New inflight app will tell you what landmarks you’re flying over

If you always pick a window seat and enjoy watching the world from above but wonder what it actually is you’re looking at, a new Australian app is the solution for that. 

The Inflighto app (available for both iOS and Android) is an interactive map that gives passengers information on the landmarks below.  

“Inflighto is an in-flight entertainment, flight-tracker and moving-map app created by pilots to enhance the in-flight experience of passengers,” the site said. 

Free to download in its basic version, Inflighto uses airplane-tracking technology to keep passengers up to date with their live journey. And unlike outdated moving maps, which only offer basic information on location, speed and altitude, the innovative app goes into more depth in its information, with live weather tracking and satellite images, plus an in-flight chat mode. 

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It does, however, require passengers to connect they mobile device up to the airplane’s wifi, which can sometimes be expensive. And some of the more detailed info, such as weather tracking, require the purchase of an upgraded version.

Beautiful shot of @british_airways flight #BA16 flight-path to Singapore from @sydneyairport this afternoon. Lots of colour on the weather radar and lots of storm cells keeping the pilots busy!

A post shared by Inflighto (@inflighto) on Nov 27, 2017 at 10:06pm PST

The app’s creators, Aussie pilots John Hopkins and Christopher Smyth, hope that pilots or flight attendants will use the app’s in-flight chat to alert passengers when there’s something cool happening outside their window.

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For aviation geeks, Inflighto provides live flight data including altitude, ground speed, verticle speed and geographic location coordinates. The app also allows passengers to share flight-path images on social media.

This isn’t the first interactive in-flight map – the app Flyover Country was also designed to give users information about interesting landmarks below the plane.