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Minor bug: simulated traffic shown in the visibility range


Jonas Kuster
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Jonas Kuster
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Posted

Another minor bug I detected is simulated traffic that shows up inside my coverage area. The aircraft is actually not there because the data is course again some seconds or minutes old. As far as I understand, normally such traffic should only appear outside my range in order to complete the traffic picture in a way reducing the traffic load on the server side.

Also some collegues of my vACC reported to have this problem, but only with the new version. It could be that the files downloaded were some kind corrupted, but I think also then ES should be able to not display traffic other than from the direct stream in my visibility area.

 

Here the AIC556 was shown by error, the triangle indicating that on my screen is not clearly visible, but it was a triangle.

ES_bug_002.JPG

Jonas Kuster
Network Supervisor
Leader Operation vACC Switzerland | vacc.ch @vaccswitzerland
GNG Support Team | gng.aero-nav.com
ES Plugin Developer | CCAMS

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Eric Bocaneanu 906549
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Jonas,

 

That is not unexpected at all. This is not just a VATSIM trick, it is how real ATM systems work. The flightplan is tracked by the FDP (Flight Data Processing) and receives the takeoff report (from anywhere in the world) and farther on it receives entry time estimates via OLDI, AFTN or by phone. From that it always calculates its supposed position by the flightplan. Some real life systems (like MATIAS which EuroScope is a clone of) also display that FDP track on your radar map alongside real radar tracks. Normally the estimate should be close to the actual estimate by 3 minutes. So by the time it enters your sector it should have been replaced by a radar track. But if you end up seeing this track then it is a warning that something has gone wrong. Either the estimate was wrong or something happened to the aircraft (since it is not where it should be).

 

How this works on VATSIM: just the same. In your case if you are seeing this FDP track inside radar covered airspace it is either because he disconnected, crashed, or changed route/landed outside your radar coverage due to emergency. Or the estimate is wrong (if entered manually by you) or the speed/flightroute filed by the aircraft is different than what he is actually doing. The data is in fact a bit delayed (so you might be seeing that track a bit behind the actual position) or the datastream could be old and stuck (happens once in a while on VATSIM servers).

Eric Bocaneanu

ROvACC Director

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Thomas Merle
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Eric,

 

I'm pretty sure that in 3.1d ES did not display the FP tracks within the covered radar range. In real world I can imagine what would be the purpose of such a behaviour, but on VATSIM I'm not sure this is appropriate. Can we revise the estimates on a FP track on Euroscope ?

 

FP tracks are very useful for traffic ahead of the sector as, it is a good tool for planning, even with a few errors. But having them in the middle of the sector when we know that it is bogus, it is really a problem. IMHO, if this behaviour is to be kept, we should have a way to eliminate individually those we know really aren't there.

Thomas Merle

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Jonas Kuster
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Eric,

 

I fully agree with you that it works different in real life. Even though I'm not sure if there are really systems which [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume a position of an aircraft on the radar. Of course the flightplans are forwarded to the next unit and the received information will be shown in any way, but this will be more likely on strips (paper or electronic) than on the scope. That might be very dangerous and confusing, as it was for me.

 

So on VATSIM it works currently that tracks from the data file are used if they should be in my coverage area (according to estimates, heading and time) but they aren't actually? Is that correct?

 

I fully agree with Thomas statement. And I didn't know about a function to revise estimates for my sector, either. Would be interesting if you could explain how it works, I found no information about in the ES wiki.

Jonas Kuster
Network Supervisor
Leader Operation vACC Switzerland | vacc.ch @vaccswitzerland
GNG Support Team | gng.aero-nav.com
ES Plugin Developer | CCAMS

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Eric Bocaneanu 906549
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Many ANSPs have moved away from using any kind of strips, electronic or paper, and are simply using the track labels and lists. I would rather try to find the reason some flight plan tracks appear wrongly. Was the VATSIM data server failed? Was the filed flight plan for the aircraft wrong? Had he disconnected?

 

The command to revise an estimate is here:

 

http://www.euroscope.hu/mediawiki/index.php?title=Command_Line_Reference

 

.est

Estimate a position for a flight plan track.

Syntax:

.est <point name> <time (4 chars in ZULU)> <click on FP>

Eric Bocaneanu

ROvACC Director

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