piAwareOverhead

A Python script to display photos of aircraft flying near your location using data from a local PiAware server and the OpenSky API.

Features

• Fetches live aircraft data from a local PiAware (SkyAware) server.
• Looks up aircraft tail numbers using the OpenSky Network API.
• Displays aircraft photos in a Firefox browser using Selenium.

Requirements

• Python
• Firefox browser
• GeckoDriver (for Selenium)
• Selenium Python package
• Requests Python package

Installation

1. Install Python dependencies:

   pip install selenium requests

2. Install Firefox and GeckoDriver:

   sudo apt install firefox firefox-geckodriver

3. Clone or copy this repository to your machine.

Usage

1. Edit aircraftGet.py to set your latitude and longitude:

   myLat = myLatCordinate
   myLon = myLongCordinate

2. Make sure the PiAware server URL is correct:

   url = "http://192.168.40.187/skyaware/data/aircraft.json"

3. Run the script:

   python3 aircraftGet.py

4. When a nearby plane is found, a Firefox window will open with its photo. Press Enter in the terminal to close the window.

Notes

• The script uses the OpenSky API to look up tail numbers. If the API is unavailable, tail numbers may not be shown.
• You can adjust the proximity threshold by changing the deg variable in aircraftGet.py.
• There is a way to do this without using the API, however, I determined it'd be easier to query the API rather than dig through PiAware's local database of tail numbers.

License

MIT License