WingsAbove · User Guide

The desk gadget that shows you
what's flying overhead — live.

Real aircraft near you, each with its story: the airline, where it's headed, what kind of plane it is, how high and fast. Tap into any flight to follow its route across the world — or type a flight number to watch a loved one's plane from anywhere.

7" display USB-C powered 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Beta

01 What you need

Two minutes and four things:

Device
WingsAbove
Power
USB-C wall
charger
Network
2.4 GHz
Wi-Fi + password
Location
Your ZIP
5 digits

02 First-time setup

About two minutes. You'll only do this once — it remembers everything.

  1. Plug it in. USB-C power. The WingsAbove logo appears, then the flight card. No aircraft yet — that's normal.
  2. Open the menu. Tap ⚙ MENU, top-right.
  3. Connect Wi-Fi. Tap WiFi Setup → pick your network → type the password → tap the ✓ key. You'll see "Connected!"
  4. Set your location. The ZIP keypad appears. Type your 5-digit ZIP → OK (✓). "Location set."
  5. You're live. Real flights fill the card, and the radar fills in over a map of your area.
It remembers. Every power-on after this, it reconnects and starts tracking automatically — no re-entry.

03 Reading the screen

The flight card on the left, the radar on the right.

The WingsAbove flight card showing flight EDV4693, a Bombardier CRJ-900 from White Plains to Minneapolis-St Paul, with the radar on the right.
EDV4693 overhead. A CRJ-900 inbound from White Plains, 5,700 ft at 319 mph, nine miles west-north-west. The picture behind the text is the aircraft itself, so you can tell at a glance which flight this is. On the right, the five aircraft in range.
Callsign
EDV4693
Altitude ft
5700
Speed mph
319
Range
9 mi
Card

The story of the plane

Airline (or an olive U.S. MILITARY / crimson AIR AMBULANCE nameplate), aircraft type & seats, heading + distance, and the full route with city names. A faded picture of that exact aircraft sits behind it, so you can tell which flight it is.

Radar

Where everything is

Every aircraft in range over a real map of your area, north-up. The center dot is you; each arrow points the way a plane is flying; an amber ring marks the one on the card.

Top bar

Pause · List · Menu

⏸ Pause holds the current flight. ≣ List shows everything in range to jump to. ⚙ Menu opens settings.

04 Getting around

Four more screens live just off the edges of the card. Pull one in from its edge: swipe on the touchscreen, or in WingsAbove Cloud drag with the mouse — or skip the dragging and click the small tab at that edge, or press the arrow key that points at it.

The Airport board on WingsAbove Cloud: LAX arrivals listed by time, flight number, origin city and status, with ATC, Departures and Arrivals buttons along the top.
◀ Left edge — Airport board. Live departures and arrivals for the airport near you (or any you pick), and an ATC button to listen to its tower. Pull it back the way it came to close.
The Live flight screen following a United flight: airline, aircraft type and registration, the route with city names, a flight-path map, and altitude, ground speed, heading and range.
▶ Right edge — Live flight. Follow the flight on the card: its route on a map, the distance still to run, and with Plus the airline’s own arrival time and gate. Track keeps it.
The Logbook on WingsAbove Cloud: a list of notable aircraft that have passed overhead.
▼ Bottom edge — Logbook. The notable finds that passed overhead — rare types, heavies, military, the ones worth remembering — kept for you.
▲ Top edge
Tracked flights

Every flight you’ve chosen to track, with a badge when one departs, lands or changes gate. Tap one to follow it again.

Nothing moved? A tap isn’t a swipe — the finger (or mouse) has to travel across the screen. And everything here is in ⚙ MENU as well.

05 Getting into a flight

This is where it gets fun — go from a card to following a plane across the planet.

Details

The full spec sheet

Tap 📷 DETAILS (next to the Speed gauge) for the big aircraft picture, the stats (range, cruise, seats — plus retail price for private jets and fleet + nickname for military), and a route map.

Follow live

Ride along on the map

On the Details screen, tap the route map → a full-screen live view: the plane moving along its path, live tiles, and an ETA. Tap the map to zoom out: Route → Regional → National → Wide.

A
MCO
Orlando
B
ORF
Norfolk
The live follow view for FFT2288, showing the flight path from Orlando to Norfolk, departure and landing times, and altitude, speed, heading and range tiles.
A flight, followed. 656 miles, one hour fifty, and honest about running 24 minutes late — departed 5:05 PM, lands 7:12 PM. The tail number is there too (N382FR), so you know which aircraft this actually is, not just which flight.
Track

Watch any flight on Earth

Menu › Track Flight → type a callsign (DAL1878) or tail (N123AB). WingsAbove locks onto that flight anywhere and follows it live — perfect for a loved one's plane. Recent searches become one-tap chips.

List

Pick from a list

Tap ≣ LIST to see everything in range and jump straight to one — easier than hunting for a tiny radar blip.

06 Moments & standby

The screen has a life of its own.

Moment

The wow flyovers 🎉

When something special passes — a 747 "Queen of the Skies," an A380, a military jet, a medical flight — the screen takes over full-screen with a hero image. These are the ones to catch on video. Tap the colored pill to replay one.

Standby

When the sky's quiet

With nothing in range, a branded panel sweeps the radar and shows your day's stats — planes seen, farthest, notable.

ACARS

Read what the crews are saying

ACARS is the text system airline crews use in flight — dispatch, maintenance, catering, and the odd moment of honesty at 30,000 feet. Switch it on and a real message shares the quiet-sky panel instead of an empty screen.

Tap the message to open the full list, or use the ACARS button on any aircraft card. Where we can identify the flight, TRACK FLIGHT starts following it like any other.

A message says over a place when we found that aircraft live on the map, and heard near a place when all we know is which ground station picked it up — those are different things, so the screen says which.

Menu › More Settings › ACARS

Messages are curated and anonymised by acarsdrama.com. Crews are never identifiable.

07 Screen Cast — watch it on any screen 📺

Put your live WingsAbove on a TV, tablet, phone, or laptop — or record clean footage. (Every model.)

  1. Menu › System Status, then tap 📹 Cast (it flips to ON).
  2. Read the address shown on the status screen, e.g. http://192.168.1.50:81
  3. Open it in a browser on any device on the same Wi-Fi — the live display, full-screen.
  4. Creators: point OBS (a Browser source) at the same address for glare-free capture.
It only streams while someone's watching, so it costs nothing when idle. Watching from outside your home network is coming as a premium feature.

08 Crew Mode — follow one pilot's flying ✈️

Point the display at a pilot's schedule instead of the sky overhead. It shows what they are flying now, what is next, and how long until they are home. Built for the family at home as much as for the pilot.

  1. On a phone or computer, open crew.wings-above.com and paste the calendar subscription link from the crew portal (the link you would use to add the schedule to a phone calendar).
  2. Tap Check schedule. It lists the flights it found and what it left off (hotels, report times, reserve), then gives you a 6-digit code.
  3. On the display: Menu › Crew › Setup › Use a code from my phone or computer, and type the code.
  4. Tap Use as the main display, then Let's go. The display restarts (about 20 seconds) and from then on follows the schedule instead of the planes overhead. Tap the same button to switch back.
The Crew screen's Setup tab with four buttons: Add an aircraft, Use a code from my phone or computer, Use as the main display, and Remove everything.
Menu › Crew › Setup. The code goes in the second button; the third makes the schedule the whole screen.
A confirmation reading Show your aircraft? The display will follow your aircraft instead of the planes overhead, with Not now and Let's go buttons.
Show your aircraft? Let's go restarts the display into Crew Mode.
A link keeps itself up to date; a file does not. With the calendar link, the display re-reads the schedule about every half hour, so a trip that is swapped, picked up or rerouted shows up without pairing again. If the portal only lets you download a file, you can upload that instead — but it is a snapshot, so a changed schedule means uploading the new file with a fresh code. A Google Calendar link can run a few hours behind the portal itself.
Where your airline's schedule comes out — Delta's MiCrew, American's two ways, the FLICA airlines, and the route that works for anyone — has its own guide, one page per airline: Crew Mode: getting your schedule in.
The crew card for DAL2268, a Delta Airbus A321 from Atlanta to Nashville at 35,000 feet and 499 mph, with a map of the route on the right and Trip, pause, list and Menu buttons across the top.
The leg in the air. The flight, the aircraft, the route on a map, altitude and speed — live. The first time a route appears, the map takes a minute or so to arrive and the panel reads the route in words (ATL to BNA) until it does. Shown with our demo schedule.
Trip

How long until they are home

Tap TRIP on the card for the whole trip, day by day: what has landed, what is in the air and when it lands, what is tomorrow, and the line a family actually reads first — Home in 7 hours.

Board

The schedule at a glance

Menu › Crew › Now shows the flight in the air with its progress bar, the next legs with their countdowns, and the one that just landed.

Between legs

Standby that knows the next flight

When nothing is flying, the screen shows the next leg's route and the aircraft it is scheduled on. Deadheads are marked as riding, not flying; hotels and report times are left off.

Details

The airplane itself

Tap 📷 DETAILS for the big picture and the spec sheet — seats, range, cruise, fuel, size. Turn the aircraft picture on or off with Crew Picture in More Settings.

The trip screen reading Home in 7 hours, This one, then 1 more flight, then back to ORD, with today's landed and airborne flights and tomorrow's flight listed.
TRIP. Landed, in the air, tomorrow — and home in 7 hours.
The Crew board's Now tab: DAL2268 in the air from Atlanta to Nashville at 35,000 feet with a progress bar, and the next flights with their countdowns.
Menu › Crew › Now. The flight in the air and everything after it.
Treat the calendar link like a password. Anyone holding it can see where the pilot is flying. Do not email it or post it; you can remove it from the display at any time with Menu › Crew › Setup › Remove everything, and revoke it in the portal or Google Calendar. Crew Mode never signs in to the crew portal and never sees the pilot's login.

09 The menu

SettingWhat it does
Aircraft ListSee everything in range and jump to one
Track FlightType a callsign / tail and follow that flight anywhere
Set LocationChange your ZIP / location
RangeHow far to look — 5 · 10 · 15 · 20 nm (lives under More Settings)
Hide GA / Cargo / MilitaryFilter those out of the rotation
Airport BoardDepartures and arrivals for your field, like the hall screen
LogbookWhat you have seen — totals, rare finds, farthest
RunwayThe field from above: which runway is in use and who is on it
CrewFollow a pilot's roster instead of the local sky
BrightnessDim it for a bedroom or a dark office
Demo ModeSample aircraft (great with no Wi-Fi)
Splash · Backdrop · RotateMoment takeovers, artwork fade, and dwell times
System StatusDiagnostics, Screen Cast, artwork updates, reboot
Factory ResetErase all settings and start fresh
The WingsAbove main menu, a grid of tiles including Set Location, Aircraft List, Track Flight, Airport Board, Logbook, System Status, Crew, Hide GA, Runway and Brightness.
The menu. Everything is one tap from here, and the tiles show their own state — Hide GA: ON tells you the filter is running without opening anything.
The More Settings screen, grouped into Traffic, Display, Network and System, showing Range, Refresh, Rotate, the Hide filters, Backdrop, Splash, Screensaver and Wi-Fi setup.
More Settings holds the dials: how far to look, how often to refresh, how long each aircraft stays on screen, and the display options. Grouped so you can find one without hunting.
Tip — tuning what you see. The range tops out at 20 nm and starts at 5; the default is 10. A busy field feels better at 5, and a quiet rural spot at 20. If it is still too busy, Hide GA removes the training aircraft that circle a field for hours. Changes apply within a second.

10 Tips & troubleshooting

Save

📷 Grab a screenshot

Turn on Screen Cast (Menu → System Status), open the address it shows in any browser, and screenshot that. You get a clean, glare-free capture at full resolution — and it works from the phone already in your hand.

Power

Use a wall charger

A computer's USB can reset the device randomly. A plain USB wall adapter avoids it entirely.

The screen flashes / restarts on its own.It's plugged into a computer — the host is resetting it over USB. Use a USB wall charger.
Touch isn't responding.Unplug for ~10 seconds, then plug back in. Touch wakes up reliably on a cold start.
Wi-Fi won't connect.Use a 2.4 GHz network; the password is case-sensitive. Re-run Menu › WiFi Setup; move closer to the router for setup.
No aircraft ever appear.Confirm Wi-Fi + location are set, and widen Range. Open System Status to check Wi-Fi/IP and the last-fetch time.
Screen Cast page won't load.Same Wi-Fi, Cast shows ON in System Status, and the exact http://…:81 address shown there.
Start over.Menu › Factory Reset erases all settings and reboots.