What actually shows up
A large amount of military aviation broadcasts ADS-B openly. Tankers, transports, maritime patrol aircraft, trainers, surveillance platforms and search-and-rescue helicopters routinely operate with transponders on, because they share airspace with civil traffic and it is safer that way.
ADSB.lol classifies these contacts, and God's Eye View draws them in amber so they separate visually from the civil picture. Everything shown is a public broadcast received by volunteer ground stations. Nothing here is intercepted, decrypted or classified.
Trace history: the useful part
A single position is rarely interesting. A pattern is. Select a military contact and the app silently backfills roughly the last 24 hours of its real track, then renders it as stacked 3D loops.
Suddenly the behaviour is legible. Tight repeated racetracks at a fixed altitude usually mean a tanker on station, waiting to refuel. Long parallel lines over water suggest a search pattern or maritime survey. Slow orbits over one point are typical of surveillance or training. Reading a track is far more informative than reading a callsign.
What you will not see
Operational aircraft on sensitive missions routinely fly with transponders off, and combat aircraft in contested airspace are simply absent from any open feed. This layer is a window onto the traffic that chooses to be visible.
Absence means nothing. A quiet region on this map tells you nothing about activity there — only that nothing in it was broadcasting to a volunteer receiver.
Common questions
Is tracking military aircraft legal?
The data shown is public ADS-B broadcast voluntarily by the aircraft and received by open volunteer networks. It is the same data civil flight trackers use.
Why are military helicopters flying in circles?
Repeated loops usually indicate training, surveillance orbits, or a tanker holding on station. Selecting the contact backfills about 24 hours of trace history so the pattern is visible.
Does this show classified or hidden aircraft?
No. Aircraft operating with transponders off do not appear in any open ADS-B feed, including this one.
How are military aircraft distinguished?
Contacts classified as military by ADSB.lol are highlighted in amber on the globe, separating them from civil traffic.
How far back does the history go?
Roughly 24 hours of real trace history per selected contact, rendered as stacked 3D loops.
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