Oh and JD, check your e-mail, I just sent you one!

JD-When I say "ground aware" what I mean is that, according to your documentation, NOTAMS are necessary as your ATC is unaware of obstruction clearance altitudes for takeoff and/or arrival vectoring whereas FS9's ATC takes them into account. Is there any way to link this logic to your program?Thanks-Mike Smith

oh that ground ;-)prior to 3.1 there is notams, which was the sneaky way of fixing the problem.but in 3.1, there is also msa for departure and arrival airports. i let my computer crunch topological data for about 62 hours one weekend, essential finding the highest point within a 20 mile radius of every airport in fs9. that dat is now included in the a2.txt file. that value is on the controllers page.if the value i calculated is higher or lower than the value on your plates, then you can adjust it there on the controllers page.that almost negates the need for notams.now if you want to fly through valleys, and expect atc to vector you, no, won't do that. that doesn't happen in real life either.so does msa fill the bill?jd

other ai traffic wouldn't abide by this, though. they are on their own.i'll take the other suggestion of making the user do all the work under advisement :-)jd

step climbs and step descents WILL be less predictable. the beta testers are already moaning...i told them to be careful what they asked forthe moaning is a happy sound :-)some airplanes can't be controlled via fsuipc, which would lead to confusion. i don't have the perf database from proflight, and i doubt they would "loan" it to me :-)jd

Thanks for the answer jd, RC is THE best!!!Ilari

I remember when the current version of RC came out you said that VFR was going to take too much time to make it to this version. Does that mean that the next version might support VFR?

we will have to see. i know vfr has been asked for many times. the question is should we concentrate on all the ai interactions we're planning on and release 4 or do the ai and then do vfr and delay the release 4 until 2005.i'm leaning to getting the ai stuff done and releasing in 2004.jd

I'd like to throw in one more question. To what extent does AI interaction appear possible? Can we expect future versions to fully control AI or just keep them out of the way?Ilari

in v4, i am successful to control the ground ai, to keep them off the runway when you are landing.i'm working on a few little weather enhancements to v4then i'll start working on managing the airborne aijd

Speaking of AFCAD2s:Currently in FS2K2, AI recognizes when I have designated privilege properties for runways regarding TO, Landings, etc. 2K2 ATIS does not.2K4 right now does not recognize from AFCAD mods in some cases runway privilege properties.Either way, RC does not recognize the same traffic flow used by FS's AI control. It would be nice if:1. RC could co-ordinate with the FS mandated AI traffic flow.2. ATIS would announce it as such.I know about the runway property and weather priorities in RC as you posted several times, and the ability to do various selections in the controller's panel, but since RC ATIS does not know the flow, I can't request the proper runway in use. We could use some kind of synchronization with 2K4 or the ATIS correct announcements for traffic flow to help it along.

oh, i've done that too. i forget to mention it.in fs8, fs7, fs6, i choose runways the way they have always been chosen. but in fs9, i look to see where ground is sending the ai planes, and that is the runway v4 chooses the runway. if there are no ai planes going any where, then the runway is chosen the old fashioned way.if you don't like the fs9 runway assignment, you can ask rc for a different runway, of course.same for arrivals. i watch and see which runways the arrivals are going to. that is what v4 will choose. if there are no ai planes landing at your airport, then v4 chooses the old fashioned way. and if you don't like the runway the ai planes are going to, you can ask rc for a different runway, of course :-)jd

Will the RC ATIS audio announce departing and landing runways according to your AI interpretations? It would be a nice touch.Also, where parallel runways exist and are operational for arrival, without user intervention will you pick the less traffic runway or if there is a gate or airline ID in the current aircraft model somehow choose the most efficient runway traffic density permitting? That would be fantastic in some later version if not the first for v4.x. Just curious about algorithms for parallel runway choices (but don't give away anything proprietary, of course. Then if ATIS as mentioned in para 1 does announce the real active runways, the pilot could make an informed request without RC hashing it out. Of course ATC would not always grant the request if it would interfere with the most efficient (for ATC) operations.

if ai planes are actively assigned or moving towards a specific runway, then atis would give the fs9 preferred runwayif no ai ground activity, then atis will announce the rc chosen runway selection.jd

Hi jd my brother is a air traffic controller, at MKJS (yep Jamaica), and loves rc.He all so has a pilot license as so my self. if you need any help with rc4,we glad to help you out. [email protected]