Where Am I?

re: Where Am I?

Larry N. — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 03:37:59 GMT

Thanks for the explanation, Mike. I'd never thought of it as related to a polygon, rather more like distance from the centerline. While I'd figured there'd be some performance penalty for changing the algorithm, I didn't realize it'd be that large. Since performance is very important... Larry N.

re: Where Am I?

Hey — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 18:23:37 GMT

Having different voice accents throughout our beautiful planet would be great and would increase the "travel feeling".

A better acft separation in order to avoid GA's would be nice too.

Good luck

re: Where Am I?

Miguel Bujan — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 22:00:28 GMT

Hey Mike:

Excellent article.

Two things I would like ATC to do for us:

"PAN_AM345, "-> exit right or left<-", contact ground etc..." upon landing. Only God and I know how many times I had chosen the wrong side of the runways.

On departures, approaches and landings, ATC should control air speed. Also taxi speed now that I think about it.

But I've learned to live and enjoy ATC ever since FS2002.

Cheers,

Miguel

re: Where Am I?

Stevie — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 01:08:59 GMT

I love the way you give me insight in the game I've been enjoying the last couple of years...great stuff!

Keep it up please!

re: Where Am I?

David — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:15:15 GMT

Mike, Thanks for the info, the one update I would like to see with the ATC is spacing out the planes. The other day at BOS with in about 3 miles there were 2 737's and my 747-200 coming in. It would just be nice.

re: Where Am I?

Andi — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:43:04 GMT

mike, i´m playing that great game since fs4, and i´m in love with it. but please! is it possible to realize that atc is able to make a pushback conversation, and the fs is able to do an pushback automaticly, not by using the "y"? PLEASE!PLEASE!PLEASE!

re: Where Am I?

Daniel — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 17:02:55 GMT

Hi! And thanks for a really interesting article! I thought I would join in on the "wish lists" for ATC since its one of my favorite features of FS 1. Regional differences in the ATC systems (only need some relatively small things) would be really nice! - Transition alt of 18000 ft outide US is reeaaly wierd... couldn't you connect this setting to the current "center" that the aircraft operates under? Would be nice to finaly have transition around 5000 ft when flying in Europe... Also possibility to have regionl use of QNH in pascals or millibars would make flying outside of the US more realistic (don't think any european country uses mb...) 2. "smarter" ATC around the airports would be great and holding patterns would kick ass if they were possible to include (maybe together with a setting that only puts AI aircraft in them for those that want quick and easy flights?) 3. Also faster takeoff/landing separations. When an aircraft has touched down, without an aircraft cleared to land behind a/c waiting to depart should get "behind landing traffic, line up and wait" commands, this would significantly speed things up at busy airports! 4. PLEASE delete the horrible altitude adjustment requests by ATC to the AI. "airline bla bla, you are 300 ft above your current..." AI never manages to correct, and you end up hearing the same request to climb/descent a couple of hundred feet every 20 seconds... not very realistic... I realize that in the real world ATC would ask you to correct your altitude, but then again the pilots would be able to do so... :) 5.lastly aircraft waiting to cross a busy runway never get cleared to cross in FS9 since they are told to hold if some aircraft has been cleared to land/takeoff (witch is perpetually at all my major airports, and causes major problems for example at Frankfurt and Pars CDG wich need to use paralell runways), and no room is given to let them cross. Thus if an a/c is waiting to cross and an other plane is waiting to take off, give the plane taking off a "line up and wait" command, and let one or two planes cross, when they have safely passed the runway just clear the departing traffic. (without the departing plane having to wait 2 min to be able to take off) Hope these suggestions would'nt completely kill the frame rates or be impossible for other reasons. In my humble opinon ATC would be more or less complete if it had these things... A few final "easter eggs" that I have thought of though as well for FS11 or 12... :) - Ability to add regional dialects to the ATC structure, and also posibilty to assign voice sets to various airlines... - "Smart gates" that can easily find the doors on the aircraft, I realize this meens that you need to designate the door positions in the aircraft.cfg file or elsewhere in the AC structure - "Smart support vehicles" like baggage carts with conveyer belts, catering trucks and similar stuff that can find the cargo doors (like the gates would find the main pax doors), also possibilty to have movable stairs for ramp positions. - Working de-iceing and refuel options, with visible scenery. Ability to have the plane fueled not only by seeing the tank go from 0 to full instantly, but continusly as fuel is added to the plane! - Specific AFCAD tracks for ground support vehicles, possibility to select what vehicles are to be used at each stand/ramp position could be tied to the AFCAD also...

re: Where Am I?

John — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 10:37:05 GMT

I would like FS ATC to talk to me only. When I'm flying or on the ground, I hear all of the ATC chatter from the other planes too. It would be nice to only have MY conversation with Control. When ATC is talking with other aircraft, I can't respond until they are finished, which can be some time if the area has a lot of planes. This blog site is great.

re: Where Am I?

rayed — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 19:52:49 GMT

Well, I for one don't mind then asking to contact ground if I hit wrong polygon by mistake. But what I do mind a) they do not use SIDs nor STARs b) mentioned above - transition alt is often wrong (fixed at 18000 ft) c) ATC do not use speed to separate aircrafts d) they do not use holding patters at all If you can check addon called Radar Contact (v4) - this is what FS ATC should be + ground handling (already in FS, working in most cases fine) + FS great voices/speech. I don't care at all about regional differences, if ATC never holds me anywhere and I can't fly SID out of big airports.

re: Where Am I?

Mark Burrell — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 06:01:32 GMT

It's great to hear a few details about the upcoming FSX. I am happy with all the features which can simulate more realism. If we can have all the realism of flight dynamics, beautiful VFR scenery and not compromise performance on high end systems, I say wonderful. Give us all the realistic features you can! I have always loved previous versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator and I continue to look forward to whatever improvements Microsoft FSX brings.

re: Where Am I?

Jeroen Wenting — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 23:53:02 GMT

Interesting thoughts. One solution to this might be to give runways a bounding box, except instead of using it for colission detection it's used to determine whether an aircraft is on it or not.
That could then (by using different sized boundary boxes) also be used to enable takeoff fields (like used in WW2 and WW1 airfields) rather than strips, by having a boundary box pretty much the size of the aerodrome.

How much work that would be to implement in the FS ATC and AI engines I can't of course judge, but it may be a technically feasible solution that could open up a whole new can of worms (oops, opportunities).

re: Where Am I?

DazzyB — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:25:11 GMT

Hi,

How easy would it be to implement a 'Fly Me' menu option into FSX? By this, I mean that an ai pilot takes over your a/c until you stich off the option. It would be nice just to sit and watch the flight and learn from how the ai flies the airplane, right down to taxying and starting up/shutting down the engines. I assume the algorithmn logic is already there as ai already know how to fly the fp routes. It would also be nice to site with a wing view and watch the world go by as a 'virtual passenger'!

Dazzy.

re: Where Am I?

spad007 — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 06:52:20 GMT

fligh unlimited III had coments like thanks for mowing the grass
now get back on the runway. lol

re: Where Am I?

slydon — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:09:47 GMT

atc needs an emergency contact --mayday lost power or something like that to give clearance to land at nearest airport.

Don Hunt

re: Where Am I?

CaptnBen — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:44:11 GMT

i love the way everybody is so critical of this game.

i love the progress MS have made with this game.

ooh and i love this blog, it has made me see the development of this product in a whole different light.

some people have complained that this product is not complete but there's an old saying "you can't please everybody".

re: Where Am I?

Harry C — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:08:21 GMT

fsx is great but how do you open all doors on the aircraft?