TCAS

What does it look like? Does it work?

LiveTraffic's aircraft can be made available on your plane's TCAS and to other plugins, e.g. to display them on maps. Since X-Plane 11.50 there is a new dedicated mechanism for this purpose called TCAS Override. This new approach makes workarounds like configuring AI aircraft superfluous and allows to report up to 63 aircraft as compared to previously 19.

In earlier X-Plane versions (i.e. up to 11.41), LiveTraffic falls back to the previous way of emulating TCAS, which will require you to set up AI Aircraft in X-Plane's aircraft settings.

There might still be older software around that cannot deal with more than 19 active TCAS targets. Please update Little XPConnect, AviTab, and XHSI to latest versions, where this is fixed. A crash with FF A320 is being investigated.

Here are 4 screenshots showing off the functionality of TCAS and multiplayer planes:

TCAS, Map, Little Navmap, FS Tramp

Left: FS Tramp, Little NavMap, Right: X-Plane's internal Map and TCAS on Garmin

3rd party tools FSTramp and Little Navmap showing (up to 19) multiplayer planes, while X-Plane's internal map and TCAS implementation in the Garmin G1000 show all traffic.

Many Many TCAS blibs

Uncounted TCAS blibs on X-Plane's standard Garmin (Cirrus Vision SF50)

Showing off TCAS Override with uncounted (clearly more than 19) TCAS blibs...while there were no AI Aircraft configured.

Near Hit

TCAS display of Cirrus SF-50

What a dangerous situation looks like with another plane approaching and nearly hitting you...bad piloting skills 🤫

Very Close

TCAS display of Cirrus SF-50

What a dangerous situation looks like with another plane approaching and nearly hitting you...bad piloting skills 🤫

Does it work?

This list bases on feedback before introduction of TCAS Override. Consider it indicative only at the moment. TCAS Override has been designed with plugins using the classic multiplayer approach in mind, so one should expect that all implementations, which worked previously, will still work. But there are no guarantees as there might be sideeffects of the new way.

The following feedback I received. The last column "Uses TCAS Targets" tells you what we know about if that plane/tool is already adapted to use the up to 63 TCAS targets as data source, ideally with a specific versions since when it works.

Aircraft / Other Tool	OK?	X-Plane	OS	Uses TCAS Targets
Laminar Cirrus SF-50 Cessna Skyhawk (G1000)	OK	10+11	Win+Mac	Since XP11.50b8
Rotate MD-88	OK	11	Mac
FlyJSim 732	OK	11	Win+Mac
Zibo mod B737	OK	11	Win
IXEG 737	OK	11	Win
x737project	OK	11	Win-+Mac-Lin	Since v6.1
Flight Factor A320	Not OK	11	Win	CTD being investigated
Reality XP GTN 650+750	OK & Not OK	11	Win
X-TCAS (planes based on it)	OK	11	Win
X-Plane's internal map	OK	10+11	Win+Mac+Lin	Yes, XP11.50b8
Little Navmap (config)	OK	10+11	Win+Mac	Since Little XPConnect 1.0.25
Pilot 2 ATC	OK	11	Win	No & read note *)
FSTramp	OK	11	Win	No
ABC - A Better Circle	OK	11	Win+Mac	No
AviTab	OK	11	Win+Mac+Lin	Since v0.4.6

*) For Pilot2ATC there are reports that it would show no planes when no AI Aircraft are configured. This seems to be a bug in XPUIPC, which is used to connect Pilot2ATC to X-Plane. Until that is fixed you need to have AI Aircraft configured when Pilot2ATC starts up.