A community developer known as Nodeblue has stopped work on an experimental bridge that let BeyondATC run with X-Plane 12, following the announcement that BeyondATC will receive official X-Plane support. The decision was shared on the X-Plane.org forums, where Nodeblue said there was no longer a need for a “hacky bridge”.
BeyondATC is an air traffic control add-on that began in Microsoft Flight Simulator and handles voice-based ATC communication with the pilot. Nodeblue said the project was paused after BeyondATC’s plans for an X-Plane release surfaced via the developer’s Discord. He added that he considers BeyondATC a fantastic product and wants to support the developer when the official version arrives. He also stressed that he had not been in contact with BeyondATC and had made the decision to pull the project himself.
According to Nodeblue, the bridge began as a simple question put to the AI assistant Claude about whether such an integration was possible. After a few days of work, he said, it provided a SimConnect interface for X-Plane 12 alongside a plugin for traffic. It was Windows only. ATC, taxiways, handoffs and AI traffic were all reported to work. The AI traffic could use Bluebell OBJ8 CSL models as well as converted FSLTL Traffic Base models for region-specific liveries. Nodeblue described the bridge as experimental and not affiliated with or supported by BeyondATC. The download link has since been removed from the post.
Before the project was shelved, a handful of BeyondATC owners had started testing it. One tester reported that it worked, but that converting the FSLTL liveries did not work out of the box and needed manual configuration. He also saw AI aircraft stopping slightly too far forward at gates, occasional AI traffic moving backwards, and no lights, sounds or smoke effects on AI aircraft. Traffic chatter was initially missing but later started working.
The bridge is no longer in development and cannot be downloaded. BeyondATC gives no price or release date for the official X-Plane version of their addon. We will report on the official release as more details become available.
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