D1Early access
Streaming without a contract
A WebSocket replaces polling. One connection does the work of tens of thousands of requests a day, without an enterprise agreement to unlock it.
Live aircraft data,
licensed to build on.
Live aircraft positions from ADS-B, UAT and MLAT, delivered as a bounding-box snapshot or a WebSocket delta stream. Built for operations dashboards, logistics, research and apps.
01 Delivery
Two ways in, one snapshot behind both.
Every second the aggregation plane publishes one snapshot of the sky. REST and WebSocket clients both read that same snapshot, so a dashboard and a mobile app never disagree about where an aircraft is.
- Bounding-box snapshots One request returns every aircraft inside the box you ask for.
- Delta stream Subscribe once and receive upserts and removals as they happen.
- Backpressure built in Acknowledge each frame and a slow client gets the newest state, never a backlog.
- Safe reconnects Sequence numbers let a client tell a fresh stream from a resumed one.
- Priority aircraft Pin the aircraft you care about so they stay in every frame.
Preview
# Every aircraft over the Bay Area, right now
curl https://api.radixwave.com/v1/aircraft \
-G -d bbox=-122.6,37.2,-121.7,38.0 \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $RADIXWAVE_KEY"
{
"now": 1793750400.0,
"aircraft": [{
"hex": "a1b2c3",
"flight": "SWA1234",
"lat": 37.6189, "lon": -122.3750,
"alt_baro": 4200, "gs": 212.4, "track": 281.0
}]
}// Subscribe to a region and apply deltas as they land
const ws = new WebSocket("wss://api.radixwave.com/v1/stream");
ws.onopen = () => ws.send(JSON.stringify({
auth: process.env.RADIXWAVE_KEY,
subscribe: { bbox: [-122.6, 37.2, -121.7, 38.0] },
ack: true
}));
ws.onmessage = ({ data }) => {
const frame = JSON.parse(data);
applyDelta(frame); // upserts + removals
ws.send(JSON.stringify({ ack: frame.seq }));
};HTTPS · JSONIllustrative request shapes — the commercial interface may change before general availability.
02 Why Radixwave
Built differently, on purpose.
We run the receiver network, the aggregation plane and the API ourselves. That lets us make choices that are hard for a reseller to make.
D2Next up
Metered by request, not aircraft
A poll that returns 500 aircraft costs the same as one that returns 5. Busy airspace never multiplies your bill.
D3Next up
Clear commercial terms
Written terms with every plan cover display, retention and resale, so legal review doesn’t hold up your launch.
D4Early access
Low-altitude coverage
UAT and MLAT add general-aviation traffic that 1090 MHz ADS-B alone misses: light aircraft, rotorcraft and transponders without ADS-B Out.
D5Later
Provenance you can check
See how many receivers heard an aircraft and how well an airport is covered before you depend on it.
D6Next up
Webhooks in the plan
Geofence, takeoff, landing and emergency-squawk events pushed to your endpoint, counted against your plan instead of billed per delivery.
03 Capabilities
What’s live, what’s next.
Every capability carries its real status. Early-access partners use the live endpoints today and help decide what we build next.
- Early access Available to early-access partners
- Next up In active development
- Later Planned
| Capability | Interface | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Live | ||
| Aircraft in a bounding box Position, altitude, speed, track, callsign and registration | GET /v1/aircraft?bbox= | Early access |
| Live delta stream Region subscriptions with acknowledgements | WSS /v1/stream | Early access |
| Lookups One aircraft by hex address, callsign or registration | GET /v1/aircraft/{hex} | Next up |
| readsb-compatible paths Move an existing integration with minimal changes | GET /v2/point/… | Next up |
| History & events | ||
| Daily traces The full track of one aircraft for one day | GET /v1/aircraft/{hex}/trace | Next up |
| Flight events Takeoffs and landings with the airport they happened at | GET /v1/events | Next up |
| Webhooks Geofence, takeoff, landing, emergency squawk and first-seen alerts | POST → your URL | Next up |
| Stream replay Resume a stream from a point in time | WSS /v1/stream?from= | Later |
| Airport operations Movement counts for planning and reporting | GET /v1/airports/{icao}/ops | Later |
| Bulk history Daily files for research and analytics | Daily files | Later |
| Account & tooling | ||
| Usage and limits A usage endpoint and rate-limit headers on every response | GET /v1/usage | Next up |
| OpenAPI spec and SDKs Python and TypeScript clients | openapi.json | Next up |
| MCP server Let AI agents query live and historical traffic | MCP | Next up |
| Coverage confidence How well receivers cover an airport, by altitude | GET /v1/coverage/{icao} | Later |
Paths are proposals and may change before general availability.
04 Use cases
Where teams put it to work.
U1
Operations dashboards
Live traffic around your airports, bases and routes on the screens your team already watches.
U2
Logistics & fleet visibility
Know where your aircraft and your partners’ aircraft are without waiting on a phone call.
U3
Research & analytics
Traces and events for traffic studies, noise work and academic research.
U4
Apps & media
Maps, spotting apps and live displays that stay fresh without hammering an endpoint.
05 Scope
Focused on what we measure.
We sell aircraft surveillance data: positions, tracks and events. Staying focused keeps the product sharp.
- Live positions and identities
- Tracks, flight events and history
- Coverage and receiver provenance
- Airline schedules and predicted arrival times
- Satellite-based oceanic coverage
- Weather, NOTAMs and charts
06 Early access
Build on live data.
Early-access partners get API keys sized to their workload and a direct line to the team building the platform.
or write to hello@radixwave.com