What is smartCARS 3?

smartCARS is a flight tracking and management system for Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Prepar3D, X-Plane, and Microsoft Flight Simulator. A flight tracking system (known as an ACARS) to help pilots plan, track, and report flights to either their own logbooks or their virtual flying community.

Many tools exist for this purpose, but smartCARS packs in a host of additional features to make online flight simulation more fun and more reliable. It is used by hundreds of virtual airlines, loved by thousands of pilots, and is the most advanced flight tracking system available for desktop flight simulators.

Overview of features


1 Including our custom-built VA management system, which means we have much greater control over how we handle pireps and flight dispatches.

Differences between smartCARS 3 and VaBase Acars

smartCARS 3 and our previous Acars application from VaBase are similar, but there are some significant difference that we'd like to point out here:

smartCARS 3 has these additional features:

smartCARS 3 does not have these features that you may have been used to:

Note that smartCARS 3 is under active development, and we expect new features to be added over time as TFDi Design continue to improve the application. 

Canada Air Virtual is not able to make any changes inside smartCARS 3 itself. We can only control what we do with the data that is sent to and received from smartCARS 3.

Compatibility and system requirements

Glossary of Terms & Terminology

This is a small glossary of terms as they are used in smartCARS 3 in relation to our website or other common verbiage we use.