Fill an entry from ADS-B data
Suggested flights finds the flights an aircraft actually flew on a date and fills in the times, route and track for you.
Suggested flights looks up the flights an aircraft flew on the date of your entry, using ADS-B data from Flightradar24. Pick the right one and Pilot Lab fills in the times, aerodromes and flight track, so you only have to check them and add what ADS-B can't know, such as your role and conditions.
This is a Pro feature. On the free plan the section shows ADS-B flight prefill with a Pro badge in its place.
Find your flight
- Add a flight, or open a draft entry.
- Set the date, then choose the aircraft or type a Flight number in the section. Until the date is set, the section reads Set the date to look up flights. With a date but neither an aircraft nor a flight number, it reads Pick an aircraft or enter a flight number to look up flights.
- The Suggested flights section in the entry's properties searches on its own. There is no search button. It looks at the day before, the day itself and the day after, and shows up to 20 flights, with flights on your entry's date first.
- Each result shows the route (for example NZAR → NZTG) and the UTC times, duration and aircraft type.
- Click a result to expand it. You'll see departure, arrival, duration, block times when they could be estimated, distance, type, registration, ICAO hex, callsign, flight number and source.
- Choose Fill flight log.
Suggested flights is hidden once an entry is final.
Search by flight number
If you fly scheduled services, type the flight number (for example NZ401) in the Flight number box and press Enter, or click away. A flight number replaces the aircraft in the search, so it finds the flight whichever aircraft operated it. That helps when the rostered aircraft was swapped. If the entry already has a flight number, the box starts with it.
What gets filled in
Fill flight log writes these fields on the entry:
- date, as the calendar date at the departure aerodrome (the UTC date when that aerodrome's timezone isn't known)
- aircraft and aircraft type
- flight number and callsign, if your workspace shows those fields
- departure and arrival aerodromes (if the flight diverted, the aerodrome it actually landed at)
- departure and arrival runways, when the flight data has them
- departure and arrival times, in UTC
- block off and block on times, and the total time, when they can be worked out (see below)
- remarks: the flight number, callsign and registration, plus Diverted from and the planned aerodrome if the flight diverted. A remark you wrote yourself is kept.
It then fetches the flight track in the background and attaches it to the entry. See See the flight track on an entry.
The applied result gets a green tick and its button changes to Fill again. Use that if you edited fields and want the ADS-B values back. If you picked the wrong flight, open another result and choose Fill flight log on it. Its values replace the first flight's, including its runways and the remark it wrote.
Block times
Where Flightradar24 has gate times for the flight, they are used as block off and block on. Otherwise, where the first and last ADS-B contact bracket the taxi, block times are estimated from those. The remark then says where the block times came from, for example Block times estimated from first and last ADS-B contact. Check against your own. When neither is available, the total is the airborne time and no block times are set.
ADS-B times are when the aircraft was seen moving by receivers, not your block times from the aircraft's clock. Coverage near the ground is often patchy at smaller aerodromes, so the first and last points can be minutes off. Treat the filled values as a starting point and correct them to your own record.
Suggested flights does not set your role (PIC, dual and so on), flight rules, day and night split, landings or instrument time. You still enter those.
When nothing is found
No flights found for this aircraft on this date. (or No flights found for NZ401 on this date. when you searched by flight number) usually means one of these:
- The aircraft wasn't visible to ADS-B receivers on that day, because it has no ADS-B out or flew outside coverage.
- The registration on the entry doesn't match the aircraft's registration in the flight data.
- The flight number doesn't match the one the flight was operated under.
- The date is wrong by more than a day.
Flight data only goes back a limited time. For an older flight the section shows Flight tracking data is not available for a flight this old. Enter the times by hand.
If the search itself fails, the section shows an error message from the server, or Failed to load flights.
When times fill in but no track appears
The track is fetched for the exact flight you applied. If the flight data holds no track points for it, the times and route stay filled in without a track, and no error is shown.
Related
- See the flight track on an entry
- Plan a flight in the Planner: planned flights can capture times and route automatically when tracking is armed.