TailWatcherFlight log
Every TailWatcher release, newest first, in the same plain language as the StartOS release notes.
-
OCT 20
Import a trip
Tap Import next to + Add trip and paste your booking confirmation, or choose a saved email (.eml) or calendar file (.ics). TailWatcher finds the flights, connections and flight home and fills in the Add trip form for you to check. It reads the hidden flight details in airline confirmation emails, calendar events from TripIt or Kayak, and plain text, and uses none of your AeroDataBox requests.
-
OCT 20
Connecting flights and stops
Add a connection with then (inbound UA1234 then UA567), connect 1 UA567, or the Connecting flight row on + Add trip. On the day, TailWatcher follows your first flight, tells you how many minutes you'll have to make the next one, and warns when that gets tight. Flights with a stop under one flight number work too.
-
OCT 20
Where is it now
Each aircraft on the dashboard shows its approximate location next to Live map, like “near Denver, CO” or “40 nm NE of Denver, CO”, and “at” the airport when it's on the ground. A plane that has gone quiet shows where it was last seen.
-
OCT 20
Parked planes
Once a plane has landed and stopped transmitting, the dashboard says Parked with when it was last seen, and the Live map link only shows while the plane is actually on the radar.
-
OCT 19
Round trips
Enter your flight out and your flight home in one go, by text (inbound UA1234 11/14 return UA5678 11/21) or with the Return flight row on + Add trip. Both flights are listed together, sharing covers both with a single note to family, and cancelling covers both unless you say only. Typed times are read in the departure airport's own time zone.
-
OCT 18
Invite links
Connect phone can create a normal web link to text, iMessage or Signal to someone anywhere. It opens a simple page that walks them through installing ntfy and subscribing in two taps. Invites expire after the days you choose and can be cancelled.
-
OCT 18
A searchable guide in the app
? Help opens a searchable guide with topics for getting started, connecting phones, text commands, trips, sharing, settings and troubleshooting, plus a short page to send to family. Editing a watcher can now give them a new topic.
-
OCT 18
Settings in the Web UI
Pick the notification server, AeroDataBox key, feed, check interval, time zone, map buttons and page password from the dashboard. Set up NTFY for me configures this server's NTFY in one step with its admin password, used once and never saved.
-
OCT 18
Much easier setup
Alerts can go through the public ntfy.sh service, so new installs need no NTFY package, users or tokens. TailWatcher picks an unguessable topic for each watcher, and Connect phone gives a one-tap subscribe link.
-
OCT 18
One request per cycle
All watched aircraft, trip planes and shared flights are checked together in one batched request instead of one each. If a feed answers “too many requests”, TailWatcher uses the other one. adsb.fi becomes the default feed.
-
OCT 18
Share a trip with family
Tick Share with on the trip form, or text share 1 Mom & Dad. They get a note when you share, a heads-up if the time changes or the flight disappears, and departure and landing alerts on the day.
-
OCT 18
Edit from the Web UI
Add, edit and remove watchers, their aircraft and flights, and trips, right on the dashboard. Trips added on the page get the same lookups and alerts as the inbound text command.
-
OCT 18
The Board theme
An airport departures board for the Web UI: trips and watched aircraft sit on split-flap tiles that flip when a status changes. Each browser remembers its choice.
-
OCT 18
No password by default
The Web UI opens without a password, since it's a household panel reachable on your network and VPN. Turn on Require Web UI Password if you want one.
-
OCT 18
The Web UI
A dashboard of your trips, every watcher's aircraft with what's airborne now, recent alerts and text commands, and system status.
-
OCT 18
Manage trips by text
trips numbers them, change 1 AA5678 updates one, and cancel 1 removes it. If the airline renumbers or cancels a flight, TailWatcher notices and suggests the likely new flight number for you to confirm. Checks scale with distance to save AeroDataBox requests.
-
OCT 18
Far-off trips
Trips added well ahead stay until their date even before AeroDataBox has a schedule for them, and are checked once a day instead of every 6 hours.
-
OCT 18
Where's my plane?
inbound UA1234 N38473 dep 4:30pm follows the plane flying in for your flight: when it takes off toward you, if its arrival gets close to your departure, and when it lands. With a free AeroDataBox key, inbound UA1234 finds the plane and time on its own.
-
OCT 17
NTFY setup fix
Text commands need a regular NTFY user's token, because NTFY's publisher accounts can't be given read access. The setup instructions and health messages now say so.
-
OCT 17
Aircraft lookup
info N12345 tells you what a plane is, who owns it (from the FAA registry for US aircraft), where it is right now, any military or privacy flags, and shows a photo from planespotters.net.
-
OCT 17
Flight numbers
Watch an airline flight as well as a tail number, and the alert names the aircraft flying it. Entries can expire on their own: UA1234 for 2 days or UA1234 until fri.
-
OCT 17
Text commands
Type in your NTFY topic to manage your list: send a tail number to add it, remove N12345 to drop it, and list to see what you watch and what's airborne.
-
OCT 17
Watchers
Each person gets their own topic and aircraft list, landing alerts and priority. A tail followed by several watchers is still checked once. Failed alerts are retried for 30 minutes.
-
OCT 17
First flight
Watch tail numbers on adsb.lol or adsb.fi and get NTFY alerts on takeoff, and optionally landing, with links to ADS-B Exchange.
Release history lives in startos/versions in the repository.