I've been spotting aircraft for years. Not professionally — just a retired bloke in Western Sydney who looks up when something flies over and wants to know what it is. For a long time I used whatever apps were available. They worked well enough. But after a while, something started to bother me.
My data wasn't really mine.
Every sighting I logged, every registration I recorded, every route I tracked — it all lived on someone else's server. I was renting access to my own hobby. And if that company changed their terms, put up a paywall, or just shut down, my years of records could disappear overnight.
The Practical Problem
There's also a very practical issue that anyone who's stood at a fence line knows well. Mobile signal near airports is often terrible. Security infrastructure, metal buildings, sheer distance from towers — it all adds up. I've been in spots where my phone shows full bars but can't load a thing.
A cloud-based app in that situation is useless. An app that stores everything locally just works.
That's what pushed me to build AirTrack. Not because I'm a privacy zealot or a tech purist — just because I wanted something that worked the way I wanted it to work. On my hardware. On my network. Available when I need it, regardless of what's happening with anyone else's servers.
What Local-First Actually Means
AirTrack runs on a Raspberry Pi — a small, cheap computer that sits in your home and serves the app to whatever device you're using. Your phone, your tablet, your laptop. Everything is stored in a database on that Pi. Nothing leaves your home network unless you want it to.
That means no subscription. No account. No terms of service that can change on you. No data being sold to advertisers. Just your sightings, your history, your data — sitting on hardware you own.
When you want to log a sighting in the field, AirTrack Mobile connects to your home Pi over the internet. No signal at the fence? Log it manually when you get back. It takes thirty seconds.
Is It For Everyone?
Honestly, no. If you want something you can install in thirty seconds and never think about, a cloud app might suit you better. AirTrack requires a Raspberry Pi, a bit of Docker knowledge, and a willingness to run your own little server. It's a hobbyist tool built by a hobbyist, for hobbyists who like to own their setup.
But if that sounds like you — if you've ever felt vaguely uncomfortable about your data living on someone else's infrastructure, or if you've been burned by a service shutting down, or if you just like knowing exactly where your stuff is — then AirTrack might be exactly what you've been looking for.
It's what I built because I couldn't find it anywhere else.
You can find out more on the AirTrack page, or head straight to pricing if you're ready to give it a go.