# Map layers

The buttons above the **Flight Tracking** map let you add extra information to it: other aircraft, airspace, airports, navaids, approaches and live weather radar. Everything starts switched off, and CAVAcars remembers what you turn on for next time.

<table id="bkmrk-buttonwhat-it-adds-t"><thead><tr><th>Button</th><th>What it adds</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>**Traffic**</td><td>Other aircraft near you, from up to five sources</td></tr><tr><td>**Layers**</td><td>Aeronautical data: airspace, airports and runways, heliports, navaids, waypoints and approaches</td></tr><tr><td>**Radar**</td><td>Real-world precipitation radar</td></tr></tbody></table>

A button turns blue when at least one of its options is on. Click **Traffic** or **Layers** to open a panel of switches; click anywhere else to close it. You can click almost anything drawn on the map (an aircraft, an airport, a navaid, an airspace) to see its details.

### Traffic

Each source has its own switch and its own marker colour, so you can tell at a glance where an aircraft came from.

<table id="bkmrk-sourcecolourwhat-it-"><thead><tr><th>Source</th><th>Colour</th><th>What it shows</th><th>Setup needed</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>VA traffic</td><td>Pink</td><td>Other Canada Air Virtual pilots flying nearby</td><td>None</td></tr><tr><td>SayIntentions.AI</td><td>Blue</td><td>Traffic from SayIntentions.AI</td><td>Add your SayIntentions.AI API key on your CAV profile. Until you do, the panel shows an **Open profile settings** button instead of a switch.</td></tr><tr><td>Sim traffic</td><td>Green</td><td>AI and multiplayer aircraft your simulator already knows about</td><td>None</td></tr><tr><td>VATSIM</td><td>Amber</td><td>Pilots online on the VATSIM network</td><td>None</td></tr><tr><td>IVAO</td><td>Purple</td><td>Pilots online on the IVAO network</td><td>None</td></tr></tbody></table>

Traffic only appears once you're connected to your sim and loaded into a flight, because it's filtered to what's around your aircraft.

### Layers

The **Layers** panel has two parts: *where* the data comes from (the sources at the top), and *what* to draw (the layer switches below them).

#### Sources

<table id="bkmrk-sourcecolourwhat-it--1"><thead><tr><th>Source</th><th>Colour</th><th>What it is</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>OpenAIP (real world)</td><td>Light blue</td><td>Real-world airspace, airports, navaids and VFR reporting points from [OpenAIP](https://www.openaip.net). Works with every simulator.</td></tr><tr><td>MSFS sim data</td><td>Lime green</td><td>Your simulator's own navigation database: the runways, approaches, navaids and waypoints the sim's FMS and ATC actually use. **Microsoft Flight Simulator only**; the switch is greyed out with FSX, Prepar3D and X-Plane.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Turn on one source or both. Points and lines are coloured by source, and each popup says where the item came from. The sim's data and the real world won't always agree (for example, if your sim's navdata is older or newer than the current real-world cycle), so having both on is a handy way to spot differences.

Below each source, the panel shows its status: *Connected*, *Loading* while data is still arriving, or a short message if something went wrong. If OpenAIP can't be reached for a moment, the map keeps showing what it already loaded.

#### Layer switches

<table id="bkmrk-layeron-by-defaultfr"><thead><tr><th>Layer</th><th>On by default</th><th>From</th><th>What you get</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Airspace</td><td>Yes</td><td>OpenAIP</td><td>Airspace outlines, coloured by type (see below). The popup shows the type, class, lower and upper limits, and whether it's activated by NOTAM or on demand.</td></tr><tr><td>Airports &amp; runways</td><td>Yes</td><td>Both</td><td>**OpenAIP:** every airport and airfield in view, with runways, surface, elevation and frequencies in the popup. **MSFS:** your departure and arrival airports only, with their runways drawn to scale and their runways, approaches, SIDs and STARs listed in the popup.</td></tr><tr><td>Heliports</td><td>No</td><td>OpenAIP</td><td>Heliports, kept separate so they don't clutter the map. Needs **Airports &amp; runways** switched on.</td></tr><tr><td>Navaids</td><td>Yes</td><td>Both</td><td>VORs, NDBs and DMEs, with frequency and channel in the popup.</td></tr><tr><td>Waypoints &amp; reporting points</td><td>No</td><td>Both</td><td>**OpenAIP:** VFR reporting points, with compulsory ones marked. **MSFS:** the waypoints your sim has loaded around your aircraft.</td></tr><tr><td>Approaches</td><td>Yes</td><td>MSFS</td><td>The approach procedures for your flight's departure and arrival airports, drawn as lines with their fixes in the popup.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Because the layer switches are shared, turning a layer off hides it for both sources. Nothing appears until a source is switched on, so on a fresh install you'll need to turn on OpenAIP or MSFS sim data first.

#### Zoom levels

To keep the map readable (and to avoid downloading half a continent's worth of data), layers only load once you're zoomed in far enough:

- **Airspace, airports and navaids** appear once you've zoomed in to roughly a regional view, a few hundred miles across. If you're zoomed out too far, the panel says *Zoom in to see airspace, airports and navaids*.
- **Waypoints and reporting points** need you to zoom in a couple of steps further.
- **Idents** (the labels next to airports and navaids) only show once you're zoomed in that far too, so they don't pile on top of each other.
- Your **departure and arrival** from MSFS sim data, and their approaches, load straight away, whatever the zoom.

#### Airspace colours

<table id="bkmrk-colourairspace-redpr"><thead><tr><th>Colour</th><th>Airspace</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Red</td><td>Prohibited</td></tr><tr><td>Orange</td><td>Restricted</td></tr><tr><td>Yellow</td><td>Danger</td></tr><tr><td>Purple</td><td>Other special-use areas to be careful around</td></tr><tr><td>Blue</td><td>Controlled airspace: control zones and Class A to D</td></tr><tr><td>Teal</td><td>Class E</td></tr><tr><td>Grey</td><td>Class F and G, and anything else</td></tr></tbody></table>

A short colour key appears in the **Layers** panel while the Airspace layer is on.

### Radar

The **Radar** button overlays real-world precipitation radar from [RainViewer](https://www.rainviewer.com). The radar image is refreshed roughly every 10 minutes and CAVAcars picks up the newest one automatically.

- It shows **real-world** weather. It only matches what you see out the window if your simulator is using live weather.
- RainViewer's free radar has limited detail, so it looks blocky when you zoom in close.

### Also on the map

- **Your planned route:** if your latest SimBrief plan is for the flight you're tracking (same departure and arrival), the map draws its route fix by fix instead of a straight great-circle line. See [Planning with SimBrief](https://kb.canadaairvirtual.ca/books/cavacars-2-pilot-guide/page/planning-with-simbrief).
- **Map style:** the background map follows the **Map Style** you picked on your CAV profile on the website.