Here in UK they were discussing using half of each runway for takeoffs and half for landing, effectively halving the lengths of the runways. Effectively planes taking off would use the far end, while landing aircraft would use the near end. How an A380 or 747 would get off in half a runway though I don't know.

Most people don't know the difference. The ones that do are considered experts (or close to it) for flight simulation. There will be some third party program to fix it for us. I don't see it as that big a deal but can understand why some might.RH

Simply double the length of the runways - Heathrow could have it's main start at Terminal D and end at the Millenium Dome.Aybe

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It's pretty obvious when you study the movements of AI traffic closely that FS does not track the position of an AI aircraft precisely.One mile from touchdown, or six miles from touchdown is the same - the runway belongs to that aircraft. On the runway before your aircraft intersection, or clear of the intersection - the system doesn't know.There might be something which could be done with the mode change from "landing" to "rollout" - but this already a very intensive high demand segment on the system resources as the parking assignment process runs.In the takeoff segment - the "position and hold" occurs when the first aircraft moves from "takeoff1" mode to "takeoff2" mode.There is a whole set of trigger events which will have to be modified and the action allowed when each event occurs before the ATC traffic flow can be tightened out.Some folks diagramed most of it all out on a flow chart a couple years ago. It's pretty complex with a lot of interaction. Not really an If/Then sequence.Of course that diagram was from observable behavior - there are certainly more complex things in the process we missed.

>What has been changed or *gasp* improved with the atc as it>relates to real life simulation in FSX?from what I've heard, what has changed is improved multiplayer capabilities... way improved. If you are looking for realistic atc, why aren't you flying on VATSIM? The built in ATC is only a stepping stone to get the more advanced simmers into VATSIM or similar. This point seems to be reinforced if you read between the lines of the various comments that msft has made on the topic of built in and online atc.

>I don't understand why so many obvious flaws that would seem>so simple to fix were overlooked for this release.If you truly believe that it "seem(s) so simple," then you don't fully grasp the complexity that makes it not "so simple..." ;)Oftentimes in programming, the "simplest looking things" become some of the most incredibly complex to implement.

A diagram from years ago? I guess the technology hasn't gotten any better to implement a change to simulate a more realistic ATC system. Just because a simple system did not use much resources doesn't mean that they shouldn't try to create a more realistic system that would take more resources. By that logic, maybe we should just stop improving things because they are ok for now... for instance, check out http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=54287 Maybe since those clouds look like fs9, but are ok looking, we shouldn't ask for an advancement in the system.These are the kinds of statements that people use to say that this release may be a patch rather than an upgrade.Incredible!

"At this point it might actually be unrealistic for ATC to authorize a "taxi into position and hold" because the last I heard they were more or less doing away with this instruction due to safety concerns. I'm not positive whether it is a complete ban, but from the article I remember reading no ATC facility was authorized to use this instruction without petitioning to the FAA for approval. Again, this is just what I remember reading, and I rarely fly out of airports that use position and hold anyway, so I haven't heard the instruction for a while now..."my father must have missed the memo he still gives that instruction out at ont :-lol

What can I say? It's the ol' 80/20 rule at work. ;)

>I don't understand why so many obvious flaws that would seem>so simple to fix were overlooked for this release. What have>you been doing for the past three years? You have time to make>elephants roam the plains of Africa, but you can't make>aircraft behave correctly at an airport. I think perhaps the>developers need to get their priorities in order. This is a>flight simulator after all.Now that is not a very nice or well-founded criticism at all. Would you rather them spend time on ATC, or smoothness? Stock ATC is only a skeleton. As Freff said, below,:"The built in ATC is only a stepping stone to get the more advanced simmers into VATSIM or similar. This point seems to be reinforced if you read between the lines of the various comments that msft has made on the topic of built in and online atc."Rhett

What's being lost in this is that you can say 'go to VATSIM' all you want to, it's still no guarantee that someone's going to be there to provide ATC. I'm trying to argue this point with tact, but I can also see how this can be frustrating to some people that have had to deal with the ATC system for the last 3 years, all they are asking is an improvement in the system.

You didn't read what I said.The diagram was done for FS2004 in August and September 2003 because the FS2004 AI is significantly different and a quantum advancement over FS2002. It also increased the active airspace by four and quadrupled the active AI aircraft.It was also essential for us to understand what was happening as we tried to figure out how parking would work, or why it was not working, as we tested AFCAD for FS2004 before it was released.FS AI ATC is a complex set of trigger events and behaviors which must occur in the correct sequence.Just one example is the lost MA aircraft - if the departure frequency is too crowded with too many AI aircraft - an aircraft executing a missed approach does not make it's report and receive it's acknowledgement within the proper window - time and distance wise - it becomes "lost" and just continues on and climbs out of the active AI zone.Most of those triggers and events have been discovered and were documented for those interested.No one is saying there should not be advancement, improvement and more.However, it is very obvious to anyone who studies the AI behavior, that such a change will not be a minor one. It's not as simple as adding an IF/THEN routine.FS2004 instituted markers / values in all the approach system to control AI aircraft separation with speed and heading changes.I would sincerely hope that is done in FSX, but am not holding my breath - because that will require a fundamental level reprogramming of how the aircraft flight dynamics interact with the rest of the FS world.After the massive changes in FS2004, not many people who worked extensively with AI expect much change in the next version.But we still hope - and maybe FS11.

Hi,Yep it's called Radar Contact 4.Hope this helps,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://dot.kelder.net:8080/fseconomy/

Wow, sarcasm, who knew? So what voices are used with radar contact 4? Exactly, thanks.

Although it is a bit of a dissapointment that the ATC was not re-done completely, I'll agree that Radar Contact is a much better alternative 3rd party software for those who would prefer an offline ATC experience. I believe the voices are done by people in the community along with certain people chosen as the default voices, and the plus for owning Radar Contact is the ability of the developers to continually improve and enhance the product.The default ATC in FS from what I've read has had some tweaking and bug fixes for FSX, but to be perfectly honest, the community has overwhelmed the default ATC with real world airlines and far more traffic than it can handle. In my so humble opinion, the default ATC is not perfect, but for the regular user it does the job. Fortunately, for the advanced "hard core" user, other alternatives are available including online and offline dedicated programs.Ian.