Aircraft Photos

Aircraft photos appear in the flight details and the flight form when a flight has a registration and the integration is enabled. It is off by default.

How it worksCopy Anchor Link

AirTrail looks up the registration on Planespotters.net:

• No API key needed: the Planespotters photo API is free and keyless.
• Latest photo of the airframe: the photo can change over time, for example after a repaint, and disappears if it is removed from Planespotters.
• Nothing is stored: AirTrail keeps lookup results in memory for at most 24 hours, as Planespotters requires, and never in the database. Restarting the server clears them.
• Attribution: photos are always credited to their photographer, with a link to the photo page on Planespotters.net.

If Planespotters can't be reached or rate limits your instance, the photo shows a retry button. AirTrail holds back further lookups for as long as Planespotters asks.

SetupCopy Anchor Link

• In the app (admins only): Settings → Integrations → Aircraft photos.
• Or with an environment variable: set INTEGRATIONS_AIRCRAFT_PHOTOS_ENABLED=true and restart the server. This locks the setting in the app.

PrivacyCopy Anchor Link

• AirTrail sends the registration of flights you view, and of any registration you type in the flight form, to Planespotters.
• Your browser loads photos directly from Planespotters' image servers, so Planespotters also sees your IP address. AirTrail never proxies or stores the images.
• Lookups are only available to signed-in users. They are turned off in public demo instances.