Flights Overhead

See which flight is passing overhead - live. This mobile-friendly app uses your location or address to display real-time flight route info with a sleek, vintage airport terminal design.

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About This Project: Flights Overhead

What Inspired Me

I flew from San Diego to Seattle, then Seattle to Victoria, BC yesterday for a vacation! As I approached each airport, I found myself watching planes take off and land, and wondered: Where are they going? Where did they come from?

That same curiosity often strikes me at home - I live below a flight path and constantly hear aircraft flying overhead. I wanted a tool that could tell me, in real-time, where those planes are headed or returning from. This app is the result of that moment of curiosity.

What I Learned

This was my first time working with both the Mapbox Geocoding API and the FlightAware AeroAPI, and I’m thrilled with how much I’ve expanded my understanding of live geospatial APIs.

I also gained hands-on experience with Supabase Edge Functions, which helped me improve my error handling, environment variable management, and middleware API routing.

How I Built It

The entire application was structured from one comprehensive Bolt prompt that included:

  • Geolocation and address-based input
  • Mapbox Geocoding to turn addresses into coordinates
  • FlightAware to fetch live nearby flights and calculate the closest one
  • Supabase Edge Function to handle secure API calls
  • React + Tailwind + open-source fonts for a responsive, vintage-style frontend
  • Mobile-first layout with full accessibility, loading states, and error handling

Every piece of functionality and design was planned in that initial Bolt prompt. Follow-up prompts were used only for fixing Supabase edge function errors and polishing output.

Challenges I Faced

My main challenge was debugging the Edge Function. After spending time chasing down bugs and unexpected errors, I decided to disconnect and reconnect Supabase entirely — giving me a clean slate that made everything click.

This experience reinforced the value of knowing when to restart with a fresh config instead of over-debugging stale environments.

Built With

Final Thoughts

This project combined technical challenge with genuine personal curiosity. It was fun to build, fast to iterate, and deeply satisfying to see it work live. There’s something magical about hearing a plane overhead, checking your phone, and instantly knowing where it’s going.

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