SmokySignal is a personal/hobby project. The information shown is derived from public ADS-B telemetry — no private feeds, no enforcement-tier sources.
How your data flows
SmokySignal is a one-way receiver. We listen to public aircraft signals and render them on a map. Nothing about you, your phone, or your speed leaves your device on its way to anyone — not WSP, not the FAA, not us, not third parties.
The detail:
What stays on your device
- Your location (browser geolocation API, foreground only).
- Your speed (computed from your location samples; never sent off-device).
- Your alert preferences and quiet-hours settings.
What leaves your device — and where it goes
- Standard web request metadata (IP, browser) needed to serve the page. We don’t tie that to a rider profile (we don’t have rider profiles).
- Aircraft data requests to adsb.fi and OpenSky Network — public, anonymous, rate-limited. Same requests anyone could make.
- If you opt in to alerts: a push subscription endpoint for your browser, stored only so we can deliver the notification you asked for. No location or speed travels through it. You can revoke any time at /settings/alerts.
What we don't do
- We don't send your location, your speed, or anything you do in the app to any agency.
- We don't have rider accounts, sign-ins, or per-rider analytics.
- We don't sell, share, or resell rider data — we don't have rider data to sell.
- We don’t run a back channel to anyone. The repository is open at github.com/adavenport-ops/SmokySignal — read it, run your own fork if you’d rather.
The data flow is one-way. Channel 19 is one-way too.
Aircraft positions come from adsb.fi (primary) and OpenSky Network (fallback / historical). Both are anonymous and require attribution, provided here and in the app footer.
The tail registry is built from publicly available state and county fleet records. If you spot a wrong tail or a misclassified aircraft, email feedback@smokysignal.app.
No warranty. Don’t use this app to evade enforcement — that isn’t the point. Knowing the bird is up is the same as seeing a marked patrol car ahead: ride within the limit and ride well.