A few question about Hawaii area in RC5

[rgamurot 1]

I was just wondering what Departure and Approach was called in the Hawaii area in RCv5. Is it "Honolulu Departure/Approach" or "HCF Depature/Approach"? Also, is that the ATC callsign for all airport Approach/Departure Controls apart from Hilo (ITO)?

[Subs 0]

I was just wondering what Departure and Approach was called in the Hawaii area in RCv5. Is it "Honolulu Departure/Approach" or "HCF Depature/Approach"? Also, is that the ATC callsign for all airport Approach/Departure Controls apart from Hilo (ITO)?

Hi Ryan,It is just called "Approach" / "Departure". This is uniform for all airports worldwide as to record each induvidual approach airspace name would be an impossible task.Subs

[rgamurot 1]

Thanks Subs. I was just wondering about that. But if its all simply "approach" or "departure", does that mean in RC that even the enroute controllers in Hawaii are "approach" too, or are they "HCF Approach"? I know i'm going overboard for realism but i'm just wondering.

[ronzie 21]

You will be told to contact the name of the center (as defined in the FIR data) that has enroute jurisdiction. If the airport has no local controller then that FIR center will control the approach to its radar limit.

Thanks Subs. I was just wondering about that. But if its all simply "approach" or "departure", does that mean in RC that even the enroute controllers in Hawaii are "approach" too, or are they "HCF Approach"? I know i'm going overboard for realism but i'm just wondering.

[rgamurot 1]

You will be told to contact the name of the center (as defined in the FIR data) that has enroute jurisdiction. If the airport has no local controller then that FIR center will control the approach to its radar limit.

That's the thing though. Here in Hawaii, "HCF Approach" is the enroute center having jurisdiction over the whole state. There is no "HCF Center".For example, if I'm flying to Kona from Honolulu, I would talk to:1. Honolulu Clearance 121.4 (even if VFR for Class B VFR clearance)2. Honolulu Ground 121.93. Honolulu Tower 118.34. HCF Departure 124.8 (118.3 at night)5. HCF Approach 124.1 (119.3 if overflying Lanai)(enroute)6. HCF Approach 120.2(enroute)7. HCF Approach 126.0(enroute and approach)8. Kona Tower 120.3If going to LAX under IFR(optional) Honolulu Clearance (if unable PDC)1. Honolulu Ground2. Tower3. HCF Departure 118.3 or 124.84. HCF Approach 124.15. HCF Approach 126.06. Oakland Oceanicetc.

[JBZ 13]

That's the thing though. Here in Hawaii, "HCF Approach" is the enroute center having jurisdiction over the whole state. There is no "HCF Center".For example, if I'm flying to Kona from Honolulu, I would talk to:1. Honolulu Clearance 121.4 (even if VFR for Class B VFR clearance)2. Honolulu Ground 121.93. Honolulu Tower 118.34. HCF Departure 124.8 (118.3 at night)5. HCF Approach 124.1 (119.3 if overflying Lanai)(enroute)6. HCF Approach 120.2(enroute)7. HCF Approach 126.0(enroute and approach)8. Kona Tower 120.3If going to LAX under IFR(optional) Honolulu Clearance (if unable PDC)1. Honolulu Ground2. Tower3. HCF Departure 118.3 or 124.84. HCF Approach 124.15. HCF Approach 126.06. Oakland Oceanicetc.

Actually, you are quite wrong in this. Not only am I an FAA Controller, but I also controlled in Hawaii (Wheeler AAF) when I was in the military. During my time down there, I visited the HCF.First, HCF is short for Honolulu Control Facility. The reason it is called this is because you have the Tower, TRACON, and ARTCC located in the same building.Now, flying in and out of Honolulu, you will talk to "Honolulu Approach" or "Honolulu Departure" respectively. These are their callsigns. Furthermore, if you are traveling in between islands and to the mainland, you will talk to Honolulu Center which is broken up into 8 sectors. They do the same functions as LA Center, FTW Center, etc. They are an ARTCC.If you are flying into Lanai, your "Approach Control" is Honolulu Center. The sector overlying Lanai (which I believe is either 2 or 8) not only provides enroute services, but approach control services to the airport. This happens on the U.S. Mainland also. Airports not serviced by a TRACON/RAPCON are handled by the Center overlying the airspace.In Hawaii, the only time you will hear "Approach" or "Departure" is when flying in and out of HNL, HOG, or ITO. Each of these airports have their own TRACON/RAPCON. All other airports are handled by the Center which in an "approach" environment you still refer to them as "Honolulu Center". This doesn't include Kaneohe MCAS which has their own Approach Control.

[ronzie 21]

Whether an local controller exists or not is definable even in RC4 on the Controller page for the airport (unfortunately not sticky). You enable each phase of what's available for the airport. So you'll either get contact approach (no name) or if no tracon center will just clear you for the procedure when you would normally be contacted by approach. In V5 those frequencies will be pulled from the scenery. Using a small strip near Duluth, MN, KSUW (BONG), here's the data pulled from the scenery that is handed to RC during a scenery build: COM: Type=8 (APPROACH), Freq=125.45, Name="DULUTH" COM: Type=12 (AWOS), Freq=118.87, Name="" COM: Type=7 (CLEARANCE), Freq=124.80, Name="DULUTH" COM: Type=9 (DEPARTURE), Freq=125.45, Name="DULUTH" COM: Type=3 (UNICOM), Freq=122.70, Name="BONG" COM: Type=4 (CTAF), Freq=122.70, Name="BONG"I've attached the data as shown in the RCV5 (beta) airport com list in the pix attached plus another as shown by AFCAD. Right RC5 shows that Duluth Departure and Approach frequencies are used. AWOS is as pulled. CTAF AND UNICOM as pulled. Since no tower or ground is present it duplicated the pulled clearance frequency (in this current beta version). It also used a default FSS. nNote that you can turn off each comm frequency by unchecking it and saving those changes. (You can also modify those frequencies as well and they can be saved.) This then will influence the behavior at airports.No airport names will be spoken necessarily except maybe a few of the largest. We'll have to see. RC does not use speech synthesis.RC4 did not get its frequencies from the installed scenery but RC5 apparently does. I've attached a comparison image of RJGG, a newer airport in Nagoya, Japan which is not in the FS9 default scenery. RC used several frequencies labeled for RGG in the scenery comm list and labeled as for RGG, not others in the vicinity. This is a confusing list but just pay attention to the ones for RGG.If I'm incorrect I'm sure jd will have a comment.

[rgamurot 1]

Actually, you are quite wrong in this. Not only am I an FAA Controller, but I also controlled in Hawaii (Wheeler AAF) when I was in the military. During my time down there, I visited the HCF.First, HCF is short for Honolulu Control Facility. The reason it is called this is because you have the Tower, TRACON, and ARTCC located in the same building.Now, flying in and out of Honolulu, you will talk to "Honolulu Approach" or "Honolulu Departure" respectively. These are their callsigns. Furthermore, if you are traveling in between islands and to the mainland, you will talk to Honolulu Center which is broken up into 8 sectors. They do the same functions as LA Center, FTW Center, etc. They are an ARTCC.If you are flying into Lanai, your "Approach Control" is Honolulu Center. The sector overlying Lanai (which I believe is either 2 or 8) not only provides enroute services, but approach control services to the airport. This happens on the U.S. Mainland also. Airports not serviced by a TRACON/RAPCON are handled by the Center overlying the airspace.In Hawaii, the only time you will hear "Approach" or "Departure" is when flying in and out of HNL, HOG, or ITO. Each of these airports have their own TRACON/RAPCON. All other airports are handled by the Center which in an "approach" environment you still refer to them as "Honolulu Center". This doesn't include Kaneohe MCAS which has their own Approach Control.

Aloha Jeremy! It's always nice to meet someone who has been to Hawaii before. Anyway, as of 2008 (when I started flying) the Honolulu Departure, Honolulu Approach, and Honolulu Center callsigns were not in use anymore. Even departing or arriving at OGG, it's HCF Departure, and HCF Approach. Have a look at the Maui5 departure. They have HCF Approach listed in the departure procedure. Also, in and out of LNY, you are on HCF Approach on 119.3. Even when you're IFR on the ground, you'll close or open you flight plan through the RCO for HCF. For some reason, you can never raise Flight Service over the radio there. The exception to the rule here is that if you are departing LNY, after CTAF you will use the callsign HCF Approach, not departure.And nowadays, Enroute, it's always HCF Approach; even when you're coming in from the mainland. Everytime we go down to HCF for Operation Raincheck, someone always has to whine, "Why is it HCF Approach if I'm enroute." A lot has changed over the past few years. We even got a ground tracking radar now. Also, they're planning an ILS for 4R at JRF!@ronzie: I understand that approach is simply approach wherever you are. You are right, programing the name for each airport is overkill. I'm simply saying that in RCv4, it's Honolulu Center. They've since changed their callsign to HCF Approach for the enroute controllers. Putting this change into RCv5 will help enhance realism. But i do respect the fine work you guys have put together. If it's too late and already recorded, that's life.EDIT: Also @ronzie or jd, could you make it easier to permenantly change or even add frequencies for airports if needed? Every now and then someone changes something and I have to hunt for the airport and try and remember what frequency is in which order. Maybe if we manually change it on the airport information screen, it'll just remember what we used last?

[ronzie 21]

In the RCV5 screen shots in my previous post you'll see you have the opportunity to make comm properties permanent as well other other airport changes I can't show yet :) .As for the frequencies pulled by makerwys.exe, only the last pulled is used for each control type in rcv5, at least the first version. For PHNL default here's the list as pulled:PHNL,0,0,"Honolulu Intl"PHNL,1,127.90,"PHNL"PHNL,5,121.90,"HONOLULU"PHNL,6,118.10,"HONOLULU"PHNL,6,123.90,"HONOLULU"PHNL,7,121.40,"HONOLULU"PHNL,8,118.30,"HONOLULU"PHNL,8,120.90,"HONOLULU"PHNL,8,119.10,"HONOLULU APPROACH"PHNL,8,124.80,"HONOLULU DEPARTURE"PHNL,9,118.30,"HONOLULU"PHNL,9,120.90,"HONOLULU"PHNL,9,124.80,"HONOLULU"PHNL,11,122.10,"HONOLULU"PHNL,11,122.20,"HONOLULU"PHNL,11,122.60,"HONOLULU"PHNL,11,123.60,"HONOLULU"andPHOG,0,0,"Kahului" <OGGPHOG,1,128.60,"PHOG"PHOG,3,122.95,"MAUI"PHOG,4,118.70,"MAUI"PHOG,5,121.90,"MAUI"PHOG,6,118.70,"MAUI"PHOG,7,120.60,"MAUI"PHOG,8,119.50,"MAUI"PHOG,8,120.20,"MAUI"PHOG,9,119.50,"MAUI"PHOG,9,120.20,"MAUI"PHOG,11,122.10,"HONOLULU"PHOG,11,123.60,"HONOLULU"The second field in this list, CommsType, is: 0 = Special entry with airport name, zero frequency 1 = ATIS 2 = MULTICOM 3 = UNICOM 4 = CTAF 5 = GROUND 6 = TOWER 7 = CLEARANCE 8 = APPROACH 9 = DEPARTURE 10 = CENTRE 11 = FSS 12 = AWOS 13 = ASOS 14 = CLEARANCE PRE-TAXI 15 = REMOTE CLEARANCE DELIVERYso you can see there are two type 8s and 9s for approach and departure. RC5 only accommodates one of each type and the last one of each type is used. The label for each type is coded within the scenery comm properties for each frequency in the list so if RC ever speaks them it will use them as coded by the scenery designer or scenery modified by the user with an appropriate airport facility editor (I recommend ade9x for reasons that are too lengthy for this discussion.). Perhaps some day it may be possible for RC to pick the proper frequency by direction of arrival or departure or runway if that information is included in the scenery.For fun, if you have an add-on for an airport in this region, get the list of comm frequencies using ade9x, rename the appropriate types to HCF Approach, etc., and do a scenery rebuild. Then in the FSX or FS9 folder look at f5.csv with wordpad and search for the ICAO code to look at the names for each type. f5.csv will not be in the data folder for rcv4. a4.csv is totally a different structure and not derived from scenery. When looking at any .csv file in RC use wordpad and never save it unless instructed to do so and then only as a .txt type.The list I used as an example is from the FS9 default via Ultimate Traffic afcads which I think was made from a JEPP database around 2002 so it appears the naming was correct for that period.Now, a surprise. I just checked the wav files for RCv5 beta and by ICAO there are quite a few airport names. So maybe in a later version of RCv5 after the initial release some might be done with comm frequency names. jd'd have to build a lookup table to translate the name in f5.csv to ICAO code or redo the scripts, etc. As an example there is a phnl.wav which plays as Honolul. Remember that these beta .wav files were built by a voice synthesis engine for beta test only. Whether these names will actually be recorded is yet to be decided.So, we do try to please but it takes time. :)

-------------------snip--------------------EDIT: Also @ronzie or jd, could you make it easier to permenantly change or even add frequencies for airports if needed? Every now and then someone changes something and I have to hunt for the airport and try and remember what frequency is in which order. Maybe if we manually change it on the airport information screen, it'll just remember what we used last?

[JBZ 13]

Aloha Jeremy! It's always nice to meet someone who has been to Hawaii before. Anyway, as of 2008 (when I started flying) the Honolulu Departure, Honolulu Approach, and Honolulu Center callsigns were not in use anymore. Even departing or arriving at OGG, it's HCF Departure, and HCF Approach. Have a look at the Maui5 departure. They have HCF Approach listed in the departure procedure. Also, in and out of LNY, you are on HCF Approach on 119.3. Even when you're IFR on the ground, you'll close or open you flight plan through the RCO for HCF. For some reason, you can never raise Flight Service over the radio there. The exception to the rule here is that if you are departing LNY, after CTAF you will use the callsign HCF Approach, not departure.And nowadays, Enroute, it's always HCF Approach; even when you're coming in from the mainland. Everytime we go down to HCF for Operation Raincheck, someone always has to whine, "Why is it HCF Approach if I'm enroute." A lot has changed over the past few years. We even got a ground tracking radar now. Also, they're planning an ILS for 4R at JRF!@ronzie: I understand that approach is simply approach wherever you are. You are right, programing the name for each airport is overkill. I'm simply saying that in RCv4, it's Honolulu Center. They've since changed their callsign to HCF Approach for the enroute controllers. Putting this change into RCv5 will help enhance realism. But i do respect the fine work you guys have put together. If it's too late and already recorded, that's life.EDIT: Also @ronzie or jd, could you make it easier to permenantly change or even add frequencies for airports if needed? Every now and then someone changes something and I have to hunt for the airport and try and remember what frequency is in which order. Maybe if we manually change it on the airport information screen, it'll just remember what we used last?

You are absolutely right, I stand corrected...shows what 8 years away from the islands will do to ya :( I am very curious as to why they did that. I will have to confer with my NATCA brothers and try and find an answer.

[Subs 0]

Now, a surprise. I just checked the wav files for RCv5 beta and by ICAO there are quite a few airport names. So maybe in a later version of RCv5 after the initial release some might be done with comm frequency names. jd'd have to build a lookup table to translate the name in f5.csv to ICAO code or redo the scripts, etc. As an example there is a phnl.wav which plays as Honolul. Remember that these beta .wav files were built by a voice synthesis engine for beta test only. Whether these names will actually be recorded is yet to be decided.So, we do try to please but it takes time. :)

Ron's right, the good news is that sometimes we can kill two phrases with one wav - such as using the phnl.wav purely designed for Clearance Delivery (...cleared to Honolulu...) for the Approach/Departure phrases as well if required. Unfortunatly the bad news is that most of this work is unprecedented and we have to accomplish it by hand. Another example is the 'Perth' airport in the UK can also be linked to the Perth in Oz, likewise Bangkok's old airport and new one can also share the single 'Bangkok' wav.'D' for Delta is the same as Delta Airlines' callsign....South + West = Southwest Airlines' callsign, and so on...It's a huge task :( and even though we try, we won't be able to get every part of the world 100% perfect. (Ryan, we'll try our best to get beautiful Hawaii correct though :()Subs

[ilarikousa 0]

Could you also add one unique case: at KATL, the phonetic "Dixie" is used instead of Delta to avoid confusion with the operator callsign, ATL being a DAL hub. This is the only airport I know where the ICAO alphabet is deviated from.

[jd 57]

Could you also add one unique case: at KATL, the phonetic "Dixie" is used instead of Delta to avoid confusion with the operator callsign, ATL being a DAL hub. This is the only airport I know where the ICAO alphabet is deviated from.

it would be insane to start writing code for one of 22,000 airports like this. it seems simple, and certainly it's one if statement. but it's one more wav, that only be used at one airport, etc.i'm going to check this out with my controllers on the beta team.jd

[ilarikousa 0]

it would be insane to start writing code for one of 22,000 airports like this. it seems simple, and certainly it's one if statement. but it's one more wav, that only be used at one airport, etc.i'm going to check this out with my controllers on the beta team.jd

Speaking of WAVs, what about going MP3 to save space?

[ronzie 21]

.wavs are catenated to make complete transmissions. Adding the processing of decompression on the fly would add too much delay in responses and just add more to the main CPU load. FS is a "real-time" application and lots of processes are going on behind the scenes. In RC5 we will store frequently used catenated .wavs in RAM for a specific flight preflight so as to be more efficient but not every possible combination used. Some will still be combined on the fly especially where changes are anticipated as the flight progresses.

Speaking of WAVs, what about going MP3 to save space?