As I see it, our only real options for true to life AI traffic are: a) Ultimate Traffic :( MyTraffic 2004 c) Project AI (with modified flightplans and added various aircraft and flightplans that they don't yet have. I'm just curious, and I hope you will respond. What do the majority of you use for your AI traffic? I ask because I like the idea of thre freeware concept of PAI, but I would also like to add in some smaller regional carriers, etc, and I'm not exactly sure how painstaking of a project this is using TTools, and adding in extra aircraft and modifying FDE's, etc. All input would be most appreciated. Happy flying!

Ultimate Traffic, bar none. Love it.Kenneth

Hi,I'll just say that I like MyTraffic 2004. It's easy, you just install it and boom, your done. It does come with a traffic editor which I've never fiddled with. I just wanted traffic for dummies. There are differences between MyTraffic and Utilamte Traffic and I suggest that you read the review of MyTraffic at www.simflight.com I'll just add that I prefer MyTraffic because it includes General Aviation traffic (which I don't think UT has) and has more traffic around the clock since it's not based on real world flight plans. I have read that both programs are excellent to have though and either one (or both) is worthy of purchasing.Regards,Jim

I vote for Ultimate Traffic. It does everything very well and the FS9 version should be available in the next week. I love to fly my British Air Virtual flights and hear ATC give instructions to the "other" aircraft flying the route.JohnCaptainBAV317

UT uses real world schedules reported by the airlines.Patch should be out for this weekend's flying fun! :-)http://fsgateway.com/frank/fs9paibeta.jpg

In my opinion, if you have the time, then FSPainter and AIAardvark aircraft, together with Project AI aircraft for those FSP and AIA doesn't have, and Most Realistic AI Flightplans is the best combination for AI traffic. It also gives you the BEST framerates since FSP and especially AIA aircraft are lighter on FPS than PAI. Reason why its the best is because its all FREE. Basically you get the same quality as Ultimate Traffic for free.If you dont have the time or aren't the kind of person that likes to do these things yourself, then Ultimate Traffic is the best option.Even though you have Ultimate Traffic you will still have to install some PAI or AIA airplanes youself since Flight1 didn't include all airplanes (for example, there are no ERJ145s....only CRJs). However, the best feature of UT is the interface that makes making changes really easy.I went the free route until UT came out, then I bought it and that's what I use now.

Amen!Wolfgang

Anthony,Once you have downloaded many different types of aircraft, and MANY different liveries and flight plans, how technical and/or difficult is it really to set all of this up going the free route? I too am very much interested in UT (especially with the pending patch due out any day now), but am swayed slightly more in the "freeware" direction due to a) I'm a tightwad :-), and :( I also want to be able to add a good mix of general aviation and possibly military traffic. I know MyTraffic adds these two other types of traffic, but from what I have been seeing and reading, the quality of their aircraft (visually) is inferior to that found in UT or directly from PAI and/or AIA. Thanks for the post.

Well its not difficult or technical at all. TTools and AITM are required...both freeware. AITM really helps, but I never really used it, prefering to do everything manually.The TTools tutorial has a really nice explanation of all the technical issues involved. The learning curve is really shallow.The problem is that its really time consuming. The real reason why I bought UT is because I realised that I was spending too much time setting up AI and hardly any time flying.Of course, AITM can also cut down on that time, but I have never regretted buying UT.If you dont want UT and are willing to devote the time, you can have the same quality AI in your FS setup as UT.

Thanks Anthony, up until now I haven't looked at AIA or FSPainter aircraft much, or AITM for that matter. I think I'll find the website for AITM and see what features it has that makes making AI traffic easier. I REALLY like the idea of UT, but if I'm still going to have to download and install new aircraft to make fleets realistic, it seems I'm going to have to learn these other tools anyway. Thanks again for the input.

Shawn,There is no doubt: Build your own traffic is a huge time-consuming task.I'am building my very own traffic and basically I have do the following:1 - Search and download default repaints (MD-83, 737, 747 and 777) at major flightsim sites (3 days (1/2 day only trying to get connected @ all-nodes-busy.com))2 - Unzip those repaints and copy/past to right folders (1/2 day)3 - Edit the aircraft.cfg files for aircrafts above, assuring to enter the correct callsign and atc_id (3 days)4 - Check the quality of textures, one-by-one, within FS (1/2 day)5 - Start over for each bad texture found (there are a lot around) (1 day)6 - Download the flightplans from MRAI and put all the flightplans together (1 day)7 - Change the MRAI original AC# (Why? see below) (1 day)8 - Shuffle the flights according to visited airports (I have created a small software to do that - The shuffle process needs the flightplans to use the AC#3 (737), AC#8 (747), AC#12 (777) or AC#46 (MD-83)) - 5 days due to programming and debugging9 - Download and creating lots of AFCAD files (don

Arlei, Thanks for the post! :-wave You're right, that does look VERY time consuming, but it also looks like the "satisfaction" factor would be immense once you get everything exactly the way "you" want it. I used to think that almost EVERYONE used either MT or UT, but I'm starting to find a whole new crowd who like the satisfaction of doing it themselves. Thanks for the post, and happy flying.

Shawn,Here's a few points. UT costs about 29 dollars/euros. That's less than an average working day's salary. Before buying UT, I could easily pass away a whole saturday setting up a couple of airlines, which I see flying around once in a month. So how much do you value your own time? UT sets up a decent amount of traffic all around the globe, including most of the major airlines which would take a lot of time and effort the freeware way. And you can use whichever planes (AIA, FSP) for it, so FPS should not be a problem in that sense.If you build your own traffic for free bit by bit you always know what planes and airlines to expect. UT surprises once in a while.Also, with UT, you can still get that "tinkering-around-with-my-mini-airport" feeling. You can add all extra traffic you want, using the manual way.So, UT gives the best of both worlds, I would say.

Very good point! I am curious though, since any documentation I have been able to find is rather vague, does UT include NO general aviation traffic at all? or does it? The whole point of this is to try and create a realistic "feel" in the sim. While I would expect to have a somewhat accurate timetable/flightplan for the major carriers, some random (or at least occasional) GA aircraft popping up would sure be nice. Another thing I'm curious about is that MT lists exactly what aircraft it comes with, but as of yet I have been unable to find a list of aircraft UT ships with. Based on what you said in your post above, I'm assuming that if UT doesn't ship with GA aircraft or plans, that even they can be added in too? Sorry for all of this, this is all very new territory for me..:-newbie

I am using Project AI but only the offical packages they have to download (I don't have any extra AI stuff other than Project AI offical packages because I don't know how to manually add AI planes and flight plans to FS)I most likely will get UT for FS2004 when I switch to FS2004 beacuse I want alot of airlines that Project AI don't have.What flight plans does UT use? Project AI uses MRAI summer 2003 flight plans, does UT use like a full season flight plans?