How do I get aircraft to fly their planned route?

[Andrew Carr 812404]

Hi guys,

 

First up, this is a fantastic program and a great step forward in pilot training. Our division is really excited by the possibilities afforded by this program.

 

I'm having trouble, however, with aircraft routes. It appears (unless I've missed something) that aircraft will only fly to one point (NDB, VOR, WAYPOINT) at a time, after which they have to be manually programmed to fly to the next one.

 

For example, say the planned route is VOR1 VOR2 WAYPOINT1 NDB1. When the exercise starts the aircraft is effectively tracking to VOR1, however once it gets there it enters a holding pattern instead of continuing to VOR2, WAYPOINT1, etc. As far as I can tell, it requires a manual input at each point in the flight plan. I've found this to be quite difficult to manage in exercises with a large volume of aircraft. When you have ~15-20 aircraft to drive, as well as providing the pilot 'voices' and also monitoring the student's performance, it is very labour-intensive!

 

Have I missed something or is there a way to make the aircraft track via the points listed in their flight plan?

 

Cheers,

 

Andrew Carr

VATPAC9

Deputy Director Training

VATPAC - VATSIM PACIFIC DIVISION

[Christopher Serio 823884]

Andrew,

 

You are correct. Aircraft only fly to one point at a time. This is certainly a shortcoming of the program which i intended to change at some point. But remember, the ACSim was designed as a tool to teach students how to vector as a TRACON. It can certainly be used for CTR stuff as well but it's not 100% designed for that.

[Andrew Carr 812404]

Hi Chris,

 

Thanks for confirming this; I didn't realise it was primarily a TRACON tool. Would love to see a planned route function in the future - aside from that, it is a very handy program and quite straightforward to use.

 

One other question - will the Situation Manager (MSAccess) database still work with the release version of ACSim? I found it much easier to use than manually coding in Notepad or adding them through the ACSim menu.

 

Cheers,

 

Andrew Carr

VATPAC9

Deputy Director Training

VATPAC - VATSIM PACIFIC DIVISION

[Christopher Serio 823884]

The ACS file format has not changed so any tools you have to generate them should be fine.

[Wayne Higgins 838379]

Hi Andrew,

I designed an access database to create the scenario files too. maybe we should swap and have a look at where we can improve on each other.. Yes?

 

Email me your mdb file and I will send you mine.

 

Cheers