Sunnyvale Overflight Data

This page allows you to download reports that detail all flights that overflew the City of Sunnyvale while landing or taking off from one of the eight local airports of interest.

KRHV - Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County
KSJC - Norman Y Mineta San Jose International Airport
KNUQ - Moffett Federal Airfield
KPAO - Palo Alto Airport
KSQL - San Carlos Airport
KSFO - San Francisco International Airport
KOAK - Metro Oakland International Airport
KHWD - Hayward Executive Airport

The source of the flight track data is the FAA SWIM feed. This is the same source used by ATC for the navigation of aircraft. The flight track data is analyzed by the City's Casper noise and operations monitoring system (NOMS) to determine if a flight overflew the city and if so over which zip code. 3-dimensional areas that follow the boundaries of the four zip codes (94085, 94086, 94087, and 94089) in Sunnyvale were set up in the City's NOMS system to monitor overflights. The altitude reported is an average altitude for the flight based on comparing the entry and exit penetration altitudes. Altitudes are listed in feet above mean sea level (MSL) not distance above the ground

Date/Time - All times are listed in a 24-hour format which is standard in aviation. To convert a time to the 12-hour clock simply subtract 12 from all values greater than 12:00. For instance, 18:30 is equal to 6:30 PM. Note that midnight in the 24-hour clock appears as 00:00.

Altitude - The altitude captured by the FAA radar at the point that the aircraft was closest to the noise monitoring terminal. Altitudes are listed in feet above mean sea level (MSL) not distance above the ground.

A/C Type - The Aircraft Type (A/C Type) codes are four-letter alphanumeric ICAO codes assigned to each aircraft type. A specific code can be located by searching the ICAO Aircraft Type Designator Database. For an explanation of aircraft ICAO codes please see the Codes 101 Page under the Education Section. The A/C Type field will only populate for flights that don't use the generic 1200 transponder code.

Departure/Arrival Airfield - The departure and arrival airfield codes are four-letter ICAO codes which can be located by searching the ICAO Airport Codes Database. For an explanation of airport ICAO codes please see the Codes 101 Page under the Education section and reference the ICAO Airport Prefix Code Table. These fields will only populate if the flight is arriving or departing at one of the eight airports of interest listed above. Flights to/from other airports will display the Arrival/Departure Airfield but the Arrival /Departure Runway fields will be blank.

Departure/Arrival Runway - The runway is determined by examining the flight path trajectory and matching it to a runway end. Runway numbering is based on the compass heading of the runway. For an explanation of runway numbering please see the Air Traffic 101 Page under the Education section.

The reports are posted monthly in a .csv format that can be downloaded for further analysis. The report archive goes back to January 1, 2020, when the flight track feed for Sunnyvale's NOMS system went live and the system began capturing and processing data.