Model Matching MSFS2020

Model Matching - MSFS2020

See Model Matching for the general algorithm, the attributes used, and the Explain Match dialog. This page covers what's specific to the MSFS2020 build.

What you report to your friends

Unlike MSFS2024, this build doesn't rely on SimConnect's live aircraft enumeration for aircraft metadata at all. Instead, Scan For Models walks your simulator's own aircraft folders directly and reads each aircraft's real aircraft.cfg file, picking up:

• icao_type_designator and icao_WTC from the file's [GENERAL] section - applied once per file to every livery/variation it defines.
• icao_airline and atc_id (the baked-in registration) per individual livery entry.
• The ui_typerole field for a first-pass typerole classification (Single Engine Prop, Rotorcraft, Airliner, ...).

This is real, author-provided data straight from the aircraft's own configuration - the same reliability tier MSFS2024 only reaches once a model has actually been flown (see that page). There's no live-simulator-derived fallback and no title-guessing here: if the fields above are present and correct in the file, JoinFS reports them correctly; if an add-on's author left icao_type_designator blank or filled it in incorrectly, JoinFS has no independent way to know that and reports exactly what's in the file. A rescan (Scan For Models → Scan, or automatically on connect if "Scan at launch" is enabled) is the only way to pick up a value that's been fixed in a later version of an add-on.

Registration: whatever SimConnect's ATC ID reports for your aircraft at the moment it's created - either the livery's own baked-in tail number from the scan above, or whatever you've customized in the sim's own aircraft/flight setup - unless you later import a flight plan via SimBrief, in which case SimBrief's reported registration overwrites it (whichever happened more recently wins; there's no fixed priority between the two).

How JoinFS resolves your friends' reports to what you see

For every remote aircraft, JoinFS takes whatever was reported for it (title, ICAO type, class code, WTC, ICAO airline, registration, typerole) and runs it through the unified scorer described on the main Model Matching page against your own installed models - which, per above, already have real ICAO/class/WTC/registration data from your own upfront folder scan, not a guess. This build doesn't get a livery/variation name over the network (that's MSFS2024-only), so livery-name overlap never contributes as a signal here - matching relies on the other attributes instead.

Models that are scenery props, static display liveries, or otherwise non-flyable are filtered out of your own installed-model list before any of this happens, via the ban list described on the main page - they can never accidentally become what a friend's aircraft gets substituted to.