Two questions about BeyondATC

[fluffyflops 1,878]

2 hours ago, BrammyH said:

That number I believe is the maximum altitude; not the optimal. 

Depends on the weight. The airway and cdrs from the rad. I guessing it was UL612 LAKEY

Edited May 13 by fluffyflops

[tup61 1,647]

23 minutes ago, martinboehme said:

it doesn't seem very sophisticated yet

That's because it isn't sophisticated at all. It just looks at the available procedures and certain STAR-approach combinations will be vectored and others not. If I get vectors when flying to airport A using a certain route I always will get vectors flying to airport A. And when I do not get vectored to airport A I never will be vectored to airport A. I fly in Norway a lot 1. because I like to fly there and 2, because the procedures over there connect perfectly and hence I am never vectored there by BATC. Which saves me a lot of annoyance, frustration  and problems. 😉 

[BrammyH 478]

56 minutes ago, fluffyflops said:

Depends on the weight. The airway and cdrs from the rad. I guessing it was UL612 LAKEY

ATC will override those numbers anyway. Either for spacing, regional rules, etc.

[sloppysmusic 317]

2 hours ago, martinboehme said:

When @sloppysmusic asked "will you ever get GA's or altitude holds/holding patterns assigned", I think they didn't mean "will we ever get this during the lifetime of the product" but "will you ever get this on a flight with the current version of BeyondATC".

Well yes exactly.

Seems to me people (including myself) have become so used to the acronym ATC and how you perceive/act with it inside the simulator that it has become a separate entity from AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL itself. (A similar disconnect can be observed between simmers talking about IFR and Instrument Flight Rules) .

'ATC' has become associated with the interaction between sim pilot and a voice/text system that 'sounds like' what a real controller might say but does not involve any actual traffic control. So we can be interested in improving this interaction via text/voice input without actually caring if if it DOES anything more than simulating real humans talking. 

A harsher human that me could say that if there is no traffic control in the air (or ground) being carried out then it is false advertising to name a product with ATC in the title.

'Beyond ATC' is safe from the above criticism though as it literally states BEYOND lol. 

I do really like the system they have developed, whatever we call it. I dislike AI (LLM) in every form and will never patronise it. I was impressed by the developer video I watched and consider that person sincere and trustworthy. If/when it manages all the virtual planes in my virtual sky I will be mightily impressed and SOLD.

Will need to look again at FSHUD. Or wait.

[martinboehme 558]

15 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said:

'ATC' has become associated with the interaction between sim pilot and a voice/text system that 'sounds like' what a real controller might say but does not involve any actual traffic control.

This is a fair point.

If we want to be a bit more lenient, we can compare the situation to an instructor in a full flight sim who will also be playing the role of ATC without any other traffic actually being present. Everyone understands that they're playing this role for the purpose of setting up a specific scenario. I see what BeyondATC currently does in a similar light, and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief about it. 

[sloppysmusic 317]

3 minutes ago, martinboehme said:

we can compare the situation to an instructor in a full flight sim who will also be playing the role of ATC without any other traffic actually being present

Well yes nailed it there. In fact many people state the reason they want to use these addons in the first place is to PRACTICE the correct language/procedures/syntax.

 

[BrammyH 478]

BATC is also a great Vatsim trainer. It's not 100% obviously, but it is great for helping you get used to answering an ATC call and take action.

And on Vatsim, a lot of the stuff is scripted. My VA did a group flight out of KMSY to KDAL. It became pretty clear from listening to the 3 planes head of me, which two heading changes I can expect.

[Stearmandriver 2,333]

7 hours ago, BrammyH said:

That number I believe is the maximum altitude; not the optimal. 

The FMC provides both an optimum and a maximum altitude.  Targeting optimum is good practice; you don't really want to be more than about 1,000ft above optimum, you lose efficiency fast and your margins on high and low speed buffet start getting thin.  But you'll definitely request step climbs as you get lighter to remain near optimum altitude. 

As far as ATC goes, they'll obviously dictate where you can and can't fly for traffic separation, but they can never make you exceed an altitude you're comfortable with.  There's a magic word that trumps anything a controller tells you to do: "unable".

[haskell 307]

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

There's a magic word that trumps anything a controller tells you to do: "unable".

Unfortunately BATC isn’t programmed to understand that word. Lol