
Virtual Planes, Virtual Airports: Inside the World of VATSIM - danso
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/18/vatsim/
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david-given
> _...when you’re approaching an airport and an air traffic controller is
> giving you your initial clearance, he’s going to tell you where he wants
> you, what altitude he wants you at, what speed he wants you at, what heading
> he wants you on, until you intercept the localiser for the runway you’re
> going to land on. So he’s going to give you about six pieces of information
> in a single sentence. You need to be ready to accept that information and
> understand it. If you’re not it’s going to come at you like arglebargle and
> you’re going to be saying please repeat please repeat please repeat. Well he
> doesn’t have time to do that because there may be fifteen aircraft in the
> pattern so please repeat is an extraordinary request in many circumstances._

Why isn't this information transmitted digitally? Fire it off in a sideband of
the radio transmission, or even just as a half-second modem bleep in the audio
track. You keep the voice communication for redundancy and backwards
compatibility for planes that don't have the equipment, but having the
information actually appear on your console is surely highly desirable?

...actually, isn't this technology already available, so that ATC can give
commands to planes flying on full autopilot?

~~~
akira2501
> You keep the voice communication for redundancy and backwards compatibility
> for planes that don't have the equipment, but having the information
> actually appear on your console is surely highly desirable?

Are you _absolutely_ certain you can prevent unauthorized use of this channel?
Keep in mind what you're proposing is that hundreds of semi-independent
agencies have the ability to push this information directly into the aircraft
FMC.

The other reason it's communicated this way is because over an open audio
channel other pilots can listen to the traffic and keep themselves apprised of
situations in the local airspace and advise of conflicts with previous
instructions.

Finally, it leaves the choice in the hands of the pilot. The controller may
give incompatible instructions (runway not long enough for landing weight) or
make impossible guidance requests (airspeed too low for landing
configuration). The FMC is not a friendly computer system to use and it is
highly integrated with most of the critical flight systems. It most certainly
isn't perfect and pilots absolutely do not want anyone to be able to make
changes to their flight data remotely.

> ...actually, isn't this technology already available, so that ATC can give
> commands to planes flying on full autopilot?

Nope. No one is particularly interested in developing it either.

~~~
david-given
> Are you _absolutely_ certain you can prevent unauthorized use of this
> channel? Keep in mind what you're proposing is that hundreds of semi-
> independent agencies have the ability to push this information directly into
> the aircraft FMC.

Er, no, that's not what I'm proposing.

I'm proposing a way to get the six pieces of complex information from the ATC
onto a display which the pilot can read, to avoid the pilot having to
remember/write down those six pieces of information in a potentially
information-dense situation. I would have this _in addition_ to the existing
voice control as a backup. The pilot still does the flying.

~~~
akira2501
> I'm proposing a way to get the six pieces of complex information from the
> ATC onto a display which the pilot can read, to avoid the pilot having to
> remember/write down those six pieces of information in a potentially
> information-dense situation. I would have this in addition to the existing
> voice control as a backup. The pilot still does the flying.

Cockpits are pretty busy places.. it would be difficult for a pilot to verify
that the information on the display is _still_ consistent with the last audio
update from a controller. Or, they may miss the fact that they got a radio
call to change their speed, but the display did not get updated and still
shows the old requested speed. Or, perhaps a rogue or unintended signal was
interpreted by the unit and the data updated with incorrect (and dangerous)
values.

As it is, the radio communications can impose extra load, but this is usually
the responsibility of the non-flying pilot and it occurs during routine and
non-complicated portions of the flight. For a large segment of the flight
path, these updates will simply involve changing a setting on the auto pilot
console (change of heading or airspeed). Your landing runway is assigned and
confirmed by approach control _before_ you actually speak to the tower and
usually before you even have the airport in sight. In smaller airports this
responsibility _may_ be handled by the same person or by the larger ATC center
serving that area, but the information is handed out early and in specific
phases to help reduce the load on the flight crew.

The call and response system is highly portable and useful and is typically
quite resistant to "human factors" errors, when you start adding automation
and new devices to the cockpit that can devolve into emergent behavior you
start to see "human factors" errors occur.

------
_chris_
"The other thing I know is forbidden seems far more innocuous. You’re not
allowed to say “roger”."

Huh? Roger and Wilco are said all the time in real life (obviously not an
appropriate response to all ATC requests, but far from forbidden).

~~~
naz
Maybe they have "roger" confused with "copy", which is widely used but
incorrect.

~~~
clamprecht
The thing that you never say in aviation radio communications is "10-4".
That's for CB. Roger, wilco, "no joy", and "tally ho" are used all the time.
No joy means "I don't see the traffic you just told me about", and "tally ho"
means "I see the traffic." This guy has a bunch of videos that are pretty good
for radio comms:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxGjm4p2paQEhuyuVp_woDA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxGjm4p2paQEhuyuVp_woDA)

~~~
naz
Thanks for the video. I did my PPL in the UK so coming to America was a bit of
a radio culture shock. I think "looking for traffic" and "traffic in sight"
are the ICAO phraseology, and will work everywhere. Flying to France, you
might confuse a French controller by saying "tally ho".

Having thought about it some more, the statement about "roger" not being
allowed was probably missing some context. He probably meant it in the context
of an ATC instruction that requires reading back.

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carlosdp
The VATSIM community is awesome. They're so dedicated to following real world
operating procedures and realism, I learned so much about aviation doing ATC
on the platform when I was in highschool.

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erpellan
Do they have any problem with controllers directing planes into the ground or
pilots deliberately crashing? Most of my flight sims ended that way after I
got bored.

~~~
hn_user2
ATC access is tightly controlled and requires work to get. Don't have this
problem with controllers.

The pilots taking the time to go through VATSIM are also the ones taking the
time to do things right. They almost always finish their trips. When they
don't, they usually let the controllers know.

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jkaljundi
There is now also a very good paid service called Pilotedge:
[https://www.pilotedge.net/](https://www.pilotedge.net/)

