Short Final™ Privacy Policy

Version 2.0. Effective 10 October 2026.

Updated 27 October 2026: our website has a free browser demo of the game, with simulated planes, 3 free games a day and no sign-in or scores. It keeps one small count on your device, which is never sent to us, and asks no age (see The browser demo). The policy version stays 2.0.

Updated 23 October 2026: World stats (version 3.2). When you finish a game, the game can send us a short count of it, and the home screen and Leaderboards show the totals of everyone's games. A daily challenge game also sends its score, which shows how you did against the others that day. You can switch the count off in Settings (see World stats). A challenge link you send to a friend holds your score, and no name (see Sharing). The policy version stays 2.0.

Updated 19 October 2026: the game asks our website for an airport's map before it asks the public map servers, and our website is hosted by GitHub Pages (see Internet requests the game makes). The policy version stays 2.0.

Updated 15 October 2026: Short Final is for players aged 13 and up. A player under 13 goes no further than the age screen, and nothing about that player leaves the phone. Reset progress keeps your answer to the age question. Shares now name Short Final on Google Play and link to its Play page, and the game no longer checks the store page (see Sharing). The live feed check also runs when the connection comes back after the phone was offline, and Sharing says what Save image and Copy text keep on your phone. Every request the game makes, and what the service sees, is listed under Internet requests the game makes and in the sections after it.

Updated 14 October 2026: a real plane's origin now comes from route files on the game's own website, not from a route service (see Internet requests the game makes). Sharing can now include a video made on your phone (see Sharing).

Short Final is a game by Thin Air Studios LLC, Colorado, USA. Thin Air Capital is a trade name of Thin Air Studios LLC.

The short version

No ads, no analytics, no tracking across other apps or websites, and no selling of data.
The game keeps almost everything on your phone. Your scores, stats, settings and progress stay on your phone unless you post a ranked score.
If you post ranked scores, we keep your public display name, your scores and the replays that check them, on our server. You can remove them at any time with "Remove my scores" in the Game, or by email.
When a game ends, the game sends us a short count of it: the planes you landed, the airport, the game's version, and yes or no answers to whether it is your first game of the day, the week, and ever. A daily challenge game also sends its score. It has no name and no ID. We keep only counts, and each day's best game as its airport and planes landed. You can turn it off in Settings (see World stats).
Short Final is for players aged 13 and up. A player under 13 goes no further than the age screen. See "Children" below.
The game never asks for your location, contacts, photos or anything else on your phone.

Who we are and how to reach us

Thin Air Studios LLC, Colorado, USA. Email: thinaircapital@gmail.com. This policy covers the Short Final app for Android, the online leaderboards and name checks, and the Short Final website.

What stays on your phone

Your scores, stars, stats for each airport and level, achievements, settings, streaks and the airports you played recently.
Airport maps and weather downloaded for the airports you open. They are kept so they open quickly next time.
The flight route files the game downloads for the airlines it has seen. They are kept for up to a week (or until the game needs the room), then fetched again when needed.
A video you make to share, until you make another or close the share panel without sharing or saving it (see Sharing).
The picture of the result you last shared or saved. It stays in the game's own storage until you share or save another picture, and it is removed when you uninstall the game.
Your answer to the age question: the year you were born, and the month too when the year alone does not tell whether you are 13 yet. It is stored only on your phone, and it is never sent to us or anyone else.
Whether you have agreed to the Terms of Use and this policy, and the version and date you agreed.
How many free games you have started on each day, and whether Short Final Pro is unlocked on this phone, as Google Play last told the game (see Purchases).
How many games you have finished, the first two days you finished one on, and the day the game last asked you to rate it. The rating question is Google's own, and Reset progress keeps these.
Whether each reminder is on (the daily challenge, the streak saver and the weekly recap), the day you last played the daily challenge, your play streak's last day and count, and this week's planes landed and your best game's airport, so the reminders know whether to show and what to say (see Reminders).
Whether your games are counted in World stats (on by default), the day and the week of the last game you had counted, so the game knows whether a game is your first of the day or the week, and the planes you landed this week, so the game can thank you when the week's goal is reached. Only the yes or no answers and the counts are sent, never these dates or this week's total (see World stats).

None of this is sent to us. Uninstalling the game, or clearing the game's storage in Android's settings, deletes everything the game keeps on your phone, including your answer to the age question. Choosing "Reset progress" in Settings deletes your scores, stats, achievements, streaks and your agreement to the Terms of Use and this policy, so the game asks you to agree again. Your settings and your answer to the age question stay, and so does your sign-in, so "Remove my scores" still removes any scores you posted before. A picture you save to the Pictures folder and a video you save to the Movies folder stay in those folders after you uninstall the game, so delete them there if you want them gone.

Internet requests the game makes

To draw an airport and fill its sky, the game asks public services for information about the airport you choose, and about the real planes near it. These requests contain the airport's code or coordinates. They don't contain a flight's callsign, your location or anything about you.

Our website (thin-air-studios.github.io), for an airport's map: its layout, coastline, water and peaks. The request names the airport's code (such as KDFW.json), and the file is the same for every player. The game asks for it before it asks the servers below. A map the game gets is kept on your phone for up to 30 days.
OpenStreetMap data for the airport's map, coastline, water and peaks, from the public Overpass API servers: overpass.kumi.systems and overpass-api.de. The game asks them only when our website has no map for the airport. The 50 busiest airports, Midland (KMAF) and Lukla (VNLK) ship inside the game and need no download. See the OpenStreetMap privacy policy.
The OpenSky Network for the live feed near the airport. See opensky-network.org. Each time you open the game, come back to it after 10 minutes or more, when the connection comes back after the phone was offline, or tap the live feed line on the home screen, the game makes one check with the OpenSky Network to see whether the live feed can be reached. The check asks for flights around the airport you last played, or today's airport, the same way a live game does. It doesn't use your location.
aviationweather.gov, run by the US National Weather Service's Aviation Weather Center, for the airport's weather report. See the NOAA privacy policy.
Our website (thin-air-studios.github.io), for the flight route files, so the game can say which city a real plane arrived from. The files are one small list for each airline, with the routes its flights fly. When a real plane appears near the airport, the game fetches its airline's file the first time it needs it, and keeps the file on your phone for up to a week (or until the game needs the room). The request asks for the airline's file (such as AAL.json). It does not name a flight, the airport or your location. For the largest airlines the file is split into one part for each first digit of the flight number, and the request then asks for that part (such as AAL-1.json), which names no flight, the airport or your location either. The game asks once for each airline, and the file is the same for every player.

The game also makes these requests, which are not about an airport or a flight:

Our server, once a day, to see whether the online boards are open. The request carries no name, score or identifier.
Our server, for World stats (see World stats): one short note when a game ends, and a request for the totals when you open the home screen or Leaderboards (and for a daily challenge's scores when you finish one). None carries a name or an identifier. Only a daily challenge's note carries its score.
Our server, when you open the game after you answer the age question: to keep your three free days if you reinstall it, the game sends a one-way code made from your phone's Android ID (the code, never the ID itself) and the day you first started the game. The server keeps only those two things, and drops them a year after that day.

When the game asks the services above for flights, weather, maps or route files, they see your phone's internet address (IP address), and nothing else about you. Our server sees the address for the requests above, and nothing else about you either. Their own policies apply to what they do with it.

Our website is hosted by GitHub Pages. GitHub sees the internet address of each request for a map or a route file, as any website's host does, under GitHub's privacy statement.

The browser demo

Our website has a free browser demo of the game, at playshortfinal.com/demo/. It gives 3 free games a day, with simulated planes. It has no sign-in, no scores, no World stats, no reminders and no live feed, and it is not the app.

What it asks for. The demo's own files, and the map of an airport from our website: the airport you pick, or, with no pick, a busy airport the home screen shows (the request names the airport's code, such as KDFW.json or KIAH.json). Like any website's host, the servers that answer those requests see the internet address of each one (see Internet requests the game makes). The demo asks no other address: not the OpenSky Network, the weather service, the map servers, our server or the route files.
What it keeps. One small record in your browser's local storage: the day, as a number for your phone's local date, and how many demo games were counted that day (up to 3). Nothing else. The record is never sent to us or anyone else, and it holds no name, identifier or address. The demo sets no cookies and writes nothing else to the browser's storage, its databases or its caches. A game lives in the page and is gone when you leave the page or reload it. A new day starts the count at zero. To start the count again now, clear this site's data for playshortfinal.com in your browser's settings. If your browser blocks storage (in a private window, for one), the demo keeps nothing and allows one game for each page load.
What it doesn't ask. No age question, no sign-in, and no name, location or device identifier. The demo keeps nothing about its visitors on our side. It is for players aged 13 and up, like the app.
Google Play. When you tap a link to Google Play in the demo, or share a result, the Play page gets an install referrer that names the demo (utm_source=web-demo). A link on the home screen, in Settings, on the turn card or on the unsupported-browser card names that place. The end card's invite and a shared result name the airport instead (utm_campaign, such as KDFW). Google Play reports that referrer with an install, as it does for any share.

Online leaderboards and ranked games

Ranked games can be posted to the online World boards and to Google Play Games. Viewing the boards needs no sign-in. Posting needs Google Play Games sign-in.

What we store for a score posted to the online boards:

Your Google Play Games player ID, which we use to tell players apart. We don't see your Google password or your Google account details.
Your display name, as Google Play Games shows it. If you turn off "Show my name on World boards", the board shows a callsign such as "Pilot 4821" instead.
The score, the airport, the level, whether it was a daily challenge game, the date and time, and the other results shown on the board (for example passengers landed).
The replay of the game: the information needed to play it again exactly, such as the traffic and weather it was played with and the moves you made. We use the replay to check the score.

Who can see it. Scores and names on the World boards are public. Anyone who opens the boards can see them. Google Play Games boards are public inside Google Play Games, under Google's rules. Scores posted to Google Play Games are sent by the game to Google, not to us. We don't receive their replays and we don't check them, so a Google Play Games board can show a score that the World boards did not accept.

How long we keep it:

Scores stay on the boards until you remove them, or until the board's season closes. Seasons can change when the rules for ranked play change. When a season closes, its scores leave the boards, but we keep them in our database.
Replays are kept only for the top 100 scores on each board. The replays of other scores are deleted once the score has been checked.
"Remove my scores" deletes your scores, their replays, your entries on the boards, the reports you filed, and your player record on our server: your Google Play Games player ID, your display name and your sign-in session. It also deletes the name check for your display name and the reports filed against that name, unless another player has the same name. It does not change the stats on your phone, and it does not remove scores already posted to Google Play Games.

Your choices. You can remove your scores at any time with "Remove my scores" in the Game, or by emailing thinaircapital@gmail.com with the subject "Remove my scores" and the display name you used. We will act on an email request within 30 days, and it removes the same things.

Name checks

Names on the online boards are checked to keep them appropriate.

The check first compares the name with lists of banned words, with allowances for normal aviation words. Names that fail this check are shown as a callsign.
A name that passes this check is sent to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI models, which decides whether the name is allowed. We send only the name text, not your player ID, your scores or your replays. Once Anthropic gives a decision we keep it, so the same name isn't sent again. If a check gets no decision (for example, because it fails or times out), the name is sent again on the player's next post or sign-in, until one does.
Anthropic handles the name under its own terms and privacy policy. See Anthropic's privacy policy.
Players who are signed in and have posted ranked games can report a name in the game. After three reports from different players, the name is replaced with a callsign. Reports are linked to the reporting player's ID so that each player counts once.
Names are checked again when the name in Google Play Games changes.

Our server and database

The online boards run on Cloudflare Workers and a Cloudflare D1 database, on Cloudflare's global network. Cloudflare runs each request in the data centre that receives it, which may be outside the United States. Cloudflare processes the information described above on our behalf. Cloudflare's own network logs follow its privacy policy. Our server doesn't store your IP address alongside your scores or your name. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.

World stats

World stats show how many people have played today, this week and since version 3.1, how many planes they have landed, the busiest airports today, the best game today, the planes landed in each hour of today, the most planes ever landed in one game, a weekly goal for the community, and a map of today's airports. The home screen shows a line of them, and Leaderboards has a World stats tab with three views: Today, Records and Map. Today and this week are UTC days, and weeks start on Monday.

What the game sends. When a game ends, the game sends us one short note. If you leave a game from the pause card, it sends the note only when you have landed at least one plane. The note holds:

the version of the game;
the planes you landed in that game;
the airport the game was at, by its code, such as KATL;
three yes or no answers: whether it is your first game today, this week, and ever since version 3.1;
for a daily challenge game that ends, the number of that day's challenge and the score the game reached in it.

The note holds no name, no player ID, no device ID and no account. Games on recorded traffic are not counted, and neither is the demo on the home screen.

What we keep. We keep counts: the number of games, planes landed and players for each UTC day, each UTC week and all time, and for each airport on each day the number of games and planes landed. For each day we also keep its best game: the most planes landed in one game that day, and the airport of that game. We keep the planes landed in each hour of each day. For each daily challenge we keep how many of its games reached each score band, five points wide (so a score of 42 is kept as the band 40 to 44, with no name). We keep one record for all time: the most planes landed in one game, with its airport and its day. A player is a phone that said its game was its first of the day, the week or ever, so each phone counts once a day, once a week and once ever. We keep each day's counts, its airports, its hours and its best game for 14 days, the weekly counts for about as long, and each daily challenge's score bands for 14 days. The all-time counts and the record are kept. None of it holds a name, an ID or an account, so it cannot be traced to you, and "Remove my scores" does not change it. Our server does not keep your internet address with the notes.

The counts are not checked. Each phone sends its own counts and its own daily score, and we do not check them. A changed copy of the game could send counts or scores that are not true, so the totals, the record, the daily score bands and the best game show what phones reported, not a checked record.

Your score in a daily challenge. When you finish a daily challenge game, the game asks us for the score bands of that day's challenge and shows you the share of games with a lower score, once there are 20 games of that challenge. Nothing names you in it.

Your weekend event. Weekend event games are kept like daily games: the score and the airport, on that weekend's board, with no name beyond the display name the boards show.

Your planes this week. Your phone keeps the planes you landed this week, so the game can thank you if the week's goal is reached. That total stays on your phone. It is never sent, only the yes or no answers and the counts above are.

The count is yours to switch off. "Count my games in World stats" is in Settings, and it is on by default. When it is off, the game sends nothing for your games. You can still see the World stats. The counts already kept stay, as they hold no name or ID.

Who can see it. Anyone who opens the home screen or Leaderboards sees the totals, the records and the map. Anyone who finishes a daily challenge game sees the share of games with a lower score. Viewing needs no sign-in.

Our server. The notes and the counts are kept by Cloudflare, on our behalf, as the online boards are (see Our server and database).

Purchases

Short Final Pro is a one-time purchase made through Google Play. Google Play takes the payment, and its payment details are never seen or stored by the game or by us. The game asks Google Play for the price, whether your Google account has bought Pro, and whether a purchase is still pending. It checks the answer on your phone and keeps it there, so Pro still works when you are offline. Your purchase is not sent to our server. Google keeps its own records of your purchases under its privacy policy.

Google Play Games

If you have Google Play Games on your phone, the game can sign you in to it, so your achievements and scores appear there. Google receives the information it needs to provide that service, including your Play Games identity, your display name and avatar, the achievements you unlock, and the scores you post. Google also collects diagnostics to keep the service working. Google handles this under its privacy policy.

Play Games sign-in starts only after you have answered the age question and agreed to the Terms of Use and this policy. Play Games is optional: the game plays without it.

Cloud save (Google Play Games saved games)

If you are signed in to Google Play Games, the game also keeps a copy of your progress in your saved games there, so it is still there after you change phones or reinstall the game. The copy holds your best scores and your stats for each airport and level, the counts of your games and landings, your achievements and the day each one was earned, the airports you have visited, your play streak, the last daily challenge you played, and whether you have seen the Tour and finished the tutorial. It does not hold your age, your Short Final Pro purchase, the day your free games started, your sign-in to our server, your settings, or the games waiting to be posted to the online boards.

Google keeps the copy in the saved games of your own Google Play Games account. The game can read and write only its own copy. It is not sent to our server, and we do not receive it. When you sign in on another phone, the copies are merged so no progress is lost: the higher score or count is kept, the achievements you have earned and the airports you have visited are all kept, and the play streak runs from the most recent day, with a run on one phone that carries on from a run on another counted as one run, and each day counted once. A save is made a few seconds after a game and when you leave the game. The Settings screen says when the last save went through.

Cloud save is optional, and it needs the same sign-in as Play Games. If the game cannot reach Google Play Games, the save waits and the game carries on. "Reset progress" deletes this copy as soon as the game can reach Google Play Games. "Remove my scores" does not delete it. Google handles the saved games under its privacy policy.

Reminders

Each reminder is off until you turn it on in Settings. The daily challenge reminder shows one notification a day at 9 am on the phone's own clock, once that day's challenge is ready, and not on a day you have already played that day's challenge. The streak saver shows one at 7 pm on a day your play streak ends that night, if you have not landed a plane that day. The weekly recap shows one on Sunday at 7 pm, if you landed a plane that week and not yet that day. At most one notification shows a day, none shows between 9 pm and 8 am, and you can switch each one off in Settings. The alarms and the notifications are handled on your phone, and nothing about them is sent to us or to anyone else. Android asks for your permission to show notifications (on Android 13 and later), and you can change that at any time in the phone's settings.

Radio voices

The radio calls are spoken by your phone's own text-to-speech engine. The game passes that engine only the radio lines, such as "Speedbird 12, cleared to land runway 27 left". On many phones the engine is provided by Google, which handles the text under its own privacy policy. You can turn radio voices off in Settings.

When you tap Share, the game makes a picture or text from your result and passes it to the app you choose. That app's own privacy policy then applies. Save image and Copy text are the exception: they keep the picture or the caption on your phone instead, as described below. Shared results contain your airport, score and game stats. They don't contain your name, location or account details. Nothing is shared unless you tap Share.

A challenge link is made on your phone when you send a challenge to a friend (3.2). It holds the airport, the level, your score, whether real planes were in your game, and the weather your game started in: the wind and its gusts, the fog, and whether there were storms, from the airport's own weather report. Since 3.3 it also holds the size of your screen, a code for the airport's map and the version of the game, so your friend's game can make the same planes. It has no name, and nothing about you or where you are. The game does not send it to us. Anyone who gets the link can see those things, so send it only to people you choose. If the game is not installed on your friend's phone, the link opens a page on our website instead.

A video (the Video format on the end card) is made on your phone from the game's own record of the game you played. It shows your airport, your score and the real flights as the game shows them, with their names and flight numbers. Nothing is posted by the game. Share passes the video to the app you choose, and Save video keeps a copy in your phone's Movies folder. The video's file stays in the game's own storage on your phone until you make another video, or close the share panel without sharing or saving it.

Save image keeps a picture of your result in the Pictures folder of your phone, in a folder called Short Final. Copy text puts the caption on your phone's clipboard. For apps that do not show the caption a share sends, the caption is copied to the clipboard as well, so you can paste it. Neither one sends anything to us.

Every shared result names Short Final on Google Play. The link at the end of a caption goes to the game's Google Play page, and it carries an install referrer: the app you shared to (or "share" for the share sheet), the word "share" and the airport. Google Play reports that referrer to us with an install, so we can see which shares bring installs. It holds no name, score or daily number. Where an app does not make links tappable, such as TikTok or Instagram, the caption names the game on Google Play in words and has no link. Tapping a link opens Google Play, under Google's privacy policy.

A "Beat my score" link shared in an earlier version opens the game at that airport, through our website's page for it, thin-air-studios.github.io/play/. That link holds the airport, the daily number for a daily result and the app you shared to. If the phone has no game, that page passes the app's name and the airport to Google Play as the install referrer, and nothing else.

Children

Short Final is not for children under 13. The game is for players aged 13 and up, and a player under 13 cannot play it. The browser demo asks no age and keeps nothing about its visitors, so nothing about a child who plays it is collected or kept.

When a new player starts the game, it asks the year they were born. If that year alone does not tell whether the player is 13 yet (they turn 13 this calendar year), it also asks the month they were born. A player who is under 13 sees a screen that says Short Final is for ages 13 and up, and goes no further. There is no sign-in, no posting and no other part of the game for them. Until the age question is answered, the game sends nothing over the internet, so nothing about that player leaves the phone.

The answer stays on the phone, as described above. It is never sent to us or anyone else. Reset progress keeps it. Only clearing the game's storage in Android's settings, or uninstalling the game, removes it. It is not copied to Android's cloud backup or to a new phone, so after a restore the age question is asked again.

We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The game never asks for a name, email address or location. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, email thinaircapital@gmail.com and we will delete it. A parent or guardian who wants to know what we hold about their child, or to have it deleted, can ask us at the same address.

Where your information is stored

Information we hold for the online boards is stored by Cloudflare, in the location assigned to our database when it was created. Our service providers (Cloudflare, Anthropic and Google) may process it elsewhere under their own safeguards. The cloud save copy is stored by Google, in your Google Play Games saved games (see Cloud save).

Security

We send information over encrypted connections (HTTPS). No system is perfectly secure, so we also keep only what the game needs.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to ask what information we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, or to object to how it is used. To use these rights, email thinaircapital@gmail.com. We will respond within the time the law requires. We don't sell personal information, and we don't use it for targeted advertising.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version here with a new effective date. If the change is material, the game will show it to you and ask you to agree again.

Contact

Thin Air Studios LLC, Colorado, USA

Email: thinaircapital@gmail.com