VAT-Spy is an Air Traffic and ATC Display client that was designed by Ross Carlson for the VATSIM Network. VAT-Spy can be obtained at vatspy.rosscarlson.dev

We have chosen GitHub to be the core of this project so far, as it allows for collaboration on the project and near real-time updates to VAT-Spy data once a pull request has been pushed to the live data. Updates to data should be made directly by submitting a PR to the corresponding AIRAC branch through GitHub. Updates on GitHub that will be merged will be those that either come from verified GitHub accounts belonging to Regions, Divisions, or FIRs/ARTCCs or that have been explicitly authorized by a staff account. Changes will stop being merged to each AIRAC branch 2 days prior to the AIRAC cycle coming in force, in order to allow some time for final reviews before merging to master.

While we work on a contribution policy, please send an email to, or have your Region, Division, or FIR/ARTCC Leadership send an email from your/their staff Region, Division, or FIR/ARTCC linked e-mail account with your GitHub username to vatspy-data-project (at) vatsim.net. Only authorized users from each Region, Division, or FIR/ARTCC will be permitted to submit updates. PRs from non-verified accounts will NOT be merged.

To keep the map clear and not too cluttered, any new additions to the dataset should cover whole FIR's (e.g. HECC/KZFW). Some exceptions can be made for further splits if the (sub)sector is controlled consistently outside of events and the amount of traffic justifies it. This will be reviewed on a case by case basis.

This file uses the GeoJSON format as defined in RFC7946. At the end of each cycle a FIRBoundaries.dat will be generated and included in the release, for testing in vat-spy a converter can be used.

Niels Voogd - Data Management Team
Adrian Bjerke - Data Management Team

Ross Carlson - Developer, VAT-Spy
Néstor Pérez - Previous Project Leader