Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) for Infinite Flight

Why a traffic collision avoidance system for Infinite Flight

TCAS

OTHER TRAFFICPROXIMATETRAFFIC, TRAFFICCLIMB, CLIMBCLEAR OF CONFLICT

1. Other trafficDistant contacts show as open white diamonds.
2. ProximateWithin 6 NM and 1,200 ft it fills in solid.
3. Traffic advisoryAn amber circle and a spoken “Traffic, traffic.”
4. Resolution advisoryA red square with a spoken “Climb, climb.”
5. Clear of conflictThreat resolved — the callout stands you down.

In a real airliner, the Traffic Collision Avoidance System is the last independent line of defense against a midair collision. It interrogates the transponders of nearby aircraft, predicts whether any flight path will pass dangerously close, and — without waiting for ATC — first tells the crew where to look (a Traffic Advisory), then commands a vertical escape maneuver if the threat keeps closing (a Resolution Advisory). SkyYoke builds a working traffic collision avoidance system for Infinite Flight on that same principle, with your iPhone as the display and Infinite Flight's live multiplayer feed as the surveillance source.

Anyone who has flown an event on a busy server knows why this matters. Final approach at a popular hub can stack half a dozen aircraft inside ten miles, climbing departures cross descending arrivals around every well-known waypoint, and while you are hand-flying you have no spare attention for the sim's own map. SkyYoke watches the traffic picture continuously and tells you — in symbols and in words — the moment somebody is becoming a problem.

A heading-up scope drawn over your yoke

The scope is not a separate screen you have to switch to. It renders as an Airbus navigation-display-style overlay on the same pad you steer with — the remote yoke — so the traffic picture sits exactly where your eyes already are. The presentation is heading-up: a compass rose rotates around your aircraft, which stays pinned at the center pointing twelve o'clock. A contact at your two o'clock on the glass is at your two o'clock out the window, with no mental rotation required.

Range rings cycle through 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 NM — tight for the terminal area, wide for watching crossing traffic build up in cruise. Each contact carries a relative-altitude tag in hundreds of feet (+12 means 1,200 ft above you, −05 means 500 ft below) plus a climb or descent arrow whenever the target is trending vertically. One glance answers the three questions that matter: where is it, how far, and is it coming to my altitude.

Symbology that matches the flight deck

Contacts are sorted into the four categories a real TCAS II display uses, and drawn with the same shapes and colors a type-rated pilot would recognize:

TCAS contact categories on the SkyYoke scope

Open white diamond	Other traffic — tracked and tagged, but far enough away that no threat is computed.
Filled white diamond	Proximate traffic — within 6 NM and 1,200 ft of your altitude. No advisory yet, but worth a glance.
Amber circle	Traffic Advisory (TA) — flight paths are converging. The contact turns amber and the app calls “Traffic, traffic.”
Red square	Resolution Advisory (RA) — a conflict is imminent. The contact turns red and spoken vertical guidance follows.

Because categories come from the advisory math rather than raw distance, two contacts at identical range can look completely different: one stays a hollow diamond because it is paralleling your track, while the other goes amber because it is converging fast at your level.

The logic underneath

Beneath the symbols runs an advisory engine modeled on TCAS II version 7.1 behavior. The central quantity is tau — the projected time to the closest point of approach. For every contact, the engine tracks closure rate and vertical trend, projects when and how near the two paths will cross, and weighs the result against distance and altitude thresholds before anything escalates.

Those thresholds are not fixed. Like the real system, SkyYoke steps through sensitivity levels 3 through 7 keyed to your altitude: near the ground the logic is deliberately hard to trigger, because traffic there is legitimately dense and close; at cruise altitudes the windows widen, buying extra warning time at the closure speeds two jets can generate head-on. A contact climbs the ladder one rung at a time — other, proximate, TA, RA — and steps back down as separation is restored.

Inhibits that keep the pattern flyable

• No Traffic Advisories below 1,000 ft AGL, so short final and the takeoff roll stay quiet.
• No Resolution Advisories below 1,100 ft — the system never commands a maneuver you have no room to fly.
• Ground traffic never triggers advisories. A crowded apron will not flood your scope with amber while you taxi past it.

Callouts you can fly by ear

The aural side is deliberately independent of the visual scope — whether or not you are looking at the display, the voice still runs. The vocabulary tracks the real system:

• “Traffic, traffic” — a Traffic Advisory. Start scanning for the contact.
• “Climb, climb” / “Descend, descend” — a Resolution Advisory with vertical guidance, including crossing variants when the escape path passes through the intruder's altitude, and reversal variants when the geometry flips mid-encounter.
• “Level off” — shallow the vertical maneuver as the conflict winds down.
• “Clear of conflict” — separation is restored; resume normal flying.

This is the same philosophy behind SkyYoke's other spoken aids — the V1, Rotate and V2 takeoff callouts, the reactive windshear warning, and the speed alerts from the Violation Avoidance System: your ears handle the warnings so your eyes can keep flying the airplane.

The same traffic on the moving map

LIVE MAP

DEP · KSFOFL360 · 488 ktON TRACKARR · KLAX

1. DepartureYour aircraft appears over real-world terrain.
2. En routeLive altitude, ground speed and heading update beside it.
3. On trackA breadcrumb trail follows the flown route.
4. ArrivalNearby airports and traffic show all the way down.

The scope is your tactical picture; the moving map is the strategic one. SkyYoke's map plots your live position, a breadcrumb trail of the track you have flown and the airports around you — and every aircraft on it wears the same TCAS coloring as the scope. A contact that goes amber on the yoke pad goes amber on the map too, so you can zoom out and see how an encounter fits into the wider flow. Both views are part of the same wireless cockpit that lets you control Infinite Flight remotely from one phone.

From first connection to first advisory

CONNECT

SAME WI-FIDISCOVEREDAXES BOUNDCLEARED FOR TAKEOFF

1. Same Wi-FiPut your iPhone and the simulator device on one network.
2. Auto-discoverSkyYoke finds the sim on the LAN — connect in a tap.
3. Bind axes onceMap roll, pitch, throttle and yaw, guided step by step.
4. FlyTilt, slide and speak to fly the aircraft in real time.

1. Link the cockpit. Put your iPhone and your Infinite Flight device on the same Wi-Fi with Infinite Flight Connect enabled; SkyYoke discovers the simulator automatically.
2. Fly where the traffic is. The scope is driven by live multiplayer traffic, so pick an online server — an empty solo flight has nothing to paint.
3. Match the range to the phase. Cycle the rings down to 5 or 10 NM around the airport, and out to 40 or 80 NM in cruise.
4. Let it work. Classification, coloring and callouts run automatically — there is nothing to arm and nothing to babysit. When an encounter ends, “Clear of conflict” confirms it.