at 3,000 feet that looks like indecision. In the cockpit, it is procedure. On the map, it can look like a problem in search of a reason.

If you’ve ever watched a plane do tight circles and felt your stomach drop, you’ve already learned the emotional gap between what’s happening and what a simplified interface implies.

How to read a flight-radar map without over-reading it

A good habit is to treat tracking as a weather forecast, not a courtroom exhibit. It’s useful, usually right in broad terms, and occasionally misleading in specifics. If your goal is practical - when to leave for the airport, whether an inbound is plausibly on time - you don’t need centimetre-precision.

Try this quick sanity check when the feed starts acting odd:

• Look for multiple indicators: altitude trend, groundspeed, and heading together tell a clearer story than position dots alone.
• Compare two sources if you can (different apps, or an airline’s own status page).
• Expect smoothing and delay: some feeds update quickly; others prioritise stability.
• Remember coverage geography: mountains, coastlines, and sparsely populated areas often mean sparser receiver networks.

A compact guide to “what you’re seeing”

What you see in the app	Likely explanation	What to do
Straight line over a gap	Interpolation between points	Wait for the next cluster of updates
Sudden zig-zagging	MLAT recalculation or receiver handover	Check altitude/speed to confirm normal flight
Disappearance on approach	Low-altitude coverage limits or filtering	Use the airline/airport arrivals feed

The deeper point: certainty is a product, not a default

Flight radar feels like transparency because it’s visual, live, and shared. But it is also a product built from a changing set of conditions: radio propagation, volunteer infrastructure, policy choices, and the messy reality of air traffic management. The interface sells calm by hiding the stitching.

That doesn’t make it untrustworthy. It makes it human. And once you know that, the next time the icon stutters across the screen, you can translate it properly: not as a threat, but as a moment when the sky got harder to summarise.

FAQ:

• Why does a flight sometimes “vanish” for a few minutes? Most often it’s a coverage gap, a receiver dropout, or the app filtering low-altitude data. It doesn’t, by itself, indicate an emergency.
• Is flight radar the same as air traffic control radar? No. Public tracking typically relies on aircraft broadcasts (like ADS‑B) and networked receivers, whereas ATC uses certified surveillance systems and procedures not fully mirrored in consumer apps.
• Why do two apps show different positions for the same aircraft? They may use different receiver networks, different smoothing rules, different latency, or different mixes of ADS‑B/MLAT/airline data.
• Does bad weather break tracking? Weather rarely blocks signals directly, but it can affect reception equipment and operations (holds, reroutes) that make tracks look odd or intermittent.