Airport Information and VATSIM ATIS

Before you push back or start your descent, the Cockpit can brief you on the weather and active setup at any airport, spoken over the same channel as your ATC and First Officer audio. There are two distinct sources behind that briefing, and Simmers is careful never to blur them.

Below is a real, current briefing for New York JFK, not a scripted recording.

Two different things, on purpose

VATSIM ATIS is the real, live ATIS broadcast from a controller connected to the VATSIM network. When one exists for the airport and role you're asking about, it's labeled "VATSIM ATIS" and played back close to verbatim, info letter, active runways and approaches, notices, frequencies, and controller instructions included.

Simmers Airport Information is Simmers' own generated summary, built from real-world METAR weather when no VATSIM controller is online. It reads out real wind, visibility, clouds, temperature, and altimeter setting, but it never invents an ATIS letter, an active runway, an active approach, a transition level, or a controller instruction, those only exist when they come from a real ATIS.

By default the Cockpit picks the best available source for you: a live VATSIM ATIS if one exists, otherwise Simmers Airport Information. You can also force one or the other from your account settings.

What you'll hear

• Wind direction and speed, including gusts
• Visibility and cloud layers
• Temperature and altimeter setting (QNH)
• A runway suggestion, when one can be worked out (see below)
• For a real VATSIM ATIS, whatever the controller included: info letter, active runway/approach, notices, frequencies

Audio plays through the same ATC voices you already hear on the radio, arrivals and departures get their own voice, so it sounds like part of the same channel rather than a separate system.

The runway suggestion

When there's enough wind data and seeded runway information for the airport, Simmers works out which runway end gives you the best headwind and least crosswind, and shows it as a suggestion. It's pure wind math, ranked by headwind first, then crosswind, then runway length, it is never pulled from what VATSIM says is actually in use, and it's explicitly an estimate, not something to fly an approach off of. If the wind is calm, variable, or there's no runway data for the airport, no suggestion is shown at all rather than a guess.

Autoplay and your preferences

You can choose whether Airport Information plays automatically, on which flight legs, and through spoken audio or the transcript panel only. When enabled, it plays automatically as you enter preflight (for departure) and descent (for arrival), and shares the same audio lock as ATC, the First Officer, and cabin announcements, so nothing talks over anything else.

Listening to VATSIM doesn't mean you're on VATSIM

Hearing a VATSIM ATIS inside Simmers only means Simmers read the public VATSIM data feed, it does not connect your flight simulator to the VATSIM network. If VATSIM ATIS shows a runway or configuration, that belongs to VATSIM's world and may not match what's actually active in your own simulator session.