Military aviation

The aviation layer on SENTINEL is built around ADS-B, the cooperative position-reporting system every modern aircraft transponder uses. The live globe pulls position reports from a paid satellite-backed feed and a free community network, then merges the two so an aircraft visible to either source surfaces with both its position and its airframe label. Military flights, civilian patterns of interest, and the wider air picture all share the same renderer; what changes is which classifier the platform applies to a given track.

A meaningful slice of the value is in patterns rather than individual tracks. A single C-17 transiting the Atlantic is unremarkable; six C-17s, two A330 MRTTs, and a KC-46 tanker formation all in the same 90-minute window across the same corridor is the leading indicator of a strategic airlift wave. SENTINEL classifies these waves automatically and surfaces them in the patterns rail with per-direction counts, so a Europe to North America push and the return wave appear as separate events.

Tankers get their own scoring track. A KC-135 holding a racetrack pattern over the Eastern Mediterranean indicates a refuel anchor for fighter sorties or strike packages downrange. The classifier looks for sustained rotation, distinguishes a true racetrack from a one-off turn, and floats tanker activity to the top of the rail when three or more are airborne in the same theatre. The tanker theatre surge gate fires regardless of orbit shape so a fast-moving wave gets the same priority as a settled hold.

AWACS and maritime ISR loiters are the third recurring shape. Boeing E-3 Sentry, P-8 Poseidon, RC-135 Rivet Joint, and similar platforms fly long figure-of-eight tracks at sustained altitude over a region of interest. SENTINEL surfaces these loiters with type-specific classification so an analyst can tell a fixed-orbit ISR sortie from a transit at a glance. Country panels show the recent loiters that touched their airspace, useful for understanding why an air-defence alert just fired.

NOTAM and TFR overlays close the loop. Active temporary flight restrictions, exercise areas, and routine NOTAM closures render as polygons on the globe. Reading them alongside the live tracks turns "what is that aircraft doing" into "what is that aircraft doing in this restricted airspace right now," which is the question that usually matters for breaking events.

For analysts watching a specific country, the country dossier page surfaces the recent flights tagged to that country, the loiters that overlap its airspace, and the airlift waves whose corridor crosses it. The same data drops into the on-globe country panel when you click the country body, with deeper history behind the Pro tier.