Situational awareness

[Johnny Coughlan]

Lately whilst flying I've noticed a huge increase in txt pilots, when flying into a busy sector I find it a little hard to picture where everyone else is in relevant to me when a large amount in the sector are txt only, I find myself concentrating on the ones I hear through my headset and not on the ones using txt.

 

Not a huge issue I know but I like building a picture in my head where everyone is I usually only fly a small few routes and know the airspace very well and I find the cockpit workload a little high having to maximize vpilot and have a quick scan of which txt pilot is where.

 

Anyone else?.

[Ernesto Alvarez 818262]

sounds like you have a problem you have to work on

 

text should be a lot easier for awareness especially since you cant forget what was transmitted, your choice to either use it or not to your advantage

 

one tip, you dont have to focus on everyone (information overload)

Edited December 6, 2016 at 07:44 PM by Guest

[Camden Bruno]

Johnny,

 

I applaud you for doing your best to monitor UNICOM and keep track of the planes around you. I suggest using VATSpy, Vattastic, QuteScoop, or whatever VATSIM monitoring software works best for you. This enables you to see the aircraft in relation to your position, along with their altitude, course, etc.

 

Hope this helps and let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

 

Best,

[Kirk Christie]

Lately whilst flying I've noticed a huge increase in txt pilots, when flying into a busy sector I find it a little hard to picture where everyone else is in relevant to me when a large amount in the sector are txt only, I find myself concentrating on the ones I hear through my headset and not on the ones using txt.

 

Not a huge issue I know but I like building a picture in my head where everyone is I usually only fly a small few routes and know the airspace very well and I find the cockpit workload a little high having to maximize vpilot and have a quick scan of which txt pilot is where.

 

Anyone else?.

 

With ATC? then let the controller worry about it.

 

On unicom, well that's text only so you'll have to live with that.

[Lorenzo Stobbione 1368867]

Well, I tried to simulate "as real as it gets" while flying on UNICOM trying not to watch over vatspy and I found enough useful the boeing tcas radar on the map viewer.

Of course, you do not know the callsign of aircraft around you but in my opinion what really matter is where are the others.

 

If you know your flight plan enough you should be able to discriminate useful txt messages from not useful ones...