Live real world air traffic in msfs...is it real?

Traffic in MSFS using either FSLTL or Asobo live traffic injects flights based on being “active”. They’re not in their exact positions. The data and flights are real but they’re more general approximations of the aircraft location. For real time position you’d need to use PSX+ Real Traffic. That method uses ADS-B live position data to inject the aircraft. So where they are in the real world is exactly where they are in your sim as little as 15 seconds behind. The downside is that since it doesn’t use the MSFS engine, you’ll not have ATC. The way the traffic is injected is more of a ‘ghost’ to MSFS. So MSFS is not aware that they aircraft actually exists. Since they use live data from the actual aircraft/ADS-B receiver, there’s no way that the MSFS engine could replicate real world live flying such as altitude assignments, heading, procedures to follow, etc. Additionally, Real Traffic recently announced being able to utilize satellite based tracking in their next release. So now you should have about 95% global coverage. The more delay in the time of the traffic the higher the accuracy. So if you’re 20 minutes delayed you get about 97 percent coverage. If you use 2 days behind you get 99% coverage. Keep in mind that it’s a subscription service and rightfully so. If you want the best live traffic representation without all of the quirks and issues relying on the MSFS to do it, that is your best option. All you need to do with make sure you have all of your airlines, models, liveries installed.

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