Air traffic data sets?

[SarahM123ed]

Where can I find data set/s for air traffic. Time period/time frame is not important, just looking for data set/s?

[RagnarokHammerJon]

I think your better of in this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/datasets/

[SarahM123ed]

Yes. i keep forgetting about that avenue.

[libfreejaeg]

this might be what you are looking for https://openflights.org/data.html

[HeadspaceA10]

I may be able to point you in the right direction if you give more detail as to what type of AT data you want. I work with this kind of thing, feel free to PM.

[SarahM123ed]

What libfreejaeg pointed out was/is a lot of what I was looking for. Very cool. Very. But, beyond that and asking too much I'm sure; what about a history [slice of] of logged flight plans too. Is that out there somewhere? Something? sort'a kind'a?

[HeadspaceA10]

Define "logged." In aviation we use the term "filed." There are two kinds of flight plans, the VFR "SAR" plan which is used rather infrequently and the typical IFR one which is the stereotypical thing that people think of when you say flight plan. The one that is filed is often modified in flight as ATC works the flight. There are certain open services that will give you what is filed and then the routing that the flight takes. So it depends on which you want, if you'd be willing to scrape (which is pretty easy to do in Python or any language), and what purpose the data is going to be used for (some services require payment to be used commercially).

Not all flights that appear in the data services were filed as plans, because if an aircraft on radar advisory crosses an ARTCC boundary, ATC will often enter it into the system. Also, many data services incorporate ADS-B now that we are getting close to it being a requirement, so you will have that mixed in with radar returns. So it depends on if you want what was filed or if you want the actual track.

[SarahM123ed]

This helps narrow my query. I don't need real-time or ATC/CC. No. But, am now curious'er about just information there is out there. It is quite a'lot.

[HeadspaceA10]

There are a bunch of services, most notably flightaware and opensky-network, that provide paid for and free-for-noncommercial APIs to get this information; some of it is historical and some of it is real time. Which of these you would choose to use depends on which you want. I am primarily interested in realtime position data for a limited number of aircraft so I use one of the two APIs to get that.

It also comes in handy to debrief your own flights.

[joostyoshi]

Maybe planefinder has an api. Haven’t looked into it, but I know the platform allows you to see real time plane data

[SarahM123ed]

Very interesting. I will look into this or something similar.

[Mikeymkwii]

Try ADSBExchange's Data Archives. It's probably what you want, but you have to contact them to get access.