MODE1090 lets you keep a record of the aircraft you see. Confirm a sighting in Sky Scanner, save it to your collection and add a note if you want to. Scan history lets you look up individual sightings by date later.
That is handy if you regularly go plane spotting at the same airport. You can check whether you have seen a particular aircraft before, look back at the types you spotted that day or remember what caught your eye. Here is how to build a spotting log on your iPhone or iPad.
Find the aircraft on the radar
Start by opening the radar and looking for aircraft near you. Tap one roughly in the direction you are facing, then compare its direction of travel with the aircraft in the sky. This helps you work out which marker might match the one you are watching.
The aircraft details show the type, callsign and registration, where available. The registration is especially useful if you want to find that particular aircraft again. Its callsign may change on the next flight.
A matching aircraft type alone is not enough. When two aircraft are close together, check their positions and direction again. Look at the age of the displayed position, too: an older position may no longer match where the aircraft is now.
The radar shows the flight data available to the app. It helps you identify aircraft, but it is not a complete list of everything in the sky.
Save a sighting in Sky Scanner
Once you can see the aircraft, open Sky Scanner and point your iPhone or iPad towards it. Check which aircraft is selected. When the app offers the confirmation action, you can save the sighting.
Confirm only the aircraft you can actually see. If you are unsure which one is selected, or confirmation is not yet available, wait until you have a clearer view. MODE1090 saves a sighting after you confirm it; aircraft on the radar do not automatically appear in your collection.
The app then shows what you have discovered, such as a new aircraft type or registration. Seeing the same type on another day is worth recording as well. You are saving another sighting, even if it does not add a new type.
The guide to confirming and saving a sighting explains the controls.
Add a note about what you noticed
After saving, add a note to your sighting. A short sentence is often enough: “Seen from the riverside path” or “First time seeing this livery.” It gives you something to remember beyond the aircraft type.
Other examples of short notes:
- “Watched from the other side of the runway today.”
- “Same registration as last Sunday.”
- “Red tail, easy to pick out from this angle.”
You do not need to copy all the aircraft details into the note. Write about where you were, your view or something that caught your attention. That is quicker and gives you more to look back on.
If you are unsure about an explanation, say so. “Turned left after passing us” describes something you saw. “Perhaps diverted because of the weather” is a guess. The displayed movement alone does not tell you why an aircraft changed direction.
Find earlier sightings
Open Collection after your outing. You can search for aircraft types or registrations there. Searching by registration helps you check, for example, whether the A330 you saw today is the same aircraft you spotted on an earlier visit.
The cards in Collection group your discoveries by aircraft type. The photos illustrate the aircraft; they are not photographs of your own sightings.
To see individual entries, open Scan history from the Collection menu. It lists your confirmed sightings by date. You can browse last weekend's entries without having to remember every callsign.
Collection helps answer “Which aircraft have I seen?” Scan history shows when you saw them. Seeing an aircraft again can still be interesting, even when the number of discovered types stays the same.
The Collection guide explains how to search and use filters.
What you can use for free
Radar, Sky Scanner, Collection and Scan history are free. You can also write and read sighting notes without a Pro subscription. Start with one sighting and add more as you go.
MODE1090 Pro adds features including worldwide aircraft search and the detailed view of an individual encounter. You also need Pro to export your notes as text. The steps described here use the free features.
Try it on your next outing: find an aircraft you can see on the radar, confirm it in Sky Scanner and write a sentence about it. When you open your collection later, you can look up which aircraft it was and what you noticed. Visit the MODE1090 product page for more about the app.