When Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launched, one of the frustrations among spotters and content creators was the camera system. Flyby views, tower cameras, and AI tracking shots were either awkward or simply missing in the new sim. Third-party tools eventually came to rescue, and with Sim Update 5’s new Camera API for SimConnect and WASM, they’ve had the opportunity to offer a richer experience. Spotty26, a new tool from rksoftware, is one of the first affordable utilities to put it to work.
Spotty26 is built specifically for MSFS 2024 and sells for €9.00 on SimMarket. If the name sounds familiar, it should: rksoftware previously released a tool called simply Spotty, a plane spotting and scenery explorer that covered both MSFS 2020 and 2024. The developer describes Spotty26 as a ground-up redesign for the 2024 sim and its camera system.
Spotty’s main features are its four camera modes. Flyby drops a dynamic external camera for runway passes and flyovers, Chase follows an aircraft, World lets you place a camera anywhere, and Tower (or Spotter) sets up a fixed ground-level viewpoint for airport watching. Cameras can be driven from the keyboard, an Xbox controller, or a joystick, and rksoftware says the controls run independently of your existing MSFS bindings so they don’t clash with flight assignments.
What separates Spotty26 from a basic camera mod is the AI traffic side. An interactive moving map detects nearby AI aircraft on the ground and in the air, and a traffic board lists what it finds, with airline, aircraft type, altitude, speed, and arrival or departure status. Click an aircraft on the map or the board and the camera locks onto it, which is the part most likely to interest virtual spotters and anyone filming airport movements. The developer notes the tool works alongside the popular AI traffic packages, including FSLTL, AIG, FSHud, BeyondATC, and SayIntentions. Favourite spotting positions can also be saved and reloaded between sessions.
Spotty26 comes to a small but active corner of the MSFS 2024 development community. We’ve watched the same camera gap pull in other developers this year. Parallel 42 has been migrating ChasePlane onto the new SU5 Camera API, and Fabio Merlo’s FlightControlSpotter just reached version 2 with its own fly-by camera and deeper AI traffic tracking. Against those, Spotty26’s pitch is mostly about price and simplicity. At €9.00 it undercuts FlightControlSpotter, and it skips the replay and cinematic-render features of the FlightControlReplay line in favour of live spotting and flyby work.
Spotty26 is out now for MSFS 2024 and sells for €9.00 on SimMarket. Owners of the earlier Spotty release can upgrade for €6.00, and SimMarket applies that price automatically at checkout if you’re logged into the same account you used for the original purchase.
