Best way to fly "Live" in P3Dv2?

[sionalford 1]

What is the best way to fly live in P3Dv2? 

 

I am more interested in those services using General Aviation.

 

Many thanks,

Sion

[alulekk 3]

Do you mean with ATC? Or what do you mean by "live"?

[twharrell 38]

If you are talking ATC, Pilot Edge is as good as it gets.

[William J.S.S 173]

Vatsim is good, you just have to find the ATC and it is free

PilotEdge is good also, but you have a limited area to fly around, it is a paid service.

[sionalford 1]

Yes, sorry, I meant ATC. Better yet, some flying clubs that fly mostly GA would be great. I have VATSIM but don't know if I am using it rights because I usually can't find live atc.

 

Many thanks, I will look into Pilot Edge.

Sion

 

[Taipan 30]

Vpilot works well in prepar3d and is easy to set up.

 

To find atc, install the free program called vatspy

[hopskip 253]

Vpilot works well in prepar3d and is easy to set up.

 

To find atc, install the free program called vatspy

 

Or the website 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:

 

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.