Tracking aircraft

The glider tracker shows live positions of gliders and other aircraft around New Zealand. It's public — anyone can open it, no sign-in needed. This page explains what you're looking at, why an aircraft might not appear the way you expect, and what to do about it.

What the map shows

Each aircraft is a marker labelled with its competition ID or registration, with its current altitude shown just above it. Positions come from a range of tracking devices — FLARM (via the Open Glider Network), SPOT and Garmin InReach (via TrackMe.nz), and several others — so an aircraft appears as long as it is carrying a device the system recognises.

While Live Updates is on, the map refreshes every 30 seconds. To look back at an earlier day, use the calendar button to open /tracking/2026-01-31 for that date.

Registered vs unregistered aircraft

An aircraft is registered when the ID broadcast by its tracker matches an aircraft record on this site. A registered aircraft is labelled with its competition ID (shown in a red badge) if one is set, or otherwise the last three characters of its registration — for example ARG for ZK-ARG.

An unregistered tracker is one the site can't match to any aircraft. It is labelled with an asterisk and the last two characters of the device's ID — for example *AB — or a ? if even that isn't available.

Why some aircraft are hidden

When more than five unregistered trackers are present, the map automatically hides them. This guards against a misbehaving device — for instance a FLARM running in competition mode that constantly changes its ID and shows up as dozens of ghost aircraft — burying the real traffic and creating a safety risk.

To show them again, click the cog (settings) button in the top-left corner and untick Hide Unregistered Aircraft.

Reading altitude

The altitude column in the aircraft list toggles between two figures, both in feet:

• AGL — height above the ground directly beneath the aircraft, worked out from terrain data.
• ALT — height above sea level, as reported by the tracker.

Click the column heading to switch between them.

Why an aircraft isn't appearing

If an aircraft you expect to see is missing, it's usually one of these:

• No recent data — the tracker is switched off, out of coverage, or hasn't reported a position recently.
• It's been filtered out — unregistered aircraft are hidden (see above), or a fleet or North/South Island filter is excluding it. Check the cog settings.
• It's there, but unregistered — look for an asterisk label like *AB rather than the registration you expected. See below to fix this.

Making your glider appear with its registration

If your glider shows up as an unregistered tracker, add its tracking IDs to its aircraft record:

1. Sign in, then open the aircraft's record at /aircraft/ZK-ABC and click Edit (or go straight to /aircraft/ZK-ABC/edit).
2. Fill in the IDs for whichever trackers the glider carries — SPOT, Garmin InReach, OGN/SeeYou Navigator hex code, and so on.
3. Set a contest ID if you'd like that shown on the map during a competition.

One exception: don't enter the FLARM code by hand. The site refreshes FLARM codes automatically from the Open Glider Network and FlarmNet, so register your device there instead and the code will flow through on its own.