I recently discovered the Traffic Explorer, which is a part of the SDK. Not many people seem to know about this,
so I thought I would make a tutorial for how to use it.
First, let's get nailed down what Traffic Explorer is:
Traffic Explorer is a part of the SDK. It allows you to manipulate traffic in FSX, like placing aircraft,
AI aicraft with flight plans and the like.
For an example, it can be used to take shots like these (shameless self-advertisement
):
In the pic, Traffic Explorer was used to place 2 F-86F Sabres, so the shot could be taken.
Pretty much all you will need for Traffic Explorer, is the SDK (Software Development Kit), which is included
with Flight Simulator X: Deluxe.
To install the SDK, pop install disc 1 of FSX, into your drive. Instead of running the installer however,
open it up in Windows Explorer.
Scroll down, locate the SDK setup file, and run that.
You might wanna download some service packs from www.fsinsider.com, and if you got Acceleration, install the SDK
on that as well. It's a kinda complicated process though, but the installer should run you through it more or less.
Ready? Let's get started!!!
The first step (following that you have the SDK installed), is to open up explorer.
On for Vista users, find C:/Users/*Your user*/AppData('show hidden files' must be on)/Roaming/Microsoft/FSX.
For XP users the path is C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX
(Thanks to ShaneG for the XP path)
Find the dll.xml file, and open it up in notepad. It should look like this:
See the three 'True' tags I've drawn red circles around? You must change these to 'False' (no '). It should now look like this:
Now, open up FSX, and go to Realism Settings. You need to uncheck the 'Detect crashes with other aircraft' box. Now, boot up a flight of your choice.
When you're where you wanna be, press the Y key to enter slew mode, and pause the simulator. Now press the 'Alt' key, for the top menu to drop down. Because you changed the tags above,
you will now have a section called 'Tools'. Click it, choose 'Traffic Toolbox' and 'Explorer':
FSX will now go to windowed mode, and the Traffic Explorer will appear. You will see a list of all the loaded AI planes,
and you can change, or delete them for that matter:
But what we wanna do, is right-click, and choose 'Create'
A new box will pop up:
Follow the red circles (set 'Bypass ATC', and choose 'Select Coords'. Then check the 'User aircraft' box. Remember to choose the aircraft you want)
Click 'Ok' through it, and though you won't see it, you just spawned an aircraft inside yourself.
Now, you may be tempted to unpause, but don't do that yet, or the plane will shoot away.
Instead, find it in the traffic list, right click and check 'Enable Slew':
Now you can unpause the game, and slew yourself into position:
But we want a little more action, so we're gonna change the bank and altitude.
Again, find it in the AI list, right click and choose 'Set Position':
You must change the circled things here. The altitude is a little lower, because a plane will naturally lose altitude,
when banking in the manner we want it to.
For the bank:
The bank goes from 0 - 359,99999. You must think of the number of degrees you set as a left roll. Ie. with 90 degrees set,
the plane will be banking 90 degrees to the left, so you need to set 270 for a 90 degree bank to the right.
I've set it to 320 degrees.
And that's it, there's your shot!
Any questions, I'll be happy to answer to the best of my ability
101 tutorial (I've only now discovered, that the term was used in the wrong context... this is actually more advanced) http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 648246/2#2
8-)
Gauge Programming - 3d Modeling Eaglesoft Development Group 
