| Radar Contact v4 |
| Tuesday, 03 January 2006 | |
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Page 2 of 2 5. Clearances / Ground handling They did not forget about smaller, uncontrolled airfields. When there is no tower or ATIS, you can get your weather briefing by calling your local Flight Service Station, who may also contact center and deliver you a clearance. You can also declare your intentions to the local traffic: "taxiing to runway 34", "taking-off runway 34", etc. That's certainly a very nice feature to those who don't like flying in the major airports with heavy aircraft - bring your turboprop aircraft in these smaller airports and enjoy your flight with full ATC coverage!
6. In the air... Soon after takeoff, you are told to contact Departure. He will give you the appropriate instructions for the first stage of flight and finally tell you to contact Center. In the air, your ATC options increase significantly to reflect reality. You may choose to leave the frequency for a weather briefing at any time, ask for an altimeter check, report position (uncontrolled airports), follow a NOTAM, ask for a speed restriction relief (heavy aircraft only), declare an emergency, cancel the IFR flightplan, request other altitude, declare an emergency... as you can see, there are plenty of options available during the flight. Let's now discuss the most important of them. While in the air, you may decide to skip some waypoints and shorten the flight distance/time. You can simply select the Direct Checkpoint menu, choose the waypoint you want to fly direct and wait for a clearance. For jet aircraft, you have the option of requesting a lower altitude to burn some fuel and then request a higher altitude to fly with maximum fuel economy - that procedure is called step climb, and normally performed by aircraft that are too heavy to maintain the filed cruise altitude at first. If you are experiencing turbulence or adverse weather conditions, you can ask for a route deviation and start following a parallel route in order to avoid these conditions. The controllers are actually watching your altitude and heading: they will call you attention whenever the maximum deviations are exceeded! You must also remain slower than 250 knots below 10,000 feet. Another great feature is ability to deny an ATC instruction. If there is a restriction you can't comply with, you can select "Unable" and wait for a better clearance. You don't have to worry too much about not being able to comply with an instruction, the controllers know what they are doing and will get you down safely.
While enroute, you may choose to change your destination for whatever reason. Although not constantly used in commercial aviation, it's an option available to the pilots and that should be represented in the simulator's ATC too. The controllers might also put you in a holding pattern, depending on the weather conditions. The odds of your flight being delayed are much greater when the visibility is low than when the visibility and ceiling are high - it also depends on the number of runways of the airport. The controller will assign you an altitude, a holding waypoint, side of tuns, leg lengths and finally an EFC (expect further clearance). You may declare "minimum fuel" at any time so that the controllers can assign you a new clearance and give you landing priority. Assigning holding clearances help the controllers have better control of the landing aircraft and also avoid go-arounds because of other traffic conflicts. Also, they did not forget the delay vectors, where the controller will assign an altitude and various headings, keeping you reasonably close to the arrival gate. It's definitely a very nice feature! As you can see, there are a great number of ATC options on the ground and in the air in order to retract a real controller. One of the most significant improvements of air traffic control when using Radar Contact is the ability to declare an emergency. In the emergency menu, you can declare several types of emergency: air rage, collision, cracked windshield, electrical failure, hydraulic failure, loss of pressure, fuel leak, medical, smoke in cockpit, etc. The controller will give you appropriate instructions, ask you to inform souls on board, total fuel and your landing intentions: vectors to closest airport, return to departure airport or proceed direct to the arrival airport. After you make your choice, he will finally ask if you need paramedics, authorities or any other support vehicle on the ground. However, the controllers don't seem to recognize the special squawk codes 7500 (hijack), 7600 (lost of communications) and 7700 (emergency).
7. Approach and landing If you decide to go with a visual approach, the controller will expect you to intercept the runway heading, get visual contact with the airfield and land; he finally asks you to report when visual contact with the airport is achieved. The vector approach works basically the same way, but this time the controller is reponsible for making you intercept the runway heading and getting visual contact with the field. The Radar Contact vectors proved to be much, much better than the default ATC's - the controller will give you accurate instructions for you to line up correctly, and not play of vectoring you away. Although the visual or vectored approach is a good option for small aircraft, most of the commercial jetliners are supposed to perform an instrument approach. If you want to fly just like the professional pilots, select one of the instrument approaches, get your approach plates ready and take a close look on the approach restrictions. You have full ATC support no matter what happens - an emergency, a missed approach or any other requirements will be analyzed by a controller. If you follow the restrictions on the approach plate and configure the aircraft properly for the landing, it's unlikely that you'll have any problems and a safe landing can be performed. However, you might decide to execute a missed approach under some circumstances: an unstable approach, engine failure, wind gusts or any other issue with the aircraft that might reduce the flight safety. The missed approach instructions are present on the chart and normally take you to a holding patter over a VOR or waypoint. You can then choose to hold as published, use delay vectors, try another instrument or vector approach or even divert to the alternate airport (you can set two alternates!). In a normal instrument approach, you are supposed to contact tower and get your landing clearance, then land and finally contact ground to get your taxi clearance.
* Not familiar with approach plates? Read our TUTORIAL! * After landing, the Ground controller will assign you a gate, but will not give taxiways assignments... that will be troublesome if you are unfamiliar with the airport. Using the airport's chart, you can determine the taxiways you will need and taxi safely to the gate. Note that a real ATC would assign you the taxiways, but using an airport chart work just fine in this situation. 8. Conclusion The default Flight Simulator ATC has been such a bad idea for serious simmers (like myself), that we have decided to simply ignore it and follow departure procedures, altitude and speed restrictions all by ourselves. Radar Contact has come to the Flight Simulator market to completely change my mind regarding ATC in a simulator. It drastically improves the inaccurate default air traffic control engine for hardcore simmers to practice real life procedures using their realistic aircraft add-ons. Departure procedures, holding patterns, accurate vectoring, ATC coverage in all airports and areas, AI chatter, emergency simulation and realistic procedures are just some of the great features of Radar Contact. Although it does not support VFR flights, Radar Contact can still be used in controlled, partially controlled or uncontrolled airfields in any weather condition. Despite the rather poor visual interface in the simulator, Radar Contact has a perfect engine and gets more and more enjoyable everyday. If you are a hardcore simmer who wants to get the maximum out of your payware aircraft add-ons by having full ATC support available at any time without depending on the online ATC network schedules, I highly recommend that you get Radar Contact. Many great features have been added in this new version and I'm sure you will enjoy your new way of flying! Thanks for reading this review, I hope that it have helped you make a decision on wether or not to buy this product! Radar Contact is available in CD-ROM version only for $44.00. Check the developer's website for more details: http://www.jdtllc.com PROS: // Full ATC support - anytime, anywhere CONS: // No VFR support, although you can use it for IFR flights on partially controlled and uncontrolled airfields Final grade: 8.5/10Congratulations, JDT LLC! |
