Standards for use of Flight strip additional boxes (V1.2)

[Stephen O'Reilly 825718]

Hi all

 

The recent release of VRC 1.2 brings with it the facility to transfer all the data entered on the flight strip between controllers. This wonderful facility brings with it a requirement for standardisation between controllers for the efficient use of this data.

 

In order to devise a regional standard for the use of the new transferable flight strip data, I'm asking for some information on what standards exist in real life for the use of flight strips. Also I'd like to elicit some opinions of as many vatsim controllers as can afford the time on what information you would like to see transferred to a colleague, and any regions who have already devised a policy for this please share your ideas. Who knows we might even be able to devise a worldwide policy.

 

Best Regards

Stephen

[Owen Catherwood 903683]

In the US, the data in the boxes vary from facility to facility, and as such no standard exists:

 

(referring to the 9 boxes)

Enter data as specified by a facility directive.

[Dominic Manning 811381]

I asked my region if they were making a policy on the local region forums.

The comment was no as ASRC doesn't support this data.

 

Btw, why are you attemting to create a regional standard on a global forum? I don't even know WHAT region you're from.

If you want infomation correct for your region, I'd suggest to use your local region forums. Otherwise some yank will say put A in box 1, a British gent will say put B in box 1 and I (a controller from Australia) will tell you to put Z in box 1 (but only cos I don't know what I'm talkin about).

[Mark Brummett]

I asked my region if they were making a policy on the local region forums.

The comment was no as ASRC doesn't support this data.

 

Btw, why are you attemting to create a regional standard on a global forum? I don't even know WHAT region you're from.

If you want infomation correct for your region, I'd suggest to use your local region forums. Otherwise some yank will say put A in box 1, a British gent will say put B in box 1 and I (a controller from Australia) will tell you to put Z in box 1 (but only cos I don't know what I'm talkin about).

 

I don't know that the above statement about ASRC is true...I do know for a fact ASRC has a 'rundown' feature, when is essentially the same as VRC's push strip feature. Something that someone should probably test to make sure.

 

Now if you're talking about the proprietary data that you are allowed to enter in the VRC flight strips, I was under the impression that wasn't able to transfer in either client, VRC to VRC client included, since that would require rewrite of the server code to accomodate.

[Ross Carlson]

Now if you're talking about the proprietary data that you are allowed to enter in the VRC flight strips, I was under the impression that wasn't able to transfer in either client, VRC to VRC client included, since that would require rewrite of the server code to accomodate.

 

He is talking about the strip annotations which you can enter in the 9 boxes on the strip. It is p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed between VRC clients as of version 1.2. This feature did not require server code changes ... I was able to just append the text after the callsign, with a delimiter between strings, and p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] it along with the normal "Rundown" packet.

[Dustin Rider]

I don't know that the above statement about ASRC is true...I do know for a fact ASRC has a 'rundown' feature, when is essentially the same as VRC's push strip feature. Something that someone should probably test to make sure.

 

I wondered if ASRC had any such feature; how does that 'rundown' feature work and what keystroke(s) are required to utilize it? I tried using the equivalent VRC command unsuccessfully. I'll gladly test anything else out.

[Stephen O'Reilly 825718]

Hi all.

 

I'm from the VATeir division.

 

I'm just trying to gather ideas and preferences to see how many similar ideas there are out there for these strip annotations.

 

Thanks guys.

[Tom Seeley]

Just for the sake of an example, there's some useful information relative to flight strip annotations in use by McGuire RAPCON, an airspace sector south of New York here:

http://www.geocities.com/rjt02/behind.htm

 

I'm not sure this will be useful at all in standardizing entries for the reasons already stated, but it does serve to show how the annotation boxes are used in at least one facility.

[Michael Pike]

I'm not sure a single standard for all controllers should be the target - there is so much variation in the type of information handled by different controllers (GND/TWR/APP/CTR). The real world strip usage is not likely to be much help because it tends to be very graphical - circles, arrows, underlines and strike-throughs etc.

 

I think the main benefit of a common standard would be for strips p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed between GND and TWR or TWR and APP or between successive APP controllers at one airport. But I don't see much use for it for en-route controllers (CTR). In many situations, the information previously "written" on a strip will be irrelevant to the next controller who would much prefer to be pushed a clean strip.

 

There is one other benefit of using standards and that is when one controller takes over a position from someone else - if all the strips are pushed to the incoming controller (perhaps with a m[Mod - Happy Thoughts] hand-off) - it would be good if the annotations could be understood at a glance because everyone is using the same language.

 

Mike