25 minutes ago, regis9 said:

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There are a few QOL improvements that would seem relatively minor to do like not waiting until an aircraft is 200ft away from the previously assigned altitude to issue a new clearance.  Even just that one thing would greatly improve the experience, especially in non autothrottle aircraft like the CRJ where leveling out in a climb at every step is a bit of a pain for speed control etc.

I agree. I usually just set my cruising altitude and ignore atc instructions. Becomes a pain though if you're asked to switch controllers just before hitting your assigned altitude. 

1 minute ago, Ricardo41 said:

I agree. I usually just set my cruising altitude and ignore atc instructions. Becomes a pain though if you're asked to switch controllers just before hitting your assigned altitude. 

The worst thing I saw when I tried it when first flying MSFS was getting a instruction to descend for an approach to an ILS or Rnav, and then when within maybe 10 miles from the FAF, getting a climb to 9000 FT agl.   That did it for me. 

I'm probably going to take a little heat for this, but that doesn't change that the info is accurate and could increase your enjoyment of our hobby.

As one of the official grey beards in the community (40+ years and counting), I can't stress the importance of giving online flight sim a whirl, even if you've done so before.

Yes, I know, there isn't always a controller online to talk to (this is about to improve in a MAJOR way... see my comment below), however we need to keep in mind that (with the exception of Pilot Edge) they are all volunteers, but volunteers who put themselves through a major level of training in order to provide service to their fellow flight simmers and we get this service FOR FREE!  What is most important is that online, human ATC is not only as good and realistic as it gets and there is no AI ATC that has ever come close to comparing to the human ATC, not to mention that Simulator AI ATC has never been close to being correct, it just hasn't.

More Online Controllers For Us All

Exclusing Pilot Edge (as it's a cost based service), there are two primary online networks for flightg simmers, VATSIM and IVAO.  Both are terrific networks filled with highly devoted and excellent controllers.  However these networks use very old software at their core and thus have a lot of limitations.  Moreover, the organizations themselves have internal issues (which I'm not about to get speak about as it is not germane to this discussion).

Enter POSCON, or the Postive Control Network.  POSCON is a brand new network programmed from the ground floor up by professional software engineers.  Mos of the programming is completd and while FIRs/ARTCCs are still being setup the network has recently gone live, and what I predicted several years ago has been happening - controllers and pilots from the older networks are flocking to POSCON in waves, which is excellerating the FIR/ARTCC setup on a worldwide scale.  The organizational setup of POSCON provices a clear chain of command and flexibility which means the network can implement changes far more quickly than other types of organization (this is something I know a lot about as I am formally trained and have many years experience in organizational management).

Why is this important?  Over the years many of us advocated for a merger of VATSIM and IVAO, and one attempt was made to do this many years ago.  I won't get into why this never occurred, but had it done so we would have enjoyed one network for controllers and pilots rather than splitting them.  That's where POSCON comes in.  Pilots and Controllers are already flocking to the network, and it won't be that much longer before we have that one network that provides great coverage.

TRAINING

Well, I don't know about you, but where flight simulation is concerned I don't like anything that sounds like work or someone "training" me.  That said, I have personally introduced several hundred offline flight simmers to the online flight sim world and I worked with (trained) them in a way that was at least 10 times faster than their reading page after page after page on their own.  Instead, I took each one of them up in Shared Cockpit / Connected Flight Deck, and this allowed us to incredibly compress the learning curve.

Something else regarding not every airport you want ot fly in/out of not having a human controller.  First, you can simply chose to fly in/out of an airport that does, but there is something else.  Events are the most realistic flying you'll do if you're an airliner guy or GA guy who wants to fly with loads of traffic.  But you can't jump into an event without gaining experience otherwise you'll have the same type of issues as you'd have flying into JFK during your first solo flight as a real world pilot.  Just think of flying in less covered areas as practice for those large events that will set your hair on fire with excitement!

Here's the deal.  You can come up with many different reasons why online flight sim (and human ATC) won't work for you, you can.  In fact I don't think there is a reason that I haven't heard, and a reason that I haven't easily overcome.  In the end it's a personal decision and if someone just don't want to do it then nothing anyone says or does isn't going to make a difference.  But I'll bet you if you were to go up in shared cockpit with an experienced online flight simmer during an event, chances are you'll be hooked.

In the end, there is no "one size fits all" for ATC, but learning and using a realism based network and working with another human is a terrific start. I've refused to fly any other way for 15 years or so, unless I was beta testing.

Thanks for taking the time to read my two cent contribution this discussion, and for those of your who read this post I sincerelyt appreicate the respect you gave me by doing so.  My very best wishes to all of you!

 

Dave

 

 

6 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

I use default ATC on every flight, until such time someone comes up with an alternative that doesn't look like it was put together in the late 90s.

How does VATSIM look like it was put together in the 90s? lol

33 minutes ago, DaveCT2003 said:

Pilots and Controllers are already flocking to the network, and it won't be that much longer before we have that one network that provides great coverage.

No way this is true.. really? Last week I checked out the POSCON map and it had like 8 pilots online while VATSIM had 600. I’m down to give it a shot & I’ve been excited at the prospect of this network existing for a while, but it’s less appealing when nobody else is using it. That’s the issue - nobody wants to switch unless everyone switches lol 🙂

If it gains some traction in coming weeks I’ll try it out!

To be fair to VATSIM, they recently updated their voice server and it works much better now with no latency.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by FlyingInACessna

38 minutes ago, FlyingInACessna said:

No way this is true.. really? Last week I checked out the POSCON map and it had like 8 pilots online while VATSIM had 600. I’m down to give it a shot & I’ve been excited at the prospect of this network existing for a while, but it’s less appealing when nobody else is using it. That’s the issue - nobody wants to switch unless everyone switches lol 🙂

If it gains some traction in coming weeks I’ll try it out!

To be fair to VATSIM, they recently updated their voice server and it works much better now with no latency.

Vatsim is useless for many people. Here is a site  http://www.vattastic.com/

that shows you what controllers are online at any given time. I have already flown twice this morning across the Southern US, Right now, there are about 2 controllers in the entire US, There are more controllerss than that in the tower in a small airport in Atlanta, not KATL. 

Flying online with Vatsim is flying with Unicomm, unless you want to fly where the few controllers are located. Then there is no guarantee that when you are about  50 miles from your airport approach, your one controller decided they  want to watch a TV show or a football game, and bails out, telling you to contact Unicomm. .  

Thanks, but no thanks, I have tried it off and on for many years. Waste of time. 

Yeah we simply need both a good Online ATC and a good Offline ATC. Imagine Online Controllers replacing offline controllers and those then being able to communicate with the offline atc as well as directing players and AI alike. This could even be very basic. But more importantly having a solid offline atc would be such a huge thing for this sim. 

I’ve flown on vatsim a few times and it was enjoyable when I was in the right frame of mind for it and could actually find controllers where I want to fly, which is unfortunately not normally the case.  I want to fly where I want to fly and won’t make that decision based on where controllers are.

I also did  the free trial for pilotedge a few years ago, had one airliners flight that was ok, had a few that weren’t so good, generally found it stressful and let the trial lapse.  

More recently I decided to try paying for a month on pilotedge and focus on GA in more remote areas to get the hang of it and work my way up from there as I got more comfortable.  Trouble was that every time I tried to use it, the controller was so busy (seemingly controlling the entire western expansion by himself) that I could never get flight following, and had a hard time getting a word in edgewise despite being at a tiny obscure GA field since I was competing with pilots across a good chunk of the western US.  I decided after that month that pilotedge was just not for me and did not renew.

All that to say while I get some people are very into online ATC, there’s a lot of benefits to a good offline ATC solution.  I generally find offline more relaxing since I can pause, don’t feel pressure etc and I can do whatever I want without impacting/annoying other people.  Hopefully we’ll see some ATC improvements in the near future.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by regis9

3 minutes ago, regis9 said:

I’ve flown on vatsim a few times and it was enjoyable when I was in the right frame of mind for it and could actually find controllers where I want to fly, which is unfortunately not normally the case.  I want to fly where I want to fly and won’t make that decision based on where controllers are.

I also did  the free trial for pilotedge a few years ago, had one airliners flight that was ok, had a few that weren’t so good, generally found it stressful and let the trial lapse.  

More recently I decided to try paying for a month on pilotedge and focus on GA in more remote areas to get the hang of it and work my way up from there as I got more comfortable.  Trouble was that every time I tried to use it, the controller was so busy (seemingly controlling the entire western expansion by himself) that I could never get flight following, and had a hard time getting a word in edgewise despite being at a tiny obscure GA field since I was competing with pilots across a good chunk of the western US.  I decided after that month that pilotedge was just not for me and did not renew.

All that to say while I get some people are very into online ATC, there’s a lot of benefits to a good offline ATC solution.  I generally find offline more relaxing since I can pause, don’t feel pressure etc and I can do whatever I want without impacting/annoying other people.  Hopefully we’ll see some ATC improvements in the near future.

Also if using failures you can always declare and emergency (if it gets implemented...) and don't have to worry about annoying anyone. 

I posted a question regarding the ATC in the questions thread for the ATC that gained quite some traction for the Q and A, so chances are high we get at least some more info on that. 

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Vatsim is useless for many people. Here is a site  http://www.vattastic.com/

that shows you what controllers are online at any given time. I have already flown twice this morning across the Southern US, Right now, there are about 2 controllers in the entire US, There are more controllerss than that in the tower in a small airport in Atlanta, not KATL. 

Flying online with Vatsim is flying with Unicomm, unless you want to fly where the few controllers are located. Then there is no guarantee that when you are about  50 miles from your airport approach, your one controller decided they  want to watch a TV show or a football game, and bails out, telling you to contact Unicomm. .  

Thanks, but no thanks, I have tried it off and on for many years. Waste of time. 

Lol my post had absolutely nothing to do with the VATSIM vs single player ATC debate. It had everything to do with the VATSIM vs POSCON debate. VATSIM has hundreds of pilots and some ATC covering a large part of the US midday on a Saturday. POSCON has 15 pilots and no ATC.

 

And it’s not at all a waste of time. If you care at all about developing real ATC communications skills, VATSIM (or PilotEdge) is the way to go. I went into flight lessons having become proficient on VATSIM, and I impressed my instructors by knowing exactly what to say and handling radios from day 1 (which is something that doesn’t normally happen until you get close to your first solo.

 

Flying during VATSIM events is as real as it gets in terms of ATC coverage and density. Hundreds of airplanes flying into an airport, and a full stack of controllers.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by FlyingInACessna

6 minutes ago, FlyingInACessna said:

Lol my post had absolutely nothing to do with the VATSIM vs single player ATC debate. It had everything to do with the VATSIM vs POSCON debate. VATSIM has hundreds of pilots and some ATC covering a large part of the US midday on a Saturday. POSCON has 15 pilots and no ATC.

You post was referencing how better Vatsim was. I was explaining why I thought Vatsim was useless too. 

5 hours ago, DaveCT2003 said:

controllers and pilots from the older networks are flocking to POSCON in waves, which is excellerating the FIR/ARTCC setup on a worldwide scale.

Its Saturday evening in EDT (east coast US) right now. There's 18 pilots online worldwide and no ATC. Not sure I'd call that "flocking". According to their HQ page, there are no ATC scheduled either. 

I really want to try POSCON, and to like it, but it has a long way to go.

On the plus side, I lurk in their discord, and the leader of POSCON and their support staff are very responsive to questions and support requests. I have no doubt the people currently behind the scenes care about the product. 

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by mattn

3 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

You post was referencing how better Vatsim was. I was explaining why I thought Vatsim was useless too. 

Better in relation to Poscon. I agree VATSIM has a ton of faults, and I wish it were better. Oh well.

When you think about the brilliant work asobo have done with the scenery, graphics, aircraft, dynamics and weather, you would have thought creating a realistic, accurate and reliable ATC system would be a walk in the park for them.

20 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

The worst thing I saw when I tried it when first flying MSFS was getting a instruction to descend for an approach to an ILS or Rnav, and then when within maybe 10 miles from the FAF, getting a climb to 9000 FT agl.   That did it for me. 

So what? Cancel IFR or ignore the instructions and fly the approach yourself as per charts. That's what I do. I don't get hung up on these bugs. 

Btw, that's one of the advantages of having Navigraph charts integration with the WT CJ4: I'll call up the relevant approach plate on the MFD and get all the info I need. I usually just ignore ATC instructions until I get the cleared to land, I land, then atc gives me guicance to taxi to a gate or a parking spot. Works for me. 

Some developer releases "Chaseplane for ATC", with natural sounding voices, correct procedurals, an up to date UI, perhaps even a few regional accents - I'd be on this addon like white on rice. 

Finally: Being able to read and understand charts and procedures is key to enjoying the sim and emancipating yourself from wacky ATC instructions. 

Edited April 4, 20215 yr by Ricardo41