OpenSky Network
Nonprofit aircraft observation network with research data access and conditional contributor API quotas.
Identity and relationship
OpenSky Network is a Swiss nonprofit association, included in the canonical organization/company collection as a research-network analogue. The official FAQ says it began in 2012 with researchers from armasuisse, Kaiserslautern and Oxford and became a Swiss association in 2015. These are organization statements, not registry checks.2
Operating status, collection and output
Public feeding/data pages were inspected 2026-10-09 (America/Los_Angeles). The homepage carries a September 14, 2026 symposium update. This supports current public activity; no receiver/API operation was tested.1
The FAQ describes global receivers monitoring 1090 MHz Mode S/ADS-B, raw transmissions with receiver position and reception timestamps, and derived aircraft position/altitude/direction/speed. It also lists ADS-C, FLARM and past VHF collection. It says coverage is best in Europe and the US, with low-altitude/out-of-range gaps; no quantitative current coverage was independently established. FAQ 18 says OpenSky does not currently offer MLAT. Nightly inferred flights are different from commercial schedules, delay/cancellation or passenger data, which it says it does not supply.2
Hardware and contributors
Published feed routes include Raspberry Pi plus RTL-SDR, Radarcape/Air!Squitter, OGN/FLARM receivers and VHF. The FAQ recommends power, permanent internet and good line of sight. The feeder page states 8,000 API credits/day for a receiver online more than 30% of the current month, recalculated daily, with subsequent per-endpoint quota update delays. It explicitly bases eligibility on uptime rather than receiver count.32
Terms section 7 says contribution is voluntary and without compensation, with a broad licence granted over contributed data. This is a specific published rule; it provides no evidence supporting DroneRadar’s proposed $10/month incentive. Terms section 10 addresses equipment issued free, but is not proof that a general free-hardware programme is currently available.5
Data access, pricing and rights
The data page lists REST API, Trino/Minio historical access and curated scientific datasets. It offers full-dataset research access to eligible university researchers, aviation authorities and government organizations, with private/commercial access requiring contact/licensing. No commercial list price was found in the captured material; eligibility is not universal free access.4
The terms state that any for-profit use requires a written licence and that operational REST API integration needs prior written agreement even for nonprofit entities. Access, redistribution, attribution and other restrictions remain relevant independently of higher feeder quotas. This records the provider’s written policy, not a legal conclusion.5
Conflicts and availability limitations
FAQ 7 says personal/nonprofit API applications can be free and describes a commercial testing/evaluation exception; FAQ 2 and current terms are stricter, requiring a licence for commercial entities regardless of purpose and for operational API use. Preserve this inconsistency and confirm the specific intended use with OpenSky rather than infer permission from the FAQ.25
The generic feed/data pages list FLARM, but its specific page warns that decoding is on hold as of July 2026 while the decoder is updated; feeding remains possible. Collaborative decoding is described as under development. Neither should be presented as verified current decoded FLARM availability.6
Analysis: this is a useful research-data cooperative analogue because it explicitly retains raw observations and conditions data access on both contribution and purpose. It is not established here as a Remote ID or non-cooperative drone-detection network. Remaining gaps are current coverage counts, restoration of FLARM decoding, commercial prices/rights and tested API availability. Original public HTML is preserved; initial helper HTTP 403 failures remain recorded, followed by successful ordinary HTTP downloads with a standard browser user agent.
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OpenSky official home, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:49Z, original.html; homepage September 14, 2026 symposium update. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩
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OpenSky FAQ, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:48Z, original.html; questions 1–7, 14, 18 and data/coverage limits. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩↩↩↩
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OpenSky feed data, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:28Z, original.html; API boost qualification and hardware sections. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩
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OpenSky data access, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:48Z, original.html; Trino, REST API and scientific dataset sections; datasets themselves not downloaded. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩
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OpenSky terms of use and data license, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:48Z, original.html; summary and sections 1, 3, 7 and 10. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩↩↩
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OpenSky FLARM status, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:49Z, original.html; “Important note” dated July 2026 and collaborative-decoding development description. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩