Have you ever looked up and wanted to know where that plane has come from or is heading to?

A website that provides a real time map tracking airliners, private jets and even military aircraft has become a massive hit with avid plane spotters.

Flightradar24's global maps show you the rough locations of aircraft as they travel – and gives you an idea of the countries with the busiest airspace.

Zoom in and you can locate a particular flight right down to its airline affiliation and aircraft model type, and even its altitude and speed.

Flightradar24's real time plane-tracking map

The maps are updated every few seconds.

It's also useful if you're wanting to check whether or not your loved one will arrive on time. You can see what flights are scheduled to land at any airport in the next two hours.

The website says the service has become increasingly popular and it receives more than 10 million visits a month.

But how does it obtain such a vast amount of information?

The website uses data from the Federal Aviation Administration in the US as well as automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) systems in other countries.

The information is then collated and presented on to user-friendly maps.

About 60 percent of aircraft are equipped with an ADS-B transponder – so there are still plenty of planes that are not represented on the map.

Go to www.flightradar24.com to see the map for yourself.