What is "Virtual Flight Online Transmitter" ?

It is a small Windows application that transmits your position in Microsoft Flight Simulator to an online database where your last reported position is held for 1 minute. The website then produces a live display of where everybody is, a radar display, and a "whazzup" formatted file that can be used by LittleNavMap to plot aircraft positions live on a map.

Why?

If you and your friends want to see each other on mapping software such as LittleNavMap to run your own air traffic control sessions for group flights, you will no doubt have discovered that Microsoft Flight Simulator only communicates AI aircraft to external mapping applications such as LittleNavMap - not users. The Virtual Flight Online Transmitter application addresses that.

How It Works

The desktop application connects to a running copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator via the SimConnect interface, and reads your aircraft's latitude, longitude, altitude, speed and type. It combines the data with your keyed callsign and name, and sends it to a server on the internet via the "Server URL" entered into the application.

The server then provides a URL that outputs all aircraft that have been updated in the last few seconds in "whazzup" format - a data format commonly used with the likes of VATSIM and IVAO - and crucially LittleNavMap. The URL of the server can be used to configure LittleNavMap to show you and your friends aircraft on the map.

Installing and running the Transmitter Client

In order to broadcast your position, you need the Transmitter client application. It connects to a running instance of Microsoft Flight Simulator via the SIMCONNECT API, and broadcasts your location and configured identity once per second to a server on the internet.

1. Download the installer from the link below:
   https://github.com/jonbeckett/virtualflightonlinetransmitter/releases/download/Transmitter/transmitter_installer_1.0.1.16.exe

2. Run the installer

3. Find "Transmitter" in your Start Menu, and run it

4. Enter the server URL and identity into Transmitter - the VirtualFlight.Online test server is as follows:
   https://transmitter.virtualflight.online/transmit.php
   - it has no pin number (at the moment)

5. Run the simulator first, then click the connect button on Transmitter

The transmitter client application will remember your server and identity information. While connected, it is transmitting your location in the simulator.

Viewing Live Aircraft

To view the positions of aircraft that are using transmitter, you can visit the following pages:

• Status

• Radar

Integrating with LittleNavMap

You can also integrate Transmitter with LittleNavMap - to show live aircraft positions on the map:

1. Run LittleNavMap

2. Click the "Tools" menu

3. Click "Options" in the Tools menu

4. Click "Online Flying" on the left side of the Options dialog

5. Select "Custom" in the "Online Service" section of the dialog

6. Populate the "Whazzup File URL" with https://transmitter.virtualflight.online/ivao.php
   (be careful you have no spaces on the start or end of the URL - use the test button to make sure it works)

7. Set "Update every" to 5 seconds

8. Set the "Format" to "IVAO"

9. Click the "Apply" button, then the "OK" button

You should now be able to toggle online aircraft on and off in the map with the red aircraft icon in the LittleNavMap toolbar.

A few notes...

• The radar display allows you to drag the labels of the aircraft around.

• Remember the radar display only updates every 5 seconds - so it might be a second or two after you start transmitting before you show up.

• If you disconnect Transmitter, your old location will show for a minute before vanishing.

• Stationary aircraft are shown as dots on the radar - moving aircraft as aircraft icons. If you click on them, they show further information.

• The latest version of the server uses APCu rather than MySQL to store aircraft positions. This means it's running in RAM, rather than using a database - so it should be MUCH faster.

• If you have any problems with it, remember it's a development version - the source code is available on Github if you want to see how it works.

• The development version is running on a DigitalOcean "basic" VM in the cloud, connected to a domain name via CloudFlare, SSL provided by Certbot.