A Flight Simulator Software for Visualization of 3-Dimensional Airspaces and Air Traffic Management

Attempts toward a clean-slate approach to redesigning the National Airspace System are rooted in reshaping the current airspace architecture for air traffic management. This paper presents a flight simulator-based software plugin for the visualization and alteration of existing controlled airspaces. Based in X-Plane 11, a commercially available flight simulation tool, this airspace visualization plugin is developed using X-Plane's Software Development Kit. The plugin takes publicly available U.S. airspace data and visualizes hundreds of 3-D coordinates within the X-Plane visual environment. Within this environment, test-pilots can see the complex controlled airspaces in transparent coloration that correlates with the Federal Aviation Administrations En route Air Traffic Services for Airspace Classification. This paper compares the current architecture of air traffic management to novel redesigns within the X-Plane 11 environment.