SkyPulse: a live flight tracker for what is flying over you

You hear a jet overhead and wonder where it is going. Or you are waiting on someone's flight and keep refreshing an airline page to see whether it has left yet. SkyPulse is an Android flight tracker built for both of those moments: it puts the aircraft in the sky on a live map, tells you what each one is, and can notify you when a flight you care about takes off or lands.

What it does

Live flight tracking. Aircraft positions update on a map in real time, with flight numbers, routes, altitudes, the airline, the aircraft type, and departure and arrival times.
Aircraft details. Tap a plane to see its registration and photos, its age and model, owner and operator details, and its flight history.
Airport information. Arrivals and departures, runway information, weather conditions and terminal maps for airports.
Smart alerts. Get notified when flights take off or land, set alerts by flight number or by route, and tune the notification settings, including quiet hours.
Map and radar. An interactive radar map you can zoom to any region, with layers for routes, airports and weather that you can switch on and off, in dark or light map themes.
Fast search. Look up flights and airports quickly from a simple interface.

Two ways to use it

Looking up

The map is the heart of the app. Zoom to your area and you see the aircraft currently flying there. Tapping one opens the flight's details: where it came from, where it is headed, how high it is, which airline flies it and what kind of aircraft it is. From there, the aircraft details go a level deeper, with the registration, photos, the airframe's age and model, who owns and operates it, and where it has flown before.

Layers keep the map readable. If you only want routes, or you want weather on top to see why everything is circling, you can toggle each layer independently.

Waiting on someone

The alerts are the part that saves you from refreshing. You can set an alert for a specific flight number, or for a route, and SkyPulse notifies you when the flight takes off and when it lands. Quiet hours keep late-night arrivals from waking you up if you would rather see them in the morning. Pair that with the airport view, where you can check arrivals, departures, runway information and the weather at the destination, and you have most of what you need for a pickup in one place.

Design and devices

The interface is kept simple: a fast search for flights and airports, dark mode support, and a layout optimized for tablets as well as phones. A tablet makes a good dedicated "what's overhead" screen, since the map has more room to breathe.

Good to know

SkyPulse is free to download, and the listing describes it as free with optional premium.
The free features listed are basic flight tracking, airport information, 7-day flight history and standard alerts.
Google Play marks the app as containing ads.
It is rated Everyone and sits in the Travel and Local category.

If you only need occasional lookups and standard alerts, the free tier covers that. The listing does not spell out exactly what premium adds beyond the free list, so check inside the app before you decide whether you need it.

Is it for you?

You often look up at planes and want to know what they are.
You pick people up from the airport and want a notification instead of refreshing a page.
You want airport arrivals, departures and weather next to the live map.
You like dark mode and a clean layout, on a phone or a tablet.