Guys, I was comparing the live traffic between MSFS’s and FlightRadar24, at Singapore Changi Airport, and made the following observations about a particular flight I was following (forgot which one exactly, I think SIA114, could be wrong, doesn’t matter).
- the plane landed at the airport in MSFS before it did in FR24, by about 3 minutes.
- the plane landed in the sim, but then did a go around ! while the one in FR24, just landed and taxied to the gate.
Is this… normal ?.. am I configuring something wrong ?..
Now, I’m using SimpleTraffic from Aerosoft, but if I understand correctly the way it works, this can’t be the source of these observations as ST doesn’t create flights or flight paths, it just replaces planes textures. I mention it anyway out of completeness.
Thank you.
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MSFS uses FlightAware as the official traffic data provider.
This one presents a risk on its own, right? Since they’re “ghosts” and only 15 seconds behind. I can’t seem to help but imagine that these gosts take off and land on runways according to their real-world counterpart, meaning that they can’t go around when they’re too close and you’re on the runway, and vice versa.
@CasualClick , yes I understand, but here’s the problem and just to give you an example: yesterday FlightAware was showing a single flight at Changi airport, while FR24 was showing many more, which was a lot more consistent with what I was seeing in MSFS. In other words, MSFS was a lot closer to FR24 than FlightAware. The thread linked by Tinjungle above says that MSFS is using the “commercial” version of FlightAware, is there a difference between this version and what I can access on their website for free ?.. But in any case it doesn’t really matter, I just use FR24.
@TinJungle791349 thanks for the link, it contains a lot of information explaining my observations.
FA doesn’t have as much coverage outside of CONUS compared to FR24. MS has an arrangement whereby they feed FA data to the sim’s server environment via the commercial FireHose API.
What’s important to know is there is likely a cap on commercial Live Traffic in the sim. Too much of it can negatively impact performance, that’s why you only see traffic around the player ship for about 40NM in any direction. Then they despawn, only to respawn if they re-enter that radius.
As for traffic at airports, I think it was after WU USA 2 where they started implementing a code approach to populate Class 1/2 airports from a ground perspective to make it look more alive. That’s not necessarily Live Traffic that’s going to push back and depart, it’s mostly to populate the gates. You’ll see this especially in places like KLAX at peak hours.
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@CasualClick ok thanks for the explanation.
I have another question.
I own Aerosoft’s Simple Traffic.
Would using FSLTL add any value to me ? It seems both are using plane injections from FA (so I will see the same planes being in the same location ?), and both just repaint the planes ?
I think FSLTL will take precedence in that case, the Aerosoft Simple traffic is just a repaint of the default pointy traffic models. But FSLTL has full accurate aircraft models and liveries.
As for the traffic injector, just use either one at a time, not both.
Ok, how do I do that ? Because Aerosoft Simple Traffic seems to be an “install and forget” software. I don’t seem to be able to parameter anything. I can disable it (via the Aerosoft One installer), but if I do that I presume it’s like uninstalling it, as in I will lose all its repainting ability, no ?
Perhaps I should disable Aerosoft Simple traffic, instal FSLTL and see if I like it better. Shouldn’t be too hard.
Sorry, I got myself confused. Aerosoft Simple Traffic is just a basic livery replacement with additional data for livery matching with traffic. The traffic itself can come from the default MSFS Live Traffic or external app.
For FSLTL, they come with 2 items, one is the model and livery, and the other is the traffic injector.
For the sake of model and livery, you can install both Aerosoft Simple Traffic and FSLTL Base model and liveries. This will make your traffic library a lot more complete because if it has a match on the aircraft model and livery, it will take the FSLTL, otherwise if can use the Aerosoft Simple traffic model and liveries instead.
The FSLTL Traffic Injector however, is optional. And what I meant by using one at a time is that. If you want to use the FSLTL Traffic Injector, you need to disable the Live Traffic mode from the sim. If you want to use the sim’s default Live Traffic mode. Don’t use the FSLTL Traffic Injector. Because both will be in conflict with one another.
But for the sake of just having a nice and accurate Traffic model and liveries, just install the FSLTL base model alongside with Aerosoft Simple Traffic addon together is enough.
Ok thanks for mentioning this, this is helpful, I had not realised this was important.
I have now tried FSLTL (disabling Aerosoft Simple Traffic), and none of the aircraft “injected” have a Traffic Nameplate, and this despite Traffic Nameplate being turned on in the settings. I presume this is normal, yes ?
Also, after the injection, it seems FSLTL hasn’t truly created “the” traffic like what I see on FR24, but “a” traffic, using aircraft with callsigns decently close to the ones I see on FR24. Airplanes on finals are indeed like what I see on FR24 pretty much (the airport I’m looking at has 2 parallel runways and the airplanes land on the wrong parallel runway though), but aircraft on the ground are clearly in the wrong places.
I presume this is the way FSLTL works, and I won’t get “the” traffic as per FR24, yes ? Well basically like what @TinJungle791349 said earlier.
Traffic nameplate won’t work. They’re only designed for the default Live Traffic mode. So traffic injected from an external app like FSLTL traffic injector won’t have traffic name plates on them. But they are still connected to ATC and communicate with them with their proper callsign and flight number according to the FR24 data.
Yes, the injector isn’t entirely 100% accurate and there are several reasons behind it. The injector only captures data like the aircraft types, airlines, callsign, and flight number alongside their position, altitude, heading, and flight routes. Once this is captured and spawned in the sim, the object is no longer under the FSLTL app anymore, it’s completely taken over by MSFS AI traffic management engine. This means the aircraft will start to “talk” to ATC and continue with whatever phase they’re in as if they’re MSFS traffic and react to different events happening inside the sim, not the real world. So if the FR24 data change, let’s say they do Go Around, or get assigned a different runway, etc. That will not be reflected in the Sim, because the aircraft is already spawned by the injector, and whatever happens in the sim happens due to the ATC behaviour and the traffic behaviour inside the sim, not the real world.
Otherwise, if the traffic are “livestreamed” from FR24 data, you won’t have ATC communication, they’ll “jump” positions and they won’t be able to stop on the taxiway or make different decisions on take off and landing around your presence at the airport. Too much potential of them crashing to you because your aircraft doesn’t exist in the real world that would make the ATC to tell them to hold short before entering a taxiway to let you through.
That’s why the injector’s job is to use the real world data to only spawn the traffic, once it does, it will have to behave as if they’re simulated inside the simulator only and no longer reflecting what’s going on in the real world.
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@NeoKingRthur , thanks for the detailed explanation, exactly what I needed to understand. Appreciated the hand holding 
@NeoKingRthur , if I want a “totally real” FR24 traffic, my understanding is I need something like RealTraffic+PSXT, correct ? (I understand that I won’t have realistic ATC for this type of traffic).
Sometime last year I had tried a freeware called " Enhanced Live Traffic" downloaded from flightsim.to, I think it wasn’t bad. I believe it was “totally real” FR24 traffic, but there were issues like airplanes wouldn’t taxi or fly smoothly, they would stutter, disappear for a brief moment before reappearing, also some planes would levitate… but at least I think it was “totally real” FR24 traffic. Perhaps I could give this one another go again.
Well you got a lot of good answers about FSLTL.
Let me just add, I tried both the injector and the additional aircraft models components.
My main concern which led me to cease using them is sim performance impacts. I have a Low to Medium rig based on Launch Sys Reqs with some adjustments now that we’re three years downrange.
Many of the models, while beautiful and detailed, aren’t optimized for performance. As ugly as the Asobo stock models are, their low polygon count is there for a reason and that’s for frame rate as visual models.
The Traffic Injector, even with tweaks, also brought a penalty to the sim in terms of load and latency.
The least system impact is still stock Live Traffic.
I too have Simple Traffic just for the liveries and it has absolutely no impact when using Live Traffic. It does have it’s own offline schedule capability but I didn’t buy it for that and tried it once, never again.
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I’m not sure about RealTraffic+PSXT as I never really interested in that level of detail. I prefer to have a smooth experience inside my own sim session. And having a 100% accurate and real behaviour from real world data is something that would take me away from my own simulation session. Because you would be constantly trying to compare and see radar on how close it is to reflect the real world and spend less time focusing on your own flight.
As long as the traffic spawns properly and somewhat close to the real world, it doesn’t matter to me. The traffic is there to make your flight sim session more immersive and “alive” and as long they’re there and behaving they way they should within the confines of the flight simulation session, I’m happy.
@NeoKingRthur thanks for the input again. Ok yes I understand what you’re saying and feel that way too, 95% of the time.
I should have explained my purpose better for the “totally real FR24” traffic: my friend is FO at SQ on 777. Occassionally, he does some cool flights like these past 2 days: SQ12 with Singapore-Narita, followed by Narita-LAX. When this happens, I will do this flight “with him” in the sim: basically he takes a screenshot of the final flightplan from the cockpit via whatsapp, I input it quickly in PMDG’s 737 FMC, and I will do the flight at the same time as him. The way I was able to do this before, is “spawn” in the sim his real 777 with Enhanced Live Traffic, free tool from flightsim.to. It’s not bad in a sense that I see him and will see him the entire flight if I fly close enough to him (which believe me on a 10 hours flight, is VERY hard, but doable, when I lose sight of him I still see him on my ND so I can catch up), but as I said, Enhanced Live Traffic comes with problems like a lot of stuttering.
RealTraffic+PSXT could be the answer but I don’t know if this solution comes with the stuttering too. I will start another thread on the subject. Also, I’m not sure about the $10 monthly subscription price for such an occasionnal need.
But other than for this very specific and occasional need, the approximate way FS handles live traffic is good enough for me and the look of the aircraft, immersion with a decent ATC etc… will be a lot more important than the exact location of real aircraft. Just like what you say.
@CasualClick ok so yes I noticed the performance impact of FSLTL, but it seems to be ok on my rig. As in it’s comfortable with the amount of airplanes I want to display and the graphic settings I need to make the sim an enjoyable experience.