Flight tracking has always fascinated me especially how open data can power useful insights. After seeing how public flight data can capture national attention, I decided to build a simple but powerful real-time aircraft landing tracker for Kisumu Airport using the OpenSky API and AWS serverless stack.
Architecture Overview
The project uses AWS services to automatically detect and record aircraft landings in real time.
How it works:
1.EventBridge triggers a Lambda function every few minutes.
2.Lambda calls the OpenSky API for aircraft data within Kisumu’s coordinates.
3.The function filters flights with low altitude and descending rates to detect landings.
4.Each landing is stored in DynamoDB and a notification is sent through SNS.
5.You can visualize the data later using Amazon QuickSight or Athena.
Prerequisites
Before you start:
AWS account and CLI configured
Terraform installed
Python 3.x
OpenSky Network API access (no API key required for public data)
Landing Detection Logic
The logic inside landing_tracker.py uses a few key rules:
Aircraft altitude below 1000 ft
Negative vertical rate (descending)
Within Kisumu’s latitude/longitude bounding box
If all conditions match, the script records a landing in DynamoDB and triggers an SNS notification
Conclusion
This project shows how open data and cloud technology can combine to deliver real-time insights — from the skies above Kisumu to your dashboard.
It’s lightweight, serverless, and easy to adapt for other airports or use cases.
Check out the full source code on GitHub
https://github.com/Copubah/kisumu-aircraft-tracker
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