Utilities to add to NGX immersion and realism

[Guest JustanotherPilot]

AirHauler gives you an incentive and purpose, you start at the bottom of your freight company and gradually grow your fleet, pilot and bases. I use the 737NGX on the 60-90min jobs. After 12 months I've got 8 pilots, 25 aircraft and 70 bases. I can choose to fly small jobs in the RealAir Legacy medium jobs in the 737NGX/AXE A320 or long haul in the LevelD 767. Strategy and flying involved to build up your business.

[ikarus71 1]

If you don't have it yet, Track IR is a must for full immersion. 

[roarkr 104]

Hi,

 

Join Vatsim and buy some hardware to make it "as real as possible". If you go for OpenCockpits hardware you can grow your Cockpit over time. Today you can setup

OVH, MCP, EFIS( Captain &FO), CDU/FMC(Captain & FO), MIP, Chrono(Captain & FO), NAV1&2, COM1&2, ATC, ADF + other Pedestal units to work nicely with your NGX.

When PMDG releases their SDK for T7 you can use the same OC hardware to control it.

 

Going the Cockpit/Hardware way will increase the immersion a lot.

[LarsW 1]

Hi,

 

Join Vatsim and buy some hardware to make it "as real as possible". If you go for OpenCockpits hardware you can grow your Cockpit over time. Today you can setup

OVH, MCP, EFIS( Captain &FO), CDU/FMC(Captain & FO), MIP, Chrono(Captain & FO), NAV1&2, COM1&2, ATC, ADF + other Pedestal units to work nicely with your NGX.

When PMDG releases their SDK for T7 you can use the same OC hardware to control it.

 

Going the Cockpit/Hardware way will increase the immersion a lot.

 

True.   But is dependent on having a looooooot of free, disposable cash to do that.   Not sure many people have that sort of cash these days.   Some do.    Definitely the minority.

 

Last time I looked the cheapest (proper) MCP was about $1000, and as for a NG overhead, about $3000.    and that's just two items from the list.   A CDU costs many $$$$ too.

 

Lot of cash for a hobby.

[cptrobie 2]

I apologize if this is OT but....

 

For you Vatsim users is there a technique or procedure to use to determine what kind if any ATC coverage is available for a route you want to fly?

 

I've tried it in the past and found it to be awesome when there WAS someone to converse with however that was not most of the time, did I miss something?

[rene_1st 7]

VATSPY

[iainsmith 9]

 

 

I didn't see it mentioned any where so I'll add that if you haven't already tried flying "online" on one of the networks, I don't think there's is any other, single, thing you could do to enhance immersion more. I've flown on VATSIM for years and, since I discovered it, I don't fly offline at all any more.

 

I've thought about this several times and I think it would detract from my enjoyment of simming. It's ok for those aviation experts who know what is expected of them by the controllers and know how to talk to them. To have expert controllers watching my amateurish (by comparison) efforts and hearing my amateurish efforts at talking to them would probably make them impatient with me and would certainly unnerve me.

 

Iain Smith

[RotorWash 1]

I've thought about this several times and I think it would detract from my enjoyment of simming. It's ok for those aviation experts who know what is expected of them by the controllers and know how to talk to them. To have expert controllers watching my amateurish (by comparison) efforts and hearing my amateurish efforts at talking to them would probably make them impatient with me and would certainly unnerve me.

 

Iain Smith

I have only recently taken the vatsim plunge after 12 months of courage building. The controllers are very helpfully and understanding, I only wish I took the plunge much earlier. As long as you know how to fly your aircraft of choice and you have gone over the Atc tutorial basics, your ready to go. I have only practiced the departure procedures up to being established on planned route and have the verbal protocol printed off for reference at this stage (cruise and landing next, one step at a time). Just inform the controllers via text and flight plan of your noob status and intentions, request them to speak sloooowly, your flight sim immersion will be greatly enhanced.

[Capt Richardo 12]

RAAS by fs2crew goes well with the NGX, there is a free version on avsim but its not as advanced as fs2crew's

 

Rich

[hopskip 253]

I don't consider a simulator flight "really" done, unless it is done online.

 

 

 

To find where active areas (with ATC and Traffic) are on Vatsim, try http://www.vattastic.com/

(no need to install anything - other than a web browser, which you would likely have already if you can read this).

 

It works a bit like Google Maps. Left-mouse button, click-hold-drag to move the map Righ (east) Down(south) Up (North) and Left (West).

Mouse-wheel to zoom in and out

 

Dark/reddish-purple areas are Controlled by a Centre controller (border lines may not be 100% accurate but are a rough guide).

Blue circles with a 4 letter code (airport ICAO code) are approach/departure/tracon controllers.

Black airplane shapes are other people online as pilots

blue borders are ATC FIR's that are unmanned.

 

Here's a picture: (below)

 

The far north of Canada has a Centre controller (CZEG)

Airport CYYC Calgary has an Approach controller (and the afore mentioned CZEG controller running airspace above/around the Calgary controller).

Airport CYMM (Fort McMurray) does NOT have an Approach controller online, but at least 1 pilot is flying there (airborne with a flightplan filed for CYMM).

They may be able to receive services from the CZEG Centre controller.

 

At least 1 pilot has a flightplan filed to go to CYQR (Regina). There is no Approach controller at that airport, and no Centre controller covering that airspace. They would not be able to contact a controller using a frequency and speak to them when they are at that airport (because nobody is controlling it).

 

ABQ (Albuquerque  Centre) is online with aircraft flying into Phoenix AZ, Albuquerque etc being controlled only by the Centre controller.

 

There are some red flags (some near Norcal/Oakland/San Fransisco etc) as well as near CYYZ Toronto. These indicate future planned 'events' where ATC is expected to attend at some point in the future.

 

 

In the following image, I have zoomed in to the California area and clicked on the 'dot' that represents San Fransisco airport.

This has bought up 3 targets 'in range' of my click.

 

KSFO (the airport)
DAL975 (An aircraft logged in on Vatsim who is on the ground at KSFO)
CalScream XIV (The named event that will be occuring at some point in the future, which has been entered into the system)

 

When I click CalScream XIV, the information about that event will appear in the popup.

Here we can see that the event will be on the 31st of May, 2014 at 23:00GMT (UTC, Zulu, The time at Greenwich Standard time, etc)

The event graphic states this will be May 31st 2014 at 1600 (4pm) to 2000 (8pm) Pacific Daylight Savings time (PDT).

The airports featured will be KLAX, KSFO, KSAN, KOAK, KLAS, KSNA, KSJC

There is a blurb about the event written by the event co-ordinators that includes a website.

 

Based on this information I'd suggest that if you were to log in to Vatsim in that time period at Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Oakland, San Diego, Las Vegas, etc, you would find lots of controllers online talking to lots of Vatsim air traffic.

 

Also in this shot, you can see KMRY has a light-blue circle around it. This indicates that KMRY "Tower" is online. Tower can only control aircraft on final approach, on the ground, and issue Clearance Delivery for departures. They are permitted to indicate the runway in use and weather, and will often create an "ATIS" (voice and text on a frequency) for this purpose. Tower controllers may have a lower rating that prevents them from doing the duties of Centre and/or Approach controllers.

 

[Jetset408 108]

Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate your feedback. I have decided to go with FS2crew and a headset for now, but bad timing really as will soon be on holiday for a few weeks then a busy summer at work. I will try and get some time carved out (and send the wife out) and give it a good run.

 

online flying and trackir are the other 2 good ideas i took away from this thread. I will have a think about those too. Thanks all!

[l3ubba 16]

I've thought about this several times and I think it would detract from my enjoyment of simming. It's ok for those aviation experts who know what is expected of them by the controllers and know how to talk to them. To have expert controllers watching my amateurish (by comparison) efforts and hearing my amateurish efforts at talking to them would probably make them impatient with me and would certainly unnerve me.

 

Iain Smith

 

I'm a controller down in ZMA (Miami) ARTCC and myself and the people I control with usually are very patient when it comes to dealing with pilots who are having trouble or are new to flying online. For me, as long as I can tell you are trying and not just trying to log onto a runway and takeoff in front of 5 aircraft without saying a word to a controller, I will do my best to assist you and this is the attitude I have found with most controllers throughout VATSIM when I am doing flights.

 

My first flight on VATSIM I had no idea what I was doing. I had done a few practice flights in free flight and that was the extent of my flight simming experience. I got on Teamspeak with a friend of mine and he told me everything I had to do to operate the aircraft and then anytime ATC would talk to me he would type out really quick what I had to say and I would just read that to the controller. It was probably not the best way to be introduced to flight simming on VATSIM but after a few flights I knew how to do the basics and just kept reading training documents and learning based on experiences flying on the server.

[RotorWash 1]

Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate your feedback. I have decided to go with FS2crew and a headset for now, but bad timing really as will soon be on holiday for a few weeks then a busy summer at work. I will try and get some time carved out (and send the wife out) and give it a good run.

 

online flying and trackir are the other 2 good ideas i took away from this thread. I will have a think about those too. Thanks all!

 

I have many addons, trackir inclusive. I use trackir with every other aircraft except for the NGX, i just prefere to use EZCA alone with the NGX. Here's a list of criticals, and when i say criticals, i mean addons i could not fly without. There's no order of importance, they are all as crucial as each other, except for the last two.

 

For a full environmental & procedural immersion:-

 

EZCA.

FS2Crew, with voice pack.

VoxAtc, with voice pack. (when not on Vatsim) The latest version has issues which are presently being resolved, 6.20 works awesome. Good practice for Vatsim, similar pronunciations,but not quite the same. :wacko:

Vatsim (when on line). Good practice for VoxAtc, similar pronunciations, but not quite the same. :unsure:

ASN

Virtual Avionics (Ipad FMC)

REX Clouds (default clouds aren't that bad)

Orbyx regions (if you spend most of your time above FL100, not so important)

 

Oh, and a good headset, yoke, peddals and throttle quadrant.

 

 

Other than a full blown simpit with all the bells & whistles, this is as good as it gets :rolleyes: