When maker Cameron Paczek moved into a new home directly beneath the take-off path of San Francisco International Airport (SFO), his visits to FlightRadar24 increased significantly. During SFO departure pushes, planes fly just 600–800 feet above his house every couple of minutes. The shaking of the house quickly became his cue to run outside and catch a glimpse of the aircraft before inevitably turning to the online flight tracker to see what he’d missed.

Cameron’s recent foray into projection mapping (using projectors to bring art to life) on TikTok sparked his idea to combine data from FlightRadar24 with projection art on his ceiling — an excellent and suitably nerdy way to represent his surroundings inside his home.

The core of the setup is a Raspberry Pi 5 and an RTL-SDR (software-defined radio) capable of receiving 1090MHz signals — the frequency on which aircraft transmit their ADS-B data. This includes the height, speed, and location of each plane in real time. Cameron then performs some simple geometry using the longitude and latitude of both the plane and his house to plot its position on a canvas, which he displays in kiosk mode on the Raspberry Pi. 

Outside, a VISCA-enabled PTZ camera films the aircraft, processes the ADS-B data to get a rough idea of where it is in the sky, and then uses YOLOX-Nano to locate it within the frame and adjust its own aim so it can zoom in. The video is then streamed to Cameron’s TV via the HDMI port on the Raspberry Pi, allowing him to lie back and do some plane spotting without ever leaving the couch.

Cameron has done everyone a solid and uploaded everything to GitHub, so you, too, can build a flight tracker for your own ceiling.