V5: Next-Generation Airport & Airspace Intelligence Platform
Vision — 30-second "what does V5 do?"
- Extract and ingest surveillance data from any data source
- Handle data processing in both real-time and batch modes
- Transform the data — enriching and validating for operational use
- Designed to operate both on-premises and in cloud environments
- Display the result in web-friendly, regulatory-compliant UI
VICTOR5
Platform Overview
V5 is a fully integrated surveillance and analytics platform purpose-built for airports and air navigation service providers. It delivers real-time aircraft tracking, operational KPIs, post-operational replay, and ATC training — all from a unified technology stack.
Architecture
The platform processes live radar/ADS-B/Mode-S data through a pipeline of microservices, achieving sub-second latency from data source to screen. Data flows through Apache Kafka into gRPC-Web endpoints, feeding modern React frontends that run in any browser — no desktop installation required.
Ready for Expansion
Comprehensive inline documentation, strict TypeScript typing, and well-structured project conventions make the codebase exceptionally suited for expansion. New product verticals can be scaffolded and developed at a fraction of the traditional cost and timeline, turning the IP into a launchpad rather than a static asset.
Products
* Supports integration with Romeo5 video recording
of on-prem installations
Platform Capabilities
Data Ingestion
Data Processing
Infrastructure
Applications
What sets V5 apart technically
- Production-proven — Product running now on real aviation data feeds for long periods with excellent SLAs, demonstrating the platform handles operational traffic at scale.
- Proven expandability — Romeo5 (live tracking), Delta5 (airport KPIs), Bravo5 (replay & analytics), and Tango5 (ATC training) share a common data pipeline and infrastructure, dramatically reducing integration cost and operational complexity.
- Sub-second real-time streaming — The pipeline is optimized for performance and reliability critical to aviation surveillance. Data flows from source through Kafka to gRPC to browser in under a second. Romeo5 renders live aircraft positions with continuous updates, not polling intervals.
- Modern frontend stack — Browser-based, responsive, and fast. No desktop installation or plugins required. Built with industry-standard web technologies that any developer can maintain.
- Cloud or on-premise, same codebase — Every service is containerized and runs identically in the cloud, on a local server, or as a standalone desktop app. No code changes between deployment targets — only configuration. Infrastructure is fully codified, with automated CI/CD pipelines for build, test, and deployment.
Technical Specifications
- Services could be written in a variety of languages
- Prototypes are written in Python
- Web is written in TypeScript
- Infrastructure as code using Terragrunt & Terraform
- Service communication through Kafka
- Inter-service data exchange via Protobuf
- Extensive tooling to maximize efficiency
- CI/CD pipelines:
- Automated testing
- Automated building with one-click manual deployment
| Romeo5 / Bravo5 | Delta5 | Tango5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frontend stack | Shared across all products: Next.js React TypeScript Radix UI shadcn/ui TanStack Table Tailwind CSS | ||
| MapLibre GL Auth0 gRPC-Web Protobuf | Recharts Lucide Auth0 gRPC-Web Protobuf | Mapbox GL react-map-gl Clerk Turf.js Lucide | |
| Data layer | PostgreSQL Drizzle ORM | PostgreSQL | PostgreSQL Drizzle ORM Zod React Hook Form Server Actions |
| Pipeline | Shared microservices platform: 15+ Rust services (tokio, rdkafka, redis, prost), Kafka (AWS MSK), Redis (ElastiCache), Martin tile server, Python ETL (enroute-kpis), ASMT (Rust gRPC). Archival to S3 (Parquet/CSV). | Standalone. Scenarios seeded via CLI (tsx). PostHog for analytics. | |
| Infrastructure | Terraform Terragrunt AWS EKS Kubernetes Kustomize GitHub Actions SOPS + KMS | Docker Compose GitHub Actions | |
Romeo5, Delta5, and Bravo5 share a common backend pipeline.
Data Ingestion
Receives live surveillance feeds (ADS-B, Mode-S, ASTERIX, APRS) via TCP/UDP, AMQP, or Kafka. Decodes and normalizes raw data into a unified format for downstream processing.
Processing Pipeline
Microservices connected through Apache Kafka. Data flows through consolidation, enrichment, and capture stages — achieving sub-second latency from source to screen.
Delivery & Storage
gRPC-Web with Protobuf serves real-time and historical data to frontends. PostgreSQL for operational data, Redis for caching, S3 (Parquet/CSV) for long-term archival.
Infrastructure
Fully containerized. Terraform/Terragrunt for provisioning, Kubernetes with Kustomize overlays for orchestration, GitHub Actions for CI/CD. Same images run on cloud (AWS EKS) or on-premise (Docker Compose).
Key Takeaways
- The Victor5 platform is not just code — it is a running production system with infrastructure-as-code.
- Cloud-native infrastructure as code (Terraform + K8s) means the platform can be redeployed anywhere and scaled on demand.
- Modern stack (Rust, TypeScript, React) — industry-standard, easy to maintain.
- Expansion-ready: Adding a new airport client is a configuration exercise (config JSON + map styles + Kustomize overlay), not a development project. The on-premise model (Romeo5 Lite) enables rapid deployment combining cloud expansion with local on-premise used as backup or main.
- Seed IP for aerospace surveillance — The modular, data-source-agnostic architecture makes this a seed platform for building new surveillance and analytics products. Extend to drone tracking (UTM), military surveillance, Advanced Air Mobility, or any domain requiring real-time sensor fusion and visualization.