Built for X-Plane 12 • Windows
Over 600.000 real-world flights!
Virtual Air Traffic.
Transform your sim with thousands of dynamic aircraft, seamlessly integrated into X-Plane for authentic sequencing and real-world vectoring. Vat is completely FREE!
✓ Over 600 supported airports worldwide.✓ Traffic schedules refreshed continuously.✓ Dynamic injection (no fixed positions) .✓ True 3D airspace modelling with sequencing!✓ Support for both X-CSL and Bluebell models.
Latest updates
September 12, 2026 - New BETA release: 0.7.9.
Beta 0.7.9 spawned into existence!. To download, go here.
- Initial compatibility with Xplane 12.4.4 beta.
- Improved taxi logic to prevent some planes getting stuck on certain situations.
- Improved the way planes exit the runway after landing, taking the first runway exit and only backtrack when passed that last exit.
- Improved pushback OR taxi straight out behaviour, for example at LFMN - taxiway U. (WIP)
- Improved model matching to not allow for (identical) special liveries to be spawned twice per airport.
- Improved ground probing and pitch correction for planes on sloped terrain.
- Improved landing runway rudder corrections to better stay on the runway centerline in crosswind conditions.
- Improved taxi logic to take corners a bit more natural (WIP).
- Improved arrival logic to better separate planes on approach: increased minimal separation to 8nm and planes go-around if a future runway conflict is detected early on their approach.
- Improved (GPU) memory management.
- Improved parsing of custom scenery(ignoring orphaned nodes).
- Improved wake turbulence generated by planes.
- Improved label visuals: changed color of plane labels to VAT branded-colors and added distance-based transparancy.
- Optimized performance of the airports tab and it's search function in the interface.
- Various performance improvements overall: Moved SID parsing to a background thread. Stutter-police came by and fixed some edge-cases which caused airplane spawn stutters.
- Added planes taxiing to the TCAS override system, so that they are visible on the TCAS display when taxiing. Added Mode-S ground-mode for this, next to TA/RA for stuff flying. Remember: x-plane offers 64 TCAS slots so in busy environments, flying planes get priority over taxiing ones and those might get dropped.
- Added 'follow' and 'remove' buttons and mouseover hints to the plane labels' for quick access on mouseover (but will remain hidden on minimized label setting).
- Added the landing runway designator to the plane label when landing. (example: "Landing at 36R")
- Added a cleanup routine for planes in stalled or arrived status, making them available for next flights / returns again.
- Added aircraft type ICAO to planes label.
- Added state 'boarding' to planes label.
- Added state 'preparing to taxi' to planes label.
- Added flight control check during 'preparing to taxi stage'. Note: many X-CSL models do not support aileron/elevator animations, unfortunately. If they are there, they will move!
- Added mouse scrollwheel functionality in the interface tables.
- Added plugin pause ability (in sync with the sim's pause state).
- Added setting to (temporary) hide planes. Note: this setting is also key-bindable.
- Added automatically refreshing of simbrief data.
- Pilots at takeoff will use more variety in their takeoff roll waits (pilotbehaviour).
- Pilots at takeoff will use more variety in raising their gear after TO (pilotbehaviour).
- ATC: If a head-on deadlock of planes occurs, ATC will request one of the planes to re-calculate and backtrack their position.
- ATC: is a bit more relaxed on letting planes cross active runways when a plane is on final.
- ATC: is a bit more relaxed on letting planes pass more closely to a player which is still on the gate.
- Fix: edgecase issue where both ends of one physical runway were used for takeoff and landings.
- Fix: edgecase where a plane could spawn too close to the player causing wingtip collisions.
- Fix: planes on takeoff had a small altitude dip at around 1500ft agl and wrong pitch angle on transition.
- Fix: VR specific fixes for a boxel-pixel offset causing mouse-events not to be registered properly in the interface window.
- Fix: Static planes may despawn and not reappear correctly because of xplane visual culling.
- Fix: scheduled cargo flights could still spawn on airline gates on edge-cases.
- Fix: Flights could disappear from the arrival board directly after touchdown.
- Disabled plane orbiting on the custom camera and fixed a small jitter issue when releasing RMB.
September 4, 2026 - New BETA release: 0.7.8.
Beta 0.7.8 is released!. To download, go here.
- Improved the crash-handler to properly escalate application crashes up the chain (credits to Jim Keir).
- Improved the external camera to allow for zooming.
- Improved weather handling at airports to improve active runway selection. (simbrief info will still keep priority over weather info for active runway selection)
- Improved runway selection code to account for extremely short or non-pavement runways.
- Improved ground logic to make planes taxi more straight on the centerline of taxiways.
- Improved take-off logic to prevent planes from having too much drift on the runway during strong crosswind conditions.
- Airport fill percentages now follow the airport's natural flow cycle better (in general: more planes parked at night, less planes during the day. Cargo terminals: vice versa).
- Upgraded Simbrief integration code to json v2.
- The arrival board now shows delayed planes on top.
- Increased the speed of planes on a departure to better match their real-world speeds.
- Added rudder deflection animations on takeoff and landing in line with pilot heading corrections and weather/crosswind conditions.
- Fixed an issue with parked aircraft landing gear looking all weird for some specific X-CSL models.
- Fixed an issue with departing planes aligning on the runway chasing a last taxi node causing weird turns. (examples: ZBAA 36R, EDDB 24L, KMIA 12)
- Fixed an issue with scheduled departures not spawning at some airports (example: EGLL).
Built for realism. Optimized for performance.
Features
"Intelligent, real-world traffic that transforms every X-Plane flight into a living aviation experience."
Fully animated models.
Detailed flaps, gear, spoiler and other model animations fully working on all injected models. VAT currently uses either X-CSL or Bluebell models.
Real-world traffic schedules.
Wordwide coverage of true-to-life flight schedules. We use multiple sources, including operator websites to gather current traffic schedules and keep the traffic around you up-to-date.
Full TCAS integration.
We have fully implemented the 'TCAS Override' functionality in VAT. This will allow X-Plane to display your traffic on X-Plane’s default navdisplays, the G1000, the map and IOS console and also disseminate the information via ADS-B output to external EFB apps like FlyQ and ForeFlight.
Advanced traffic sequencing
Arriving aircraft are sequenced around eachother and around you! Traffic arriving on final will follow a sequencing algorithm to make sure planes are separated by accepted minimums. (this is currently a BETA feature.)
Advanced model matching
Airports have operators on them which you would expect. Multiple iterations of model-matching are implemented to have a fallback in case a livery for the airline and plane combination is not available.
Built fully in native C++
All code is written in C++ and contains some parts of optimized X86 assembly where appropriate to maximize performance and minimize stutters.
Full feature list
FAQs
Find out about the product, plans and development. For support questions, please contact us through support.
What is Virtual Air Traffic?
Virtual Air Traffic is a real-world flight injection and airport operations system for X-Plane 12, designed to bring believable airline traffic, sequencing, and TCAS integration to your sim.
I saw plane X flying over Denmark, but in reallife it is already over Finland ?
Other traffic injection plugins project reallife traffic 1-on-1 into the sim. While this makes for ultra realistic ingame traffic (the plane is at the exact same position in-sim as it is in reallife) it makes it difficult for traffic sequencing to take place, especially around the player's position. Virtual Air Traffic knows the exact schedule of virtually all aircraft departing worldwide and simulates aircraft movements in our own 3d-space virtual environment. It's the Matrix all over again! Virtual Air Traffic simulates where the aircraft would be according to reallife departure times and even makes periodic corrections to those positions by tracking real-time flight data. It then injects aircraft close enough to the player in the Sim. When the plane is in the sim the plane becomes 'alive' and is tracked by the plugin's virtual pilot. The flight is then flown by the plugin until it reaches the gate.
Does VAT uses X-plane's AI system?
No, we do not. While that system is great, it does come with some limitations preventing us from doing what we want - and that is to support potentially thousands of ingame flights. VAT comes with it's own AI system flying the planes once in-game.
Is VAT complex to use?
No, it is most certainly not. One of the design principles is that the Plugin must be easy to use, while staying powerfull in its effect. Basically there is no setup required: just install the plugin and start your flight as you normally would. Give it a few seconds and the world will automatically fill with aircraft of all kinds of operators. For the switch-flippers out there we do have an ingame UI where traffic can be viewed through a departure and arrival board and where performance related tweaks can be configured. It is also recommended to setup the Simbrief integration here as it will allow runway usage to sync up with you pre-filed flightplan.
What are the system requirements?
This product is specifically written for Xplane-12 and supports Windows only. There are plans to make it compatible for both Mac and Linux users, but a specific timeframe has not yet been determined. Rendering loads of models and calculating realtime position movements for potentially thousands of planes can burn some CPU, so we recommend a modern CPU (Intel 12th generation or up or AMD AM5 and upwards sockets) to make full use of the plugin. Memory usage is kept to a minimum, but 32GB+ is still recommended to keep some room left for the sim as well.. ;)
Is VAT free of charge?
Yes! VirtualAirTraffic comes free of charge! You are free to donate through paypal (QR is in the plugin's menu windows) which helps support development and to keep the flight-schedules up-to-date.
Will it impact performance?
Rendering planes comes with a performance hit, but keeping things run smoothly is a core priority to us. VAT is built in native C++ with optimization work focused on minimizing stutters and keeping traffic smooth even in busy areas. You can adjust performance sliders through the plugin menu system.
Is VR supported?
Yes! VAT fully supports VR where planes, contrails and other models are fully visible in VR as well. The menu system is also accessible for VR users. Please note that aircraft labels are not visible in VR currently, due to a limitation in the X-plane windowing subsystem.