Where2Fly

Always struggling to decide where to fly? Find some suggested destinations with fun weather and coverage!

License

Where2Fly is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 (AGPLv3).

• You are free to use, modify, and distribute this software.
• If you modify the software and make it available over a network (e.g., a web service), you must provide the complete source code to the public.
• You must keep the same license (AGPLv3) for any modifications.

For the full legal text, see the LICENSE file or visit https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html.

Tech Stack

Frontend: Laravel Blade, React, JS and SCSS
Backend: PHP/Laravel with MySQL

MySQL Client

The container image uses the Oracle MySQL Client (8.4.x) installed from Oracle's official Debian packages instead of Debian's default-mysql-client (MariaDB). This ensures full compatibility with MySQL 8.4 features and protocol behavior. If you need to update the version, change the MYSQL_CLIENT_VERSION build argument in the Dockerfile.

Development Setup

Docker

1. Setup the container by running the docker-compose.dev.yml from the root folder, this will bind your local folder to the container.
2. Setup the database with docker exec -it where2fly php artisan migrate
3. Create an application key with docker exec -it where2fly php artisan key:generate
4. Setup the cronjob with * * * * * docker exec --user www-data -i where2fly php artisan schedule:run >/dev/null
5. Import airport and runway database by following the instructions in the airport database section

Environment variables

Value	Description	Required
APP_URL	The URL of the application	Yes
APP_ENV	The environment of the application	Yes
APP_AIRLABS_KEY	The API key for Airlabs API	Yes
APP_FSADDONCOMPARE_KEY	The API key for FSAddonCompare API	Yes
APP_DEBUG	Enable debug mode	No
APP_GITHUB_KEY	Key to fetch feedback page	No
DEBUGBAR_ENABLED	Enable the debugbar	No
SENTRY_LARAVEL_DSN	Sentry DSN URL	No
SENTRY_TRACES_SAMPLE_RATE	Sentry traces sample rate	No

Fonts

All required text fonts are included in this project. Icons are provided by Font Awesome Pro and need to be manually added by you to the project due to licensing restrictions.

Add the following fonts (v7.0.0 or later) to your local project resources/fonts folder:

• fa-brands-400.woff2
• fa-sharp-regular-400.woff2
• fa-sharp-solid-900.woff2

Caching

This application uses the OPCache to cache the compiled PHP code. Default setting is for production which means that the cache is not cleared automatically. To clear the cache, you need to restart the container if you change a file.

For development, consider turning validate_timestamps to 1 in the php.ini file to make sure that the cache is cleared automatically when a file is changed.

Configuration

Updating Airport Database

Last update in production: 2026-07-29

• Download the latest Airports & Runways data from OurAirports as CSV
• Temporarily drop the spatial index and make the coordinates column nullable

  ALTER TABLE `where2fly`.`airports`
  DROP INDEX `airports_coordinates_spatialindex`;
  ALTER TABLE `where2fly`.`airports`
  MODIFY `coordinates` POINT SRID 4326 NULL;

• Truncate and then import the new CSV. Remember using the id provided in the CSV
• Run the php artisan enrich:airports command
• Run this SQL command to add coordinates to the airports

  UPDATE airports
  SET coordinates = ST_SRID(
      ST_GeomFromText(
          CONCAT('POINT(', longitude_deg, ' ', latitude_deg, ')')
      ), 4326
  );

• Make the coordinates column not nullable again and re-add the spatial index

  ALTER TABLE `where2fly`.`airports`
  MODIFY `coordinates` POINT NOT NULL SRID 4326;
  ALTER TABLE `where2fly`.`airports`
  ADD SPATIAL INDEX `airports_coordinates_spatialindex` (`coordinates`);

• Update the runways by truncating the data and then importing the CSV.

Data Sources

This project uses the following data sources:

• Airports & Runways: https://ourairports.com/
• Air Traffic: https://airlabs.co/
• Flags: https://flagicons.lipis.dev/
• METAR/TAF: https://aviationweather.gov/data/api/
• Sceneries: https://fsaddoncompare.com/

API

Read more about the API here.