FS Flight Tracker sometimes shows the wrong airport compared to FSX

Hi n7xlq1,

Yep, I’ve seen this sort of thing with external trackers from time to time. What’s usually happening is the tracker is identifying the “nearest” airport from your current lat/long, and in a few situations that can be the wrong airport even though FSX is clearly showing you parked at the correct one.

Most common causes

• You’re at/near two airports close together (or one is a “satellite” field) and the tracker snaps to the other one.
• Mismatched airport data: FSX has one set of airport positions (especially if you have scenery/AFCAD changes), and FS Flight Tracker is using a different database with slightly different coordinates.
• Add-on scenery changed the airport reference point/parking locations, but the tracker still uses “stock” info.

Things to try (in order)

1. Test at a stock airport (no add-on scenery). Do a quick flight, park, and see if the tracker still mis-identifies it. If it only happens at certain fields, it’s almost always a scenery/AFCAD mismatch.
2. Check if the wrong airport is consistently the same one (for example, it always jumps to the same nearby ICAO). That’s a big clue it’s doing a “nearest airport” match.
3. If you use add-on scenery, temporarily disable that one airport area and re-test. If the problem disappears, the tracker’s airport database doesn’t match what FSX is using.
4. Try moving your aircraft slightly (different parking spot/ramp) and see if it flips. When the aircraft position is close to the boundary between two airports, even a few hundred feet can change what an external tool decides is “closest.”

A practical “fix”
If FS Flight Tracker has any kind of option to update/import/rebuild its airport database from your simulator, that’s usually the real cure. When the tracker’s airport list matches your actual FSX scenery, the “wrong airport” problem typically goes away.

Since I don’t know which build of FS Flight Tracker you’re using (and some VA tools are customized), I don’t want to point you to a menu that may not exist.

A few quick questions so I can narrow it down

• Are you running FSX SP1/SP2/Acceleration, or FS9 sometimes as well?
• Does it happen only at specific airports (and if so, which ICAOs), or totally random?
• Do you have any add-on scenery or AFCAD/airport files installed for the airports where it happens?
• When it’s “wrong,” is the airport it shows usually nearby (same city/area) or something far away?

Answer those and I can tell you pretty confidently whether you’re looking at a scenery data mismatch, a tracker database issue, or something else.