Seeing every aircraft we’re tracking around the world at any given moment is an awesome sight, but sometimes you only want to see a selection of those thousands of flights. For those times, we have several different filters from which to choose. Filters are a great tool for when you’re looking for something specific, but you want to see more than just a single flight. In this post we’ll walk through each filter and provide some basic examples of how to use them on the site. We’d also love to hear how you’re using filters on our site. Send us a tweet or comment on Facebook and we’ll share some of the most creative uses of filters.

Prefer using our mobile apps? See our post full of tips for getting the most out of filters in the apps.

Callsign

The callsign filter is useful for viewing the activity of a specific airline or comparing multiple airlines. To filter by callsign, just enter the three letter ICAO identifier. You can also enter a partial callsign and see multiple airlines’ flights. For example, if you entered “UAL,” you would see United Airlines flights. If you only entered “UA,” you would also see Emirates flights, as their identifier is UAE.

Airport

Using the airport filter, you can view arriving, departing, or arriving and departing traffic for a specific airport. Filtering via airport is especially helpful for planespotters as it eliminates flights that are in the area, but not headed to the airport the spotter is at. To filter by airport enter the three-letter IATA location code in the filter. You can also click on any airport’s blue pin to view its location code.

Altitude

Filtering by altitude is accomplished by moving the sliders to the range you’d like to see. The minimum altitude selectable is 0 feet/meters and the maximum is approximately 65,000 feet (or 18,000 meters). Altitude filtering can be used to view different kinds of traffic, such as setting filters for higher altitudes to see business jet traffic.

Speed

Speed filtering works much the same way as altitude filtering. The sliders can be adjusted between 0 and 800 knots. Speed filtering can be useful when looking at trans-oceanic flights and the jet stream.

Aircraft

The aircraft filter is very useful when looking for a certain type of aircraft. Just enter the the ICAO aircraft type designator and you’ll be able to see all of that particular type of aircraft currently being tracked. You can look up aircraft type designators on the the ICAO website. Partial type designators will return all variants of an aircraft type. For instance, if you entered “B74,” you would see all variants of the Boeing 747. If you entered “B744,” you would only see Boeing 747-400s. It’s also important to note that ICAO codes are not the same as the aircraft’s commercial name. If you’re looking for an A380, you’ll need to enter the ICAO identifier, which is A388. If you a Boeing 787-8 is what you’re searching for B788 goes in the filter box.

Registration

Filtering by registration is a good way to see all of the aircraft registered in a particular country. It is also a good way to track an individual aircraft over the course of multiple flights. With registration filters, you can enter as little or as much of a registration as you’d like. If you just entered “G,” aircraft registered in the United Kingdom would be shown. Or you could enter “B-16703” and see only EVA Air’s 777-300ER Hello Kitty livery.

Combining Filters

Filters can also be combined in various ways. If you wanted to see all of the flights from London-Heathrow to New York Kennedy, you could set two airport filters, one for “LHR out” and one for “JFK in.”

Or if you wanted to see all of British Airways’ 747s that are currently flying at or above 35,000 feet, you could set a callsign filter for “BAW,” an aircraft filter for “B74,” and an altitude filter for 35,000-65,000 feet.

Those are just some of the ways you can use filters on Flightradar24.com. We want to hear how you’re using filters to find and track flights. Send us a tweet or comment on Facebook and we’ll share some of your most creative uses of filters. You can always contact us if you have any questions about using filters or the site in general.