VATSIM.net

Over the past several years, virtual traffic volume has grown tremendously. However it is still very scattered, random and unreliable. To practice ATC efficiently there's no replacement for controlling under the critique of a knowledgeable mentor or instructor, so the members of VATSIM's Boston ARTCC suggested a program to simulate traffic. To implement that idea Chris Serio has come up with the ACSim, also known as the “Sweatboxâ€

Will it only be available to instructors? as in INS rank and above, or any mentor?

Sounds good! Keep up the good work

can this simulation be applied to pilots as well as with 'real traffic'. the data is real, the traffic is virtual apart from the vatsim pilots.
this way we would get real world traffic at all airports anytime of day, instead of having to rely on fly ins for busy traffic gurantee.
this really would be "as real as it gets."

Instructors create "scenario files" which contain all the aircraft, each starting at a certain lat/lon with a certain heading, altitude and airspeed. They can then be controlled by the instructor and told to climb/descend, turn, slow down, speed up, and join a localizer/glideslope for landing.

If you want real-world traffic, you'll need to create scenario files based on that traffic. There is no way to automatically have a sweatbox session mirror a real world traffic situation. Personally I don't think there'd be much value in that anyway ... we often need to tailor the situation files for the specific student and his/her specific point in the training progress, so real-world traffic will often not be applicable anyway.

Ive been toying with this program for a while and i can never seem to get it to where it would intercept a localizer or the glidslope. Im assuming it has to do with the Sector file and somthing in GNDMaker but can figure out what. Help will truely be appriciated.

My email is Checkmaster2k@comcast.net.

Thanks in advance!!!

I'm an instructor over at ZID and have 5 new students in training. I would love to have this program to help out with the training of these guys. Looking foward to getting it. Keep up the good work!

What would be wrong with other students having this program? Wouldn't it be great if one of your fellow controllers could control the a/c while you controlled then switch for practice when there isn't any traffic? I mean, what are we going to do with it otherwise?

Kyle Gibson
937217

Kyle,

The ACSim essentially allows a person to connect large quantities of aircraft to the network at once. While you're probably not malicious, not everyone else has reached complete maturity yet and they can very easily load up a ton of aircraft and just leave them running or fly them into other people's airspace to be annoying. In addition, the idea is for a mentor/instructor to run the scenarios because they are the ones doing the teaching. A fellow controller may not have the level of expertise that's needed to teach properly, enforce good habits and break bad habits. It's more harmful than good for non-training staff to use the program.

Bryant, check the ACSim forums. There's been a question about this. Basically you're probably not loading a sector file that has an ILS defined for that airport.

What a great idea this is!!!

Congrats to all people who created this program.

Greetings

Juan Carlos

If such a training session is underway, what would be the chance of pilots joining such a session to also get exposure to traffic volumes. I believe it would also help teach new pilots how to interact with ATC.

It would also give pilots exposure to all the addidional requirements for departure procedures and especially arrival procedures where planes need to be stacked on the approach and not mostly be no 1.

What type of workload would the _INS have with a lot of aircraft to control and being able to mentor the student? Seems like there would be too much to do at once.

About the wondering aircraft, couldn't you make it were the aircraft would disappear once crossing sector bounderies (toggle it).

I guess I'm not getting the jist of the whole system. So forgive the dumb questions.

I've sat in on a few sweatbox sessions with Toronto; 1 instructor can safely manage around 8-10 aircraft. Anything more, you'll want a mentor or another INS to step in and help out.

Thanks Matthew Horan for a quick response.

It sounds like a wonderful tool for everyone. Hope it reaches its full potential.

It also depends on how fast the student is firing off instructions. I've run sweatbox scenarios with 25 aircraft when the student was very good and thus issuing very few instructions. Usually, though, it's best to have one person controlling the aircraft and another handling voices.