Military aircraft over Iowa right now

At 01:49 UTC, 1 military aircraft is airborne over Iowa right now. 7 were seen broadcasting here in the last 12 hours.

Live military traffic in and around Iowa today, from community ADS-B data, re-checked every minute. The area is a bounding box around Iowa rather than its exact border, so aircraft just outside the line can appear.

Military aircraft seen over Iowa earlier today

This log checks every 5 minutes and keeps 12 hours, so an aircraft that crossed in under 5 minutes can be missed, and one flying with its transponder off never appears. “Lowest altitude” is the lowest it was seen at during those checks.

Get alerted, not just informed

Squawk can push you a notification when a military aircraft enters an area you draw over Iowa — including departures and recoveries at watched bases.

Why are military jets flying over Iowa today?

Nothing an aircraft broadcasts says what its flight is for, so this page can’t tell you why a particular jet is over Iowa. Routine reasons include training flights, transits between bases, tanker and transport runs, and flyovers for public events. What it can show is which military aircraft are broadcasting a position here right now, with type, altitude and speed. A low, loud jet you just heard may not be listed: many military aircraft fly with the transponder off.

What you can and can’t see

Everything on this page comes from transponder broadcasts picked up by volunteer receivers. Military aircraft frequently operate with the transponder off, and some broadcast anonymised identifiers, so an empty page is never proof that nothing is flying. What is here is real; what is missing may simply be silent.

• Alerts fire on any aircraft entering an area you draw — not only a flight you look up.
• Military aircraft are never filtered from the map.
• Worldwide alerts for squawk 7700, 7600 and 7500.
• Alert zones send push notifications even with the app closed.
• There are no ads in the app.

Other states

Live positions come from volunteer-run ADS-B receivers, shared as open data under the ODbL licence. An aircraft is visible here only if its transponder is broadcasting and a receiver hears it, so coverage is dense over North America and Europe and thin over oceans, deserts and mountains. Not for navigation or operational use. More about our data.