Pro radar mode - difficulty correlating a flight (v3.1d)

[Michael Pike]

I was controlling EGBB_APP with radar mode and Mode-S correlation set. I had a departure which did not have mode-S equipment and did not "tag-up". When the pilot called I could tell from his position report that the target belonged to him but he had not appeared in any of my lists. I could radio-select the callsign the pilot gave but could not correlate it. I could see the flight plan OK and it showed EGBB as the point of departure.

 

The next controller confirmed that everything looked correct with the flight plan and that the [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned SSR code was set. Looking in the log, the only clue I can come up with is that there is a previous flight plan in the log which would not have routed through EGBB airspace. The correct flight plan was shown later in the log.

 

I'm wondering if, perhaps after an adnormal disconnection, a different route is filed, the system may not correctly calculate the flight plan position? Or there may be a simple explanation I'm missing.

[Stephan Boerner 945550]

Maybe the flightplan was wrongly correlated to another target? What was the state of the flightplan? Maybe it was NOTSTARTED.

[Todor Atanasov 878664]

As it is now, if ES hadn't p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] the flight route correctly (there might be many reasons for that) and the pilot hasn't filed a equipment suffix, ES will not correlated the FP with the track. Even more, in this version some uncorrelated FPs are not highlighted in the FP window, so you should look for them in the unconcerned flight plans (N tag in the FP header). It should be changed in the next version. Also keep in mind that that situation is not so far from the real life, I had a flight yesterday, which even squawking the correct squawk, simply refused to auto correlated, despite the fact we had ABI and ACT for him.

[Michael Pike]

Thanks for the comments. I know the automatic correlation doesn't always work - just like the real thing! I was making life hard for myself by filtering the flight plan list to hide unconcerned flights and I had not selected Show IFR flight plan track. It may have been in the flight plan list if I had unfiltered it.

 

Useful discussion thanks - I know what to do next time. I like a challenge!