<![CDATA[Valentin Horner - Infinite Flight]]> https://infiniteflight.com/blog/author/valxp https://infiniteflight.com/favicon.ico Valentin Horner - Infinite Flight https://infiniteflight.com/blog/author/valxp Infinite Flight Blog Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:01:54 GMT 60 <![CDATA[Infinite Flight Maps]]> https://infiniteflight.com/blog/infinite-flight-maps 5e404b4225b02e001919903f Tue, 03 Sep 2019 15:56:19 GMT What might seem like a trivial piece of coding can become exceedingly complex when you're dealing with the entire planet. This is what I found out when I sat down with Infinite Flight developer Valentin Horner to discuss his world of coding. Admittedly, I asked Val to keep things in simple terms for me, but I think this benefits most people who are learning about what goes into coding maps. The result was fun and informative.

Animated Infinite Flight Map

Can you give an overview of the work you do with maps?

Not much, I've been just playing Factorio for the last 2 years. At the end I will just rename the old map "new map", change a few colors, add a few bugs, and call it a day. But actually, so far I've been in charge of vector data. This means everything that can be drawn using lines which is lightweight and fast to render.

Before working on the new map, I worked on airports in Infinite Flight. The new map is very similar to that. We are using the same pipeline to take information about coastlines, country lines, states lines, etc. We cut these lines into tiles, put them in the tile server, and then the new map will load these tiles and display them in the app. There are slight differences in how lines are processed and then rendered in the app, so it's not as easy as re-using code from the airport rendering.

What is the main purpose of the map rebuild?

They had no idea what to do with me, so they thought, "let's have him do a useless piece of software for 2 years."

No, really...

The map that is currently used in the app is pretty old. It was originally designed to work with small regions pre-global. At that time we didn't simulate a round earth, and we already had a preset number of things to display on the map, so we could keep it all in memory and access it quickly to display to the user.

With the addition of global flight, we didn't have the time to re-design the map from scratch. So my task was to make the old map "global" without changing too much, or delaying the global release. However a map for the whole planet (especially an ellipsoid-shaped planet) is a whole other thing. There are so many things to render on the map for the whole planet that we couldn't keep it all in memory.

A lot of tricks were used to make the old map run kind of smoothly while rendering the planet. However some sacrifices had to be made, such as removing terrain elevation, as well as adding different projection due to memory limitations and performance issues.

We reached the point where this old map, with an old design that worked fine before Global, turned into a monster with many tentacles that was super inefficient (it currently takes almost as much time to render as an airplane). We wanted to add new features to the old map, but it just wasn't possible without taking major performance hits.

That's why a new map, designed for Global, and based on the way we render the planet and the airports made much more sense.

Why don't we have terrain elevation for ATC and pilots anymore?

As I explained earlier, it was just impossible with the old map. The new map is designed so that adding elevation back is possible without too much of a performance hit. It just won't be released with the new map right away.

What new features can you share that people will notice with the new map?

No major new features as it is basically the same map, but the inner workings are completely new. There will be a few changes in the looks of it, though nothing is final as of right now.

The coastlines will be much more detailed, no more KSAN in the ocean! There will be country lines and also state lines for large countries. Other than that, nothing will really be new as it's just meant to replace the existing map. Over time we will add more functionality and features to the map; things that we couldn't have done with the old one.

What features won't people notice that were necessary in building the map?

Everything. The new map is made from scratch. There is almost nothing in common with the old one. It's not just code in the app, as there are changes in our processing pipeline to allow the new type of data to be processed as well. It took a while to make something that basically is the same as before. However we can build many more features on top of it in the future.

What kinds of things do you have to take into account when working across different types of devices?

For the map, not much really. Performance is the number one priority. Otherwise, the type of device shouldn't change the way the map works.

Why is this taking so long?

The new map has indeed been a long time in the works. A lot of time was spent on designing it so that we would see a performance improvement compared to the old map, and also allow us to easily add more features later on. Some designs turned out to be dead-ends and there were a few re-writes. Also we are such a small team, we can't truly work full time on something as there are sometimes higher priority features or bug fixes that require our attention. I made a little human as well, but my wife deserves 99% of the credit for that.

Are you building anything that could support buildings (shapes) in the future?

Yes and no. I've done a few tests to see what kind of data we can use to render buildings in the app but I'll leave it there for now.

Thanks to Val for taking some time to give us a look into what he's doing to make Infinite Flight awesome!

]]> <![CDATA[New Scenery Update]]> https://infiniteflight.com/blog/new-scenery-update 5e404b4225b02e001919902c Wed, 26 Dec 2018 20:58:16 GMT Today we pushed another update to the navigation and airport database.
You will need to restart the app to receive it.

This database contains all the airports, their ATC frequencies and navigation data such as: Fixes, VORs, etc.

111 airports have been worked on for this update thanks to the Airport Editing Team.
109 of these might contain fixes that have been reported in the community.
2 of these are new airports that were not in the app previously.

Some additional changes for this release:

  • The latest FAA fixes data effective January 3rd is included in this update.
  • LTFM is fixed and you can safely fly to and take-off from there!
  • Missing approach and departure in some airports are now fixed.

Airport editing is a constant work to keep up to date with real world changes and adding more airports to Infinite Flight. The Airport Editing Team is doing an amazing job at adding content to Infinite Flight and anyone can join to help adding new airports or improving existing one.

If you would like to help, you can start here:
https://community.infiniteflight.com/t/getting-started-with-infinite-flight-airport-editing 14

Here are the people from the airport editing team who deserve our thanks for their hard work:

@Moritz
@infiniteflightyyc
@Tamz00
@lalo_marlin
@OrangeJuice
@MrVladFeed
@Adrien
@ewanfleming
@BavariaAVIATION
@Johannes_koelsch
@Aviationluver
@Kilt_McHaggis
@Fellipe_Eduardo
@Major-Tom
@Karl.Luebs
@NetJets_Nick
@ben
@IFBR-Mauricio
@Emiliano_Padilla
@levet
@tomthetank
@Nathan
@Balloonchaser
@Julio_Cesar
@Ryan_E
@brunocr98
@MrMrMan
@Del_de_Medeiros
@Velocity23
@ItsWill
@jakcharvat
@Vince_Treurniet
@royfr83
@2003iggy
@Captain-Cade
@Moonlit

New Airports

United Kingdom:

  • EGOP

Chile:

  • SCQP

Improved Airports

Brazil:

  • SBAF
  • SBBE
  • SBBH
  • SBCF
  • SBDB
  • SBGL
  • SBLS
  • SBPS
  • SBPV
  • SBRJ
  • SBUG
  • SBVT
  • SDTK
  • SDUN
  • SIVU
  • SNAU
  • SNCZ
  • SNGS
  • SNKI
  • SNML
  • SNTS
  • SNVR
  • SSMT
  • SSOG
  • SSZW

Canada:

  • CYLW
  • CYQR
  • CYQU
  • CYTR
  • CYWG

Italy:

  • LIBV
  • LIPZ
  • LIRF

Nepal:

  • VNT1

Lithuania:

  • EYSA

France:

  • LFLJ

Netherlands:

  • EHAM
  • EHVK

Slovakia:

  • LZIB

Argentina:

  • SANL
  • SAOS
  • SAZN

Venezuela:

  • SVBC

Cook Islands:

  • NCMG
  • NCMK
  • NCMR

Israel:

  • LLSD

Australia:

  • YBCS
  • YBTL
  • YCDR
  • YPAD
  • YSCO
  • YSNW
  • YSSY
  • YSWG

Austria:

  • LOWW

China:

  • ZSNJ

Belgium:

  • EBBR

Germany:

  • EDDH
  • EDDL
  • EDDM
  • EDDP

Taiwan:

  • RCSS

Spain:

  • LEIB
  • LEMD

Ukraine:

  • UKHP

Kyrgyzstan:

  • UCFM

Maldives:

  • VRMT

Libya:

  • HLLT

Turkey:

  • LTFM

United States:

  • 13Y
  • 1N2
  • 72Y
  • 7Y9
  • 84R
  • KBDE
  • KBTL
  • KFKA
  • KFSM
  • KGNB
  • KGSB
  • KLAX
  • KMCO
  • KMEM
  • KNFG
  • KNLC
  • KORB
  • KORD
  • KPIT
  • KRRT
  • KSSC
  • SD77

Switzerland:

  • LSPD
  • LSZH

Russia:

  • UHWP

Bulgaria:

  • LBGO

Mexico:

  • MMMT

United Arab Emirates:

  • OMAM

South Africa:

  • FALE

United Kingdom:

  • EGGD
  • EGGP
  • EGMC
  • EGNC
  • EGPF
  • EGUL

Antarctica:

  • AT05

Japan:

  • RJAH
  • RJGG

South Korea:

RKTN

]]> <![CDATA[September 2018 Scenery Update]]> https://infiniteflight.com/blog/sept-18-scenery-update 5e404b4225b02e0019199023 Tue, 04 Sep 2018 22:14:00 GMT Today we pushed another update to the navigation and airport database.
You will need to restart the app to receive the updated navigation database.

This database contains all the airports and their ATC frequencies and navigation data such as: Fixes, VORs, etc.

112 airports have been worked on for this update thanks to the Airport Editing Team.
This means that for these 112 airports, some might contain fixes that have been reported in the community and some are totally new airports that we didn’t have previously.

Airport editing is a constant work to keep up to date with real world changes and adding more airports to Infinite Flight. The Airport Editing Team is doing an amazing job at adding content to Infinite Flight and anyone can join to help adding new airports or improving existing one.

If you would like to help, you can start here:
https://community.infinite-flight.com/t/getting-started-with-infinite-flight-airport-editing

Here are the people that deserve our thanks for their hard work:

@Moritz
@infiniteflightyyc
@Tamz00
@lalo_marlin
@OrangeJuice
@MrVladFeed
@Adrien
@ewanfleming
@BavariaAVIATION
@Johannes_koelsch
@Aviationluver
@Kilt_McHaggis
@Fellipe_Eduardo
@Major-Tom
@Karl.Luebs
@NetJets_Nick
@ben
@IFBR-Mauricio
@Emiliano_Padilla
@levet
@tomthetank
@Nathan
@Balloonchaser
@Julio_Cesar
@Ryan_E
@brunocr98
@MrMrMan
@Del_de_Medeiros
@Velocity23
@ItsWill

And finally a list of improved airports:

Brazil:

  • SBBH
  • SBCB
  • SBJP
  • SBSR
  • SICK
  • SNKP

Canada:

  • CCC5
  • CYYC

Qatar:

  • OTHH

Italy:

  • LICJ
  • LIME
  • LIMF
  • LIPO

Czech Republic:

  • LKKV

Lithuania:

  • EYVI

Costa Rica:

  • MRAO

France:

  • LFBO
  • LFLL
  • LFML
  • LFNR
  • LFPX

Switzerland:

  • LSPH
  • LSZH
  • LSZR

Ireland:

  • EIDW
  • EINN

Norway:

  • ENBJ

Ecuador:

  • SEQM

Saudi Arabia:

  • OERK

Germany:

  • EDDC
  • EDDM
  • EDDN
  • EDDP
  • EDDS
  • EDDT
  • EDFH
  • EDHK
  • EDJA
  • EDMO
  • EDNY
  • EDOP
  • EDPK
  • EDRZ
  • EDSB
  • ETAD
  • ETSI

Armenia:

  • UDYZ

China:

  • ZSAM
  • ZURK

Spain:

  • LECH
  • LECN
  • LECS

Netherlands:

  • EHAM
  • EHVB

Chile:

  • SCEL

Moldova:

  • LUKK

United States:

  • 00CA
  • 0NK3
  • 0TS2
  • 9LL1
  • ID50
  • KBQK
  • KCAR
  • KDAL
  • KFLL
  • KGNV
  • KLAX
  • KMTP
  • KORS
  • KOYM
  • KPHX
  • KSBY
  • KSFB
  • KSFO
  • MT73
  • PN33
  • PS54

Namibia:

  • FYTT

Croatia:

  • LDZA

Guadeloupe:

  • TFFB

Russia:

  • UEEE
  • UESU
  • UHBB
  • UHHH
  • UHMA
  • UHMM
  • UHPP
  • UHWP
  • UHWW
  • UIII
  • ULAA
  • ULLI
  • UNEE
  • UNKL
  • URRP
  • UUEE

Estonia:

  • EEHU

South Africa:

  • FAPE

India:

  • VE67

Azerbaijan:

  • UBBB

United Kingdom:

  • EGEF
  • EGLG
  • EGPW

Greece:

  • LGAD
  • LGIR
  • LGRP
  • LGSA
  • LGSR
  • LGZA

Japan:

  • RJCC
  • RJSH

South Korea:

  • RKJB
]]> <![CDATA[August 2018 Scenery Update]]> https://infiniteflight.com/blog/aug-2018-scenery-update 5e404b4225b02e0019199024 Tue, 07 Aug 2018 16:15:00 GMT Today we pushed another update to the navigation and airport database.
You will need to restart the app to receive the updated navigation database.

This database contains all the airports and their ATC frequencies and navigation data such as: Fixes, VORs, etc.

86 airports have been worked on for this update thanks to the Airport Editing Team.
This means that for these 86 airports, some might contain fixes that have been reported in the community and some are totally new airports that we didn’t have previously.

Airport editing is a constant work to keep up to date with real world changes and adding more airports to Infinite Flight. The Airport Editing Team is doing an amazing job at adding content to Infinite Flight and anyone can join to help adding new airports or improving existing one.

If you would like to help, you can start here:
https://community.infinite-flight.com/t/getting-started-with-infinite-flight-airport-editing

Here are the people that deserve our thanks for their hard work:

@Moritz
@infiniteflightyyc
@Tamz00
@lalo_marlin
@OrangeJuice
@MrVladFeed
@Adrien
@ewanfleming
@BavariaAVIATION
@Johannes_koelsch
@Aviationluver
@Kilt_McHaggis
@Fellipe_Eduardo
@Major-Tom
@Karl.Luebs
@NetJets_Nick
@ben
@IFBR-Mauricio
@Emiliano_Padilla
@levet
@tomthetank
@Nathan
@Balloonchaser
@Julio_Cesar

And finally a list of improved airports:

Brazil:

  • SBAN
  • SBAR
  • SBCA
  • SBCG
  • SBCY
  • SBGO
  • SBIL
  • SBJF
  • SBJU
  • SBJV
  • SBKG
  • SBMQ
  • SBPJ
  • SBRF
  • SBSL
  • SBUL
  • SBZM

Canada:

  • CYCZ
  • CYYG
  • CYZU

Panama:

  • MPTO

France:

  • LFQQ

Bahamas:

  • MYSM

Uzbekistan:

  • UTTT

Australia:

  • YMML
  • YSOL

Cuba:

  • MUSA

China:

  • VH84
  • ZSHC

Chile:

  • SCHL
  • SCIE
  • SCSL

Germany:

  • EDDF
  • EDDT

Spain:

  • GEML

DR Congo:

  • FZQA

Turkey:

  • LTBA

Finland:

  • EFHK

United States:

  • KAQW
  • KATL
  • KBAF
  • KBMG
  • KBOS
  • KBWI
  • KDAL
  • KFAR
  • KGBR
  • KGDM
  • KGHG
  • KHNB
  • KLSV
  • KLUK
  • KLWM
  • KORD
  • KPIE
  • KPIT
  • KPSF
  • KSAN
  • KSFB
  • KSTC
  • KTAN
  • KTPA
  • KXMR

Morocco:

  • GMAD

Latvia:

  • EVGA

New Zealand:

  • NZCB
  • NZNR

Russia:

  • UHSH
  • URRP
  • UWPS

Pakistan:

  • OPIS

Estonia:

  • EEHU

Myanmar:

  • VYMD

India:

  • VEGT

United Kingdom:

  • EGCB

Japan:

  • RJA1
  • RJDT
  • RJFN
  • RJOI
  • RJSI
  • RJSR
  • ROKJ
  • ROKR
  • RORH

South Korea:

  • RKPC
  • RKSO
]]> <![CDATA[July 2018 Scenery Update]]> https://infiniteflight.com/blog/july-2018-scenery-update 5e404b4225b02e0019199025 Tue, 03 Jul 2018 17:37:00 GMT Along with the latest app update, we pushed an update to the navigation and airport database.
This database contains all the airports and their ATC frequencies and navigation data such as: Fixes, VORs, etc.

169 airports have been worked on for this update thanks to the Airport Editing Team.
This means that for these 169 airports, some might contain fixes that have been reported in the community and some are totally new airports that we didn’t have previously.

Airport editing is a constant work to keep up to date with real world changes and adding more airports to Infinite Flight. The Airport Editing Team is doing an amazing job at adding content to Infinite Flight and anyone can join to help adding new airports or improving existing one.

If you would like to help, you can start here:
https://community.infinite-flight.com/t/getting-started-with-infinite-flight-airport-editing

Here is the list of improved airports:

Brazil:

  • SBCA
  • SBGR
  • SBJF
  • SBJP
  • SBJU
  • SBJV
  • SBPL
  • SBPS
  • SBUL
  • SDUN
  • SNGA
  • SNJO

Canada:

  • CYEV
  • CYSR
  • CYZU

Italy:

  • LICT
  • LIEO
  • LIPA
  • LIRE
  • LIRS

Bangladesh:

  • VGHS

Sudan:

  • HSSS

Guinea:

  • GUFA

French Polynesia:

  • NTAA

France:

  • LFBE
  • LFBI
  • LFLB
  • LFMP

Maldives:

  • VRMK

Ivory Coast:

  • DIAP

Nigeria:

  • DNMM

Norway:

  • ENBO
  • ENOL

Benin:

  • DBBB

Ghana:

  • DGAA

United Kingdom:

  • EGAC
  • EGHC
  • EGMC
  • EGPN
  • EGSC
  • EGSH
  • EGTG
  • EGVN

Australia:

  • YKII
  • YWLM
  • YWOL

Iran:

  • OIBB
  • OIHS

Reunion:

  • FMEE
  • FMEP

Northern Mariana Islands:

  • PGRO
  • PGSN

Germany:

  • EDDF
  • EDMN
  • EDNS

Chile:

  • SCIE

Oman:

  • OOMS

China:

  • ZHCC
  • ZSPD
  • ZSSS
  • ZUUU

Spain:

  • LEZL

Kyrgyzstan:

  • UCFM

Indonesia:

  • WA0K
  • WABE
  • WABK
  • WABO
  • WABQ
  • WABT
  • WAJK
  • WAJO
  • WAKJ
  • WASG
  • WIII
  • WT73
  • WW42
  • WX07
  • WX51
  • WZ43
  • WZ64

Armenia:

  • UDYZ

DR Congo:

  • FZAA
  • FZQA

Denmark:

  • EKSP
  • EKYT

Philippines:

  • RPMS
  • RPUR
  • RPVK

Finland:

  • EFHK

United States:

  • 07MT
  • 2NC0
  • KAFN
  • KAID
  • KASH
  • KBMG
  • KBTR
  • KCNH
  • KCNY
  • KDFW
  • KEEN
  • KFAT
  • KFIT
  • KFLG
  • KFLL
  • KGSO
  • KGWB
  • KHOU
  • KICR
  • KISP
  • KJFK
  • KLAX
  • KLCI
  • KMCO
  • KMSY
  • KOXC
  • KPGD
  • KSAV
  • KSBA
  • KSJC
  • KSTL
  • KSWW
  • KTYS
  • KUUU
  • KXMR

Sweden:

  • ESNU
  • ESSA
  • ESSV

Croatia:

  • LDZA

Russia:

  • URRP
  • URRR

Bulgaria:

  • LBWN

Pakistan:

  • OPIS

Seychelles:

  • FSIA

Portugal:

  • LPCR
  • LPPT

Mexico:

  • MMJA

Tunisia:

  • DTTA

Guam:

  • PGUA
  • PGUM

South Africa:

  • FALM
  • FAYP

Saint Helena Ascension and Tristan da Cunha:

  • FHSH

Colombia:

  • SKCL

Greece:

  • LGAV

Japan:

  • RJBK
  • RJCO
  • RJDB
  • RJDK
  • RJEB
  • RJFY
  • RJKA
  • RJKN
  • RJNA
  • RJNF
  • RJNO
  • RJNW
  • RJOC
  • RJOR
  • RJOW
  • RJSD
  • RJSI
  • RJSM
  • ROKJ
  • ROMD
  • RORA
  • RORK
  • RORT

South Korea:

  • RKSS

Botswana:

  • FBSK

Big thanks to the airport editors!

@Moritz
@infiniteflightyyc
@Tamz00
@lalo_marlin
@OrangeJuice
@MrVladFeed
@Adrien
@ewanfleming
@BavariaAVIATION
@Johannes_koelsch
@Aviationluver
@Kilt_McHaggis
@Fellipe_Eduardo
@Major-Tom
@Karl.Luebs
@NetJets_Nick
@IFBR-Mauricio
@levet
@tomthetank

]]> <![CDATA[March 2018 Scenery Update]]> https://infiniteflight.com/blog/mar-2018-scenery-update 5e404b4225b02e0019199026 Tue, 27 Mar 2018 01:52:00 GMT Today we pushed an update to the navigation and airport database. It should be automatically downloaded when you restart Infinite Flight (if you didn’t already).

This database contains all the airports and their ATC frequencies and navigation data such as: Fixes, VORs, etc.

104 airports have been worked on for this update thanks to the Airport Editing Team.
This means that for these 104 airports, some might contain fixes that have been reported in the community and some are totally new airports that we didn’t have previously.

Airport editing is a constant work to keep up to date with real world changes and adding more airports to Infinite Flight. The Airport Editing Team is doing an amazing job at adding content to Infinite Flight and anyone can join to help adding new airports or improving existing one.

If you would like to help, you can start here:
https://community.infinite-flight.com/t/getting-started-with-infinite-flight-airport-editing

With the last app update a new scenery update system was added allowing us to update the in-game airports and navigation database without going through the app store, so you can expect new and improved airports more often than before.

Here is the list of improved airports:

Brazil:

  • SBCZ
  • SBFZ
  • SBRB
  • SBSV

Canada:

  • CAM3
  • CYFC
  • CYMW
  • CYQT

Costa Rica:

  • MRQP
  • MRTM

Ivory Coast:

  • DIAP

Argentina:

  • SAEZ

Cameroon:

  • FKKD

Australia:

  • YBAS
  • YPPH
  • YSPE
  • YSRI

Iran:

  • OIHS
  • OIZC

Turkey:

  • LTCC

Germany:

  • EDDN
  • EDKO

Chile:

  • SCDA

China:

  • ZGHA
  • ZSHC
  • ZSQZ
  • ZSSS

Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba:

  • TNCS

Spain:

  • LEMP
  • LETC
  • LEVD
  • LEZL

Kyrgyzstan:

  • UAFM
  • UCFM

Poland:

  • EPWA

Indonesia:

  • WA27
  • WA51

United States:

  • KANQ
  • KBDR
  • KBWC
  • KDFW
  • KDXR
  • KEVV
  • KEYE
  • KFSD
  • KIND
  • KLGA
  • KLNK
  • KLTS
  • KMIB
  • KMIE
  • KMQJ
  • KOLF
  • KOXC
  • KPIT
  • KPSM
  • KRNO
  • KSAF
  • KSEF
  • KSUU
  • KTCM
  • KTMB
  • KTYQ
  • KUMP
  • KYIP

Vietnam:

  • VVDN

Thailand:

  • VTUN

New Zealand:

  • NZMF

Russia:

  • ULMM
  • UNEE

Honduras:

  • MHTG

Mexico:

  • MMLM
  • MMZP

South Africa:

  • FACT

United Kingdom:

  • EGBB
  • EGGP
  • EGHI
  • EGKA
  • EGLC
  • EGMD
  • EGNV
  • EGNX
  • EGSY

Antigua and Barbuda:

  • TAPA

Japan:

  • RJAF
  • RJBD
  • RJCR
  • RJDA
  • RJER
  • RJFC
  • RJFE
  • RJKB
  • RJNK
  • RJOS
  • RJOT
  • RJSC
  • RJTH
  • RJX4
  • ROAH
  • RODN
  • ROIT
  • RORE
  • RORS
  • RORY
]]>