For those interested, a definition of CPDLC messages is contained in ICAO Document 4444 - AirTraffic Management in Appendix 5 from page 425

I hope this helps.😄

Edited June 15, 20187 yr by Richard McDonald Woods

😐

That document is good at describing the rules but does little to describe operational usage of CPDLC.

As a side note, these systems being implemented by PMDG fall under what’s called FANS (future air navigation system). For Boeing, it’s called FANS 1, for airbus, FANS A... collectively they are referred to as FANS 1/A.

FANS has developed to where it is thanks to Australia and its national airline with the first FANS capable aircraft certified in 1995. United Airlines, Air NZ and Cathay also participated in FANS development. The basic intent of FANS was to open up the skies and permit User Preferred Routing (UPR) etc. United Airlines suffered a little here as it didn’t operate much through participating FANS capable states. Incidentally, Australia’s national airline used this new capability to create a new airway over China saving in both time and fuel.

The rest is history - FANS is now an integral part of aviation and PMDG will now bring this technological evolution to us. Arguably, they are not the first to do it as CPDLC and ACARS have existed to varying degrees. They will be the first to bring it all together under a single umbrella. Uptake of these systems is as subjective as the decision whether to fly online or not.

This document will probably serve as a better study for the impatient as it applies to Boeing cpdlc capability

https://memarciniak.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/honeywell_cpdlc-procedures_ota_atche_final_report-3.docx

 

Edited June 17, 20187 yr by Copper.

Hi Brian,

Well done! The document should be a useful addition for the developers.😄

 

Wikipedia has a nice short article with references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller–pilot_data_link_communications

Will we have the capability to print ACARS messages to an actual printer?     Also, could we still use the Hoppie network with this?

1 hour ago, dva238 said:

Will we have the capability to print ACARS messages to an actual printer?

Could make something to do that if you really wanted to, I guess. Not sure why, though. It would be an awful waste of paper unless you're feeding a receipt printer...and even then, it's 2018. People still print things?

1 hour ago, dva238 said:

Also, could we still use the Hoppie network with this?

Why would we do that?

18 minutes ago, scandinavian13 said:

and even then, it's 2018. People still print things?

I like to print out my flight plan and fill information by pen while I fly.

24 minutes ago, joona_ said:

I like to print out my flight plan and fill information by pen while I fly.

Most airlines still print releases, however some are already transitioning to EFB releases.  That being said, printers are still heavily used by most if not all airlines throughout the flight. If the point is to be close to realism, this would be a nice capability to have.

2 hours ago, joona_ said:

I like to print out my flight plan and fill information by pen while I fly.

tree killer lol

2 hours ago, icaruss said:

Most airlines still print releases, however some are already transitioning to EFB releases.  That being said, printers are still heavily used by most if not all airlines throughout the flight. If the point is to be close to realism, this would be a nice capability to have.

Unless you plan on using a receipt printer....its not realistic at all. Stuff printed from acars is formatted in a way that fits on a nice, concise small piece of real estate. I could only chuckle at someone printing off acars stuff on a standard 8.5×11 sheet of paper. 

17 minutes ago, captainsazzman said:

tree killer lol

Dont worry, we got plenty of trees here in Finland. Besides the yearly growth is more than cuts. Trees rot in the forests (and in my understanding creates methane gas which is harmful for the atmosphere) because we cut too little. So Im actually helping the environment by printing flight plans 

Edited June 17, 20187 yr by joona_

25 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Unless you plan on using a receipt printer....its not realistic at all. Stuff printed from acars is formatted in a way that fits on a nice, concise small piece of real estate. I could only chuckle at someone printing off acars stuff on a standard 8.5×11 sheet of paper. 

Done daily, hundreds if not thousands of times, actually.

9 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Unless you plan on using a receipt printer....its not realistic at all. Stuff printed from acars is formatted in a way that fits on a nice, concise small piece of real estate. I could only chuckle at someone printing off acars stuff on a standard 8.5×11 sheet of paper. 

Not sure how familiar you are with 121 Ops, but some airlines use 8.5 x 11 and thousands of these are printed daily.  So you might chuckle quite a bit.

13 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

Why would we do that?

Because from what I have read so far, your CPDLC isn't prepared to be supported by VATSIM yet, right?
Hoppie is fully integrated already via a plugin in the controller tool.

In overall, CPDLC (communication with ATC "only") will only be available with a subscription at PMDG, is this correct?
Or is this a "free" service available for 3rd party developers to integrate? And ACARS (gate, weather ...) will be only for subs?