Aircraft Information Window

Getting detailed information about aircrafts

LiveTraffic can show aircraft information and updated flight data. Note that the current flight data (like position, speed, altitude and so on) represent the aircraft as shown in X-Plane. This is supposingly very close to reality, but LiveTraffic certainly needs to interpolate between available data points, so there is some degree of freedom. And it lacks the buffering time (see config) behind real time anyway.

All menu items mentioned here can be bound to keyboard shortcuts or joystick buttons.

Opening an A/C Info Window

There are two relevant menu items:

• Plugin > LiveTraffic > Aircraft Info... for a window inside X-Plane

• Plugin > LiveTraffic > Aircraft Info... (Popped out) for creating a popped out window in a native operating system window, which could be moved anywhere. It makes most sense if you have and use for this purpose a monitor, which is not filled by X-Plane, e.g. if you keep one monitor for flight planner, moving map or the like. Otherwise the popped out window would become hidden behind X-Plane once X-Planes gets the focus - just like any other window as well. (Note that currently the initial position of any new window might not be optimal and you might need to drag it out of a corner to see it completely.)

Several aircraft information windows can be opened in parallel, just select the above menu items as often as you like. To move the window around drag it by the title bar. To close a window click on the cross symbols in the top corners. (In VR the crosses may not appear, still, clicking these spots closes the window.) To close all windows select Close All Windows from LiveTraffic's menu. You can also hide/show all windows with the Aircraft Info Shown menu item.

Aircraft Information Window

See below for a detailed description of each field.

With the checkboxes at the bottom you can switch to an external view sitting behind the plane's tail, or control if the aircraft is visible vs. hidden.

The [?] button opens this help document in your default browser.

AUTO mode

A/C Info Windows always open in AUTO mode, i.e. they display information on the nearest aircraft roughly in the direction of the camera (even if it might not currently be visible on the screen because it is way below/above the camera).

If the window is in AUTO mode the title ends on "(AUTO)" and the AUTO checkbox is enabled.

You can re-enter AUTO mode by

• entering the text AUTO into the A/C key field.

• enabling the AUTO checkbox next to the A/C key field.

Locked mode

In locked mode the currently shown aircraft will be retained no matter where the camera points to, as long as the aircraft is displayed in LiveTraffic.

You can just remove the checkmark from the AUTO checkbox to lock the currently selected aircraft.

Or you can select any specific aircraft for display by entering an id into the first field A/C key. Type in any one of the following and LiveTraffic searches for a match once you hit [Enter]:

• transponder hex code

• registration (tail number)

• call sign

• flight number

• squawk code

• index within LiveTraffic, which is just an arbitrary number starting with one up to the number of displayed aircrafts (and is not currently stable, i.e. with aircrafts appearing and disappearing one particular aircraft might have a different index any time), it is mostly meant to search around for something interesting.

Displayed Information

Note that some lines are split into two fields. The label is then divided by a vertical bar |.

ld	Example	Content
		Static Data:
A/C key	04C118	Transponder hex code uniquely identifying an aircraft (strictly speaking: its transponder)
Registr.	5Y-KZB	Registration / tail number
ICAO Type	B788	Unique, ICAO-defined identifier for the type of aircraft, like A388 or SR20. See the ICAO DOC8643 aircraft type designators for a list. This code is received from the tracking data and plays an important role in CSL model matching, i.e. influences heavily how the aircraft is rendered in X-Plane. "?" if there was no ICAO type in the received tracking data.
Class	L2J	ICAO-defined aircraft class: L - Land plane, H - Helicopter, S - Sea plane, and others. 1,2,3,4... - numer of engines J - Jet, P - Piston, T - Turbo, E - Electric, and others
Manufacturer	Boeing	Human-readable, ie. non-standardized text who the manufacturer was
Model	787 8	Human-readable, ie. non-standardized text about the aircraft model
Operator	KQA Kenya Airways	ICAO-defined identifier of the operator of the aircraft, often an airline, plus its human-readable text
CSL Model	B788_AAL	Actual CSL model currently used for rendering this aircraft within X-Plane. This is one of those you installed with the CSL packages.
Call Sign	KQA311	Call sign used in radio communication. For airliners this often gives away the flight number, but this is just convention and no guarantee.
Squawk	6206	The flight's current squawk code.
Flight: Route	KQ311: OMDB-HKJK	Flight number: Departure Airport - Arrival Airport All of this is community-maintained data from the tracking data and might be inaccurate .
		Dynamic Data, updated every second. Note that all this data refers to LiveTraffic's modeling. This is supposingly close to reality, but not real.
Simulated Time		This is the ZULU time currently simulated, which should be current real time minus the buffering period.
Last Data	+87.4	Number of seconds into the future (+) or in the past (-) of the last available position information. If this number is positive then there is future data available and the plane will keep moving at least until then. If the number is negative then we already ran out of tracking data and the plane will disappear soon if no more data is received.
Chnl	OpenSky Live	The channel which currently feeds the aircraft, which will be either "ADS-B Exchange" or "OpenSky".
Position	25.2660 N 55.3484 E	Current aircrafts positions (latitude / longitude).
Bearing	302	Look into this direction to see the aircraft, based on your current camera position.
Distance	0.0	The plane is this many nautical miles away from your current camera position.
Flight Phase	Initial Climb	Current flight phase like Take Off, Climb, Cruise, Approach...
Gear	0.6	Gear position: 0 - fully retracted, 1 - fully deployed
Flaps	0.5	Flap position: 0 - fully retracted, 1 - fully deployed
Lights	nav/bcn/ strb/taxi/lnd	Indicates which lights are on: nav - navigation lights bcn - beacon strb - Strobe taxi - Taxi Lights (not all CSL models show taxi lights) lnd - Landing Lights
Heading	302	...in degrees. Note that LiveTraffic does currently not distinguish between track and heading in flight.
Pitch	10	Pitch angle in degrees
Roll	0	Roll angle in degrees
Altitude	291	...in feet.
AGL	262	Height above ground level in feet, or GND_ON if on the ground.
Speed	176	knots over ground.
VSI	2295	ft/min vertical descend (negative) / climb (positive) rate.