Radar Sweep Screensaver
The Radar Sweep screensaver is a retro CRT radar where a glowing wedge sweeps the scope and live aircraft near the airport light up as blips, fading as the beam moves on. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
How the Radar Sweep screensaver works
A background pipeline collects live aircraft positions near each airport from public flight data.
The saver plots them on a classic PPI radar scope: range rings, compass bearings, and a sweeping green wedge that rotates like an old air-traffic display.
Each aircraft glows brightest the instant the beam passes it, then fades until the next sweep — just like a phosphor radar screen.
Bright contacts are labelled with their callsign; pick any airport, defaulting to Toronto Pearson.
A worked example
Around Toronto Pearson the wedge sweeps and a dozen contacts flare to life — ACA123, WJA456 — each blip blooming as the beam crosses its bearing, then dimming to a ghost until the next pass.
Settings & tips
- Airport chooses the scope's centre, defaulting to Toronto Pearson.
- Sweep speed sets how fast the radar beam rotates.
- Run
automation/run.py aircrafton your pipeline machine to refresh the contacts.
Frequently asked questions
- Are the aircraft real?
- Yes. Their positions come from public flight data gathered by the pipeline, refreshed every few minutes.
- Why does it use a pipeline?
- The flight source is locked to its own site in the browser, so a small background script reads it and saves a snapshot.
- Why do blips fade?
- Like a real radar, each contact only refreshes when the rotating beam sweeps past it, then dims until the next pass.
- Which airports are included?
- Toronto Pearson plus major hubs like New York JFK, London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Dubai.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.