What this archive can support
Quick answers first, then the limits of the 5-minute cadence. The cards are grouped so the layout stays stable and the signal stays readable.
How the day behaves
Local time, weekday rhythm, and daypart mix from a sparse but repeatable sample.
Local hour traffic | IST 24-hour clock
Local hour speed | IST 24-hour clock
Weekday pattern
Dayparts
Local hour charts use Mumbai time in a 24-hour clock. 00:00 is midnight, 12:00 is noon. Because the sample is 5-minute cadence, the chart is best used for rhythm, not minute-by-minute spikes.
Where it slows down
Close-in traffic, low altitude traffic, and the slowest pockets near the city.
Distance bands
Altitude bands
Sector speed
Slow cells
Vertical behavior
How much of the sample is cruise, climb, or descent, and how strong those phases are.
Vertical motion phases
Yearly shape
Growth, recovery, and the COVID-era dip in the same archive.
Monthly trend
Yearly trend
Who is likely in the sample
These are inferred from callsigns and should be read as probable airline prefixes, not official airline records.
Likely airline prefixes
Inferred flow direction
Inferred sector routes
The airline view is a prefix match from callsigns. The flow view is a sector-to-sector approximation from the first and last sightings of a sampled track. Both are useful for pattern reading, not for filing or scheduling truth.
Interpretation
Plain language from the bundle, not dashboard jargon.
Tables
A compact view of the same patterns with the numbers spelled out.
Distance bands
Altitude bands
Sector view
Year by year
Regular visitors
Likely airline prefixes
Flow mix
Inferred routes
How I read this
One short read first, then the structure behind it.
Identifiers and limits
Each label on this page has a specific meaning. The archive is useful because those meanings are stable, but the inferences are still bounded by the sample cadence.
Hex
The hex code is the aircraft's ICAO24 address - a unique transponder identifier. It tells me which aircraft I am seeing, but not the airline on its own.
Callsign
The callsign is the operational label shown in the data. I use the prefix to infer a likely airline, which is useful for pattern reading but still a guess.
Flow route
The route section is built from the first and last sightings in each sampled track, then grouped by sector and distance band. It shows movement shape, not official origin-destination pairs.
Cadence
This archive was produced from 300-second sampling. That is coarse enough to lose short-lived behavior, but still stable enough to show daily rhythm, altitude mix, and corridor structure.
Method and limits
Enough detail to trust the shape of the result without pretending it is more precise than it is.
- Sample scope: archived 5-minute ADS-B snapshot, centered on BOM / VABB, within a 1500 km radius.
- Cadence: 300-second sampling is coarse. It is good for structural patterns and bad for anything that depends on second-by-second continuity.
- Airline labels: inferred from callsign prefixes only. Useful for pattern-spotting, not as official airline truth.
- Route flow: inferred from the first and last sector seen for a track. It is directional movement, not filed origin/destination.
- Interpretation: the sample is sparser than the 1-minute and 5-second captures. Use it as a preserved reference, not a primary case study.
Query Console
Run a small SQL query against the trimmed observatory tables. This is not the raw ADS-B feed; it is a curated bundle with the summary tables that make the archive readable.