RealTraffic 11.1 User Manual

1. Getting Started

System Requirements

• Java 8 or later (bundled with macOS .app and Windows standalone .exe)
• Internet connection for live traffic data
• A valid RealTraffic license (Standard or Professional)

Installation

macOS

Open the downloaded DMG and drag RealTraffic Standalone.app into your Applications folder. The app bundles its own Java runtime—no separate Java installation required.

Windows

Run the downloaded .exe installer. The standalone version bundles Java; the standard version requires a separate Java 8+ installation.

Linux

Ensure Java 8+ is installed, then run java -jar RealTraffic.jar.

First Launch

1. On first launch you will be asked to accept the End-User License Agreement (EULA).
2. A dialog will prompt you to select your initial airport location from the Spotter/ATC location dropdown. The default is YSSY (Sydney).
3. Open Settings > License and enter your license name and key. Licenses can be purchased at flyrealtraffic.com.
4. Position and resize the application window, then click Save Settings.
5. Restart the application. Live traffic will begin appearing on the map within a few seconds.

License Editions

2. Main Window Overview

The RealTraffic window is organized into distinct zones from top to bottom:

Menu Bar

Settings Panel (collapsible)

The top area contains a collapsible Settings panel with a status label showing the current traffic count, connection state, and time information.

Time Controls Strip

A horizontal bar above the radar map containing the time offset slider, navigation buttons (Data Labels, Find Flight, Emergencies, time step buttons, Realtime, date picker), and label visibility controls. See Time Controls.

Radar Map Canvas

The central area is the radar display surface showing aircraft targets, navigation data, weather, and map tiles. This is where all interactive map operations take place (zooming, panning, clicking aircraft, etc.).

Navigation Overlay Strip

A bottom bar with checkboxes for toggling map overlays (MVA, Rings, APTs, waypoints, airways, etc.), zoom buttons (+ / -), and the Display Colours and Procs buttons.

Satellite / Map Strip

The lowest bar with satellite imagery type and opacity controls, OSM/map tile style selection, and the OpenAIP overlay checkbox.

3. Connecting to a Simulator

Open Settings > Standard Settings to configure the operating mode and simulator connection.

Operating Modes

The RealTraffic operating mode dropdown sets which simulator environment you are using:

Host & Port

Simulator Host IP: The IP address or hostname of the machine running your simulator. Use localhost or 127.0.0.1 if the simulator is on the same machine.

Port: The TCP port for the simulator connection. Default is 10747.

Broadcast Options

Display Delay

When using PSXT or LiveTraffic, the simulator buffers traffic before displaying it. RealTraffic can delay its own map display to match what the simulator shows. PSXT now handles its own buffering (0 s delay in RT), while LiveTraffic uses an 85-second delay. During the initial buffer fill, a red BUFFERING TRAFFIC, X SECONDS REMAINING countdown is shown.

4. Map Display

Zooming

• Mouse wheel: Scroll up to zoom in, scroll down to zoom out.
• Buttons: Click + or - in the navigation overlay strip.
• Keyboard: Press + or - anywhere in the application.

The zoom range goes from 0.02 NM/pixel (extremely close) to 200 NM across the screen width. Step sizes adapt to the current zoom level—fine steps when zoomed in, larger steps when zoomed out.

Panning

Click and drag on the map to pan. The map follows the mouse cursor smoothly.

Aircraft Targets

Each aircraft is rendered as a directional symbol on the map with configurable data labels (see Aircraft Labels). The symbol rotates to match the aircraft's track. Parked and ground traffic use a distinct color.

Projected Track Line (PTL)

When enabled in Display Settings, a line extends ahead of each aircraft showing its projected position at 30 s, 1, 2, 4, or 8 minutes. The line can optionally curve based on the aircraft's rate of turn (from ADS-B Extended data or calculated from successive positions).

History Dots

Trailing dots show each aircraft's recent positions (5–20 dots, configurable in Display Settings).

Weather Overlay

The top-left corner of the map displays real-time weather data including the nearest airport, transition altitude/level, QNH, wind, temperature, ISA deviation, tropopause altitude, and cloud layers. See Weather Display.

5. Navigation Overlays

The bottom navigation overlay strip provides checkboxes to toggle map layers from the navigation database:

Procedures (Procs Button)

Click the Procs button to open a tree panel where you can toggle individual SID, STAR, and Approach procedures per airport. Each procedure is drawn as a line on the map showing the lateral flight path with waypoint labels. Procedures use distinct colors (configurable via Display Colours).

6. Aircraft Labels

Each aircraft on the map displays a multi-line data label. Labels are fully customizable using the Data Labels button in the time controls strip.

Label Layout

Labels have 4 lines, each with up to 6 data fields and 5 divider characters between them. This gives you great flexibility in arranging what data is shown.

Available Data Fields

Divider Characters

Between fields you can place a divider: space, /, -, |, (, or ).

Presets

• Load rich default — A comprehensive label layout with callsign, heading, speed, altitude, wind, and more.
• Load sparse default — A minimal layout showing just callsign, speed, altitude, and distance.
• Save / Load user labels — Save your custom layout and restore it later.

Click Preview to see changes immediately without closing the dialog, or Save to confirm.

Label Positioning

By default, labels appear in a standard position relative to the aircraft symbol. You can reposition labels in two ways:

• Right-click an aircraft: A label picker ring appears with 8 directional positions (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW). Click the desired quadrant to lock the label there.
• Left-drag a label: Freely position the label by dragging it to any location on the map.

Label Visibility

The label visibility dropdown in the time controls strip filters which labels are shown:

• Show all — All aircraft labels visible
• Airborne only — Hide labels for ground traffic
• Ground only — Hide labels for airborne traffic
• Hide all — No labels shown
• Only traffic to/from my destination — Show labels only for traffic sharing your destination
• ±3000ft of my altitude — Show labels only for traffic within 3000 ft of your altitude

7. Aircraft Detail Panel

Left-click any aircraft on the map to open its detail panel. This is an overlay panel drawn directly on the map canvas near the aircraft.

Displayed Information

Header

• IATA and ICAO callsign (e.g., QF881 / QFA881)
• Airline name and prefix (e.g., Qantas (QFA))
• Transponder code (e.g., XPDR: 1203)

Basic Data

• Reg: Registration / Hex ID (e.g., VH-OQA / 7C6DB4)
• From: Departure airport with full name and city
• To: Destination airport with full name and city
• Type: Aircraft type, manufacturer, model, category, engines (e.g., B789 / Boeing 787-9 / L 2 engine JET)

Flight Data

• GS: Ground speed in knots
• Alt: Corrected altitude with climb/descend indicator and vertical speed
• ADS-B: Raw pressure altitude (when available)
• QNH: QNH source (METAR or GFS), altitude correction applied

Extended ADS-B Data (when available)

• IAS/TAS/M: Indicated airspeed, true airspeed, and Mach number
• Nav: QNH setting, MCP altitude, FMS altitude
• Modes: Active autopilot modes (althold, lnav, vnav, etc.)
• Wind: Wind direction/speed, OAT, and TAT
• Cat: ADS-B emitter category
• Msg: ADS-B message type

Action Buttons

Panel Interaction

• Drag the panel header to reposition it on the map.
• The panel live-updates every paint frame—data stays current without re-clicking.
• Right-click anywhere or scroll the mouse wheel to dismiss the panel.

8. Airport & Navaid Info Panel

Left-click on an airport, VOR, NDB, or waypoint symbol on the map (when no aircraft is nearby) to open its info panel.

Airport Info

For airports, the panel shows:

• Airport ICAO code and full name
• Runway information including length (in feet and meters)
• Available approach procedures, each clickable to toggle on/off

When you click an approach procedure, its lateral path is drawn on the map with waypoint labels. Click it again to hide it.

Navaid Info

For VORs, NDBs, and waypoints, the panel displays the identifier, name, frequency (where applicable), and coordinates.

Click anywhere outside the panel to dismiss it.

9. Time Controls

The time controls strip appears above the radar map when connected to the RealTraffic server. Time offset features require a Professional license.

Time Offset Slider

A horizontal slider ranging from 0 to 1440 minutes (24 hours), allowing you to view historical traffic up to 24 hours in the past. Tick marks appear at 60-minute intervals with labels every 3 hours.

The label above the slider shows:

• At zero: "Time offset into the past: None (Realtime traffic)"
• When offset: "Offset: X hours Y minutes. Traffic and weather at YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS UTC / LT"

Time Step Buttons

Date Picker

A calendar date picker that lets you select a specific date to view historical traffic from. Standard license users are restricted to today's date only.

Simulator-Controlled Time

In Settings > Advanced Weather/Time, you can enable Simulator controls time offset. When checked, PSX sends time offset commands and the manual slider and buttons are disabled.

Other Controls in This Strip

10. Search & Emergency Windows

Find Flight

Click Find flight… to open the search window. You can search for aircraft worldwide using any of these fields:

• Callsign
• From (departure airport)
• To (destination airport)
• Type (ICAO aircraft type code)
• Tail (registration)
• XPDR (transponder/squawk code)
• HexID (ICAO 24-bit address)

Enter your search term, select the field to search, and click Search. Results appear in a sortable table showing:

Hex | Callsign | From | To | Type | Tail | Alt | VS | Spd | Trk | XPDR | Latitude | Longitude

The result count is displayed below the table.

In Spotter Mode or ATC Mode, select a result and click Center on selected flight to jump the map to that aircraft's position.

Emergency Window

Click Emergencies… to open the emergency tracking window. It displays aircraft currently squawking emergency transponder codes:

The window has two sections:

Current Emergencies

A live table showing all aircraft currently squawking an emergency code, with columns for hex ID, callsign, origin, destination, type, tail, altitude, vertical speed, speed, track, transponder code, and position.

On the map, aircraft with emergency codes are tagged with *EM in their label.

Emergency History (Last 7 Days)

A historical log showing past emergencies with start/end times and duration. Ongoing emergencies show "Ongoing" in the end-time column.

The Center on selected flight button (Spotter/ATC Mode only) can jump the map to a current emergency, or for historical entries, fetch the last known position and set the time offset to when the emergency occurred.

11. Display Settings

Open Settings > Advanced Settings to configure display parameters.

12. ATC Settings

Open Settings > ATC Settings to configure Air Traffic Control features. These settings are most relevant in ATC Mode but some apply in all modes.

VFR Squawk Codes

Enter comma-separated VFR squawk codes (e.g., 1200,3000). Aircraft squawking these codes are treated as VFR traffic for alert filtering.

Altitude Alerts (MVA/MORA)

Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA)

STCA continuously monitors all traffic pairs and issues alerts when projected separation falls below defined minimums.

ATC Traffic Filtering

13. GDL90 / EFB Integration

RealTraffic can broadcast ADS-B traffic data in GDL90 format to Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) applications on tablets and phones.

How to Enable

1. In Standard Settings, check Enable GDL90 broadcast to EFB apps.
2. Ensure your EFB device is on the same network as the computer running RealTraffic.
3. In your EFB app, enable the GDL90 / Stratux / ADS-B data source option.
4. RealTraffic automatically discovers EFB clients that broadcast on UDP port 63093.

EFB Settings

Open Settings > EFB Settings for fine-tuning:

GDL90 Messages Sent

RealTraffic sends the following GDL90 messages every second:

Compatible EFB Apps

14. Satellite & Map Overlays

The bottom satellite/map strip provides controls for layering imagery over the radar display.

Satellite Imagery (Pro License)

Select a satellite overlay from the dropdown:

Opacity: Adjust from 10% to 100% in 10% steps.

Animate: Check Animate 5 frames to cycle through the 5 most recent satellite images as an animation, showing weather movement over time.

The status label shows the satellite data timestamp and age.

Map Tiles

Select a map tile style from the dropdown:

Opacity: Adjust from 10% to 100% (default: 70%).

A progress label shows "Loading..." while tiles are being fetched.

OpenAIP Overlay

Check Overlay OpenAIP to layer OpenAIP aviation chart data on top of the selected map style. This adds airspace boundaries, frequencies, and other aviation-specific features. The checkbox is disabled when no map style is selected or when OpenAIP is already the selected style.

15. Color Customization

Click Display Colours in the navigation overlay strip to open the color customization dialog.

Preset Color Schemes

Individual Color Elements

After selecting a preset (or from scratch), you can customize each element individually by clicking its color button:

16. Weather Display

RealTraffic fetches real-world weather data every 10 seconds and displays it on the map.

Weather Information Overlay

The top-left corner of the map shows real-time weather data in three lines:

NRST APT: YSSY  TA: 10000  TL: FL110,  NRST WX: YSSY
QNH: 1013.2  WIND: 270/15  OAT: -56.0C  ISA+0.0 @ FL350  TP: FL360
CLOUD: <FL120: 30%  <FL240: 10%  >FL240: 0%  PRECIP: 0.0 mm/h

• NRST APT: Nearest airport and its transition altitude (TA) and level (TL)
• NRST WX: Nearest METAR-reporting station
• QNH: Local altimeter setting (from nearest METAR or GFS model)
• WIND: Wind direction/speed at your altitude
• OAT: Outside air temperature and ISA deviation
• TP: Tropopause altitude
• CLOUD: Cloud cover at three altitude bands (low, mid, high) with percentages
• PRECIP: Precipitation rate in mm/h

QNH Altitude Correction

RealTraffic corrects aircraft pressure altitudes using local QNH data. The correction source is shown in the aircraft detail panel:

• METAR source: Uses the nearest airport's METAR QNH (most accurate)
• GFS source: Falls back to GFS model QNH when no nearby METAR is available
• No correction (STD): Standard pressure (1013.25 hPa) when no QNH data exists

Weather Injection

In Settings > Advanced Weather/Time, you can enable weather injection and SIGMET forwarding to the simulator:

Options:

• Inject advanced weather (PSX and LiveTraffic only): Sends real-world weather parameters (winds, temperature, pressure, visibility) to the connected simulator so the simulated weather matches the real traffic.
• Inject SIGMETs (PSX only): Forwards SIGMET (Significant Meteorological Information) data to the simulator. SIGMETs are fetched from the server every 10 minutes. Click Refresh SIGMETs now to force an immediate update.

Weather Broadcast

Full weather data (QNH, METAR, local weather model) is broadcast via UDP on port 49004 every 10 seconds, for use by third-party applications.

17. Spotter Mode & ATC Mode

Spotter Mode and ATC Mode allow you to observe traffic from a fixed ground location without a connected simulator.

Setting Up

1. In Standard Settings, set the operating mode to Spotter Mode or ATC Mode.
2. Select an airport from the Spotter/ATC location dropdown. Type a letter to jump to airports starting with that letter.
3. Alternatively, enter manual coordinates:

Spotter Mode

A simple observation mode for watching traffic from a fixed location. The Follow button in the aircraft detail panel lets you track a specific aircraft as it moves.

ATC Mode

An advanced observation mode with additional ATC-specific features:

• MVA/MORA altitude alerts — Red *ALT warnings for aircraft below safe altitudes
• STCA conflict detection — Alerts when projected traffic separation falls below configurable minimums
• Altitude filtering — Show only traffic within a specified flight-level band
• Ground traffic toggle — Include or exclude taxiing/parked aircraft
• Follow button — Track a specific aircraft across the display

All ATC alert parameters are configurable via Settings > ATC Settings. See ATC Settings for details.

18. Advanced Topics

LAN Mode

LAN Mode (Pro license required) lets multiple RealTraffic instances on the same local network share their simulated aircraft positions. Each instance appears as traffic on the other instances' maps.

Open Settings > LAN Mode Settings to configure:

Own Aircraft Identity

In the Standard Settings panel, you can set your own aircraft's identity for LAN mode and XTRAFFIC broadcasts:

• Inject own aircraft — Sends your simulated aircraft into the real traffic stream
• Show other simulated traffic — Displays simulated aircraft (hex IDs > 0xFF0000) on the map
• Configurable callsign, type, registration, departure, and destination

Network Ports

Settings File Location

Files in the Settings Directory

Custom Places

You can define custom locations that appear in the Spotter/ATC location airport dropdown alongside the navigation database airports. Create a file called customplaces.json in the settings directory with the following JSON format:

{
  "MYSPOT": {
    "name": "My Spotting Location",
    "lat": -33.9461,
    "lon": 151.1772,
    "hdg": 340
  },
  "TOWER1": {
    "name": "Sydney Approach North",
    "lat": -33.7500,
    "lon": 151.2000,
    "hdg": 180
  },
  "HOME": {
    "name": "Home Base",
    "lat": 51.4775,
    "lon": -0.4614,
    "hdg": 270
  }
}

Each entry requires:

Custom places appear in the airport dropdown as MYSPOT My Spotting Location and are drawn on the map as small circles with their key and name labels when the APTs overlay is enabled. The file is read at startup — restart RealTraffic after editing it.

Debug Mode

Debug mode produces detailed log files for troubleshooting. To enable it, create a directory named debug<N> in the settings folder, where N is a bitmask of the debug categories you want:

Common Debug Configurations

Examples:

# macOS / Linux
mkdir ~/Documents/.InsideSystems/debug127

# Windows (Command Prompt)
mkdir %AppData%\InsideSystems\debug127

Log files are written to the settings directory with timestamped names like 2024-01-15T12_30_00Z_RealTraffic_debug.log.

To disable debug mode, delete the debug<N> directory and restart RealTraffic.

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