I have had an interest in ATC for a long time having in past years conducted psychological testing of potential controllers for the former Department of Aviation in Australia. I never used ATC in FS2K2 because of its severe limitations. When I purchased FS2K4 I started to fly with the default ATC. What I found was that, while the default FS2K4 does an adequate job of separating your aircraft from the large number of AI aircraft flying into and out of major airports the phraseology used was unconvincing and repetitive and the apparently pointless requests to continually change coms frequencies annoying. So I stopped using it. However I now find it very hazadous flying without ATC near major airports and I am looking at Radar Contact as an alternative. However after trawling through many posts on this forum it still isn't clear to me to what extent Radar Contact can provide safe separation between my aircraft and all those AI aircraft in the busy airspace near major airports. While Radar Contact seems to do many things much better than the default ATC if can't separate your aircraft from others during approach and departure then there seems little point in purchasing it. On the other hand if it can do this then I am a very keen potential customer.Bruceb

the current version 3.x does not separate aircraft. in v4, i am succesfully keeping planes enroute separated. as you can imagine doing this at an arrival airport is/will be very difficult. but i've done difficult things before.it is amazing how much computing power/logic is involved in decideing what planes to turn, and which way. where it is intuitively obvious to any controller the steps that need to be taken.but i'm getting there.

That's why an approach controller's job is so demanding. I understand that currently RC can't vector AI aircraft but does it vector your own aircraft to avoid them? If not then what RC provides is perhaps a convincing illusion of ATC but with the advent of Project AI and Ultimate traffic populating our virtual skies as they do around major airports it has become much more difficult to maintain the illusion. What is needed now is something much closer to the real thing. Best wishes for the development of version 4, but from what you say in your reply it seems even that may fall short.Bruceb

yes, i am vectoring the ai planes to avoid conflicts. also climbing or descending them when that makes sensejd

Hi Sir jd,did I just learned that you are truly able to vectore me AND AI for separation in the next version 4 in FS9?So you did it again! You found ways to solve the problem and learned how to do it again! You are a tough guy, one who fight 'till you won! Respect!>yes, i am vectoring the ai planes to avoid conflicts. also>climbing or descending them when that makes sense>>jd

Thank you, I look forward to version 4. Not sure what I will do in the interim as it seems even the default FS2K4 ATC can't adequately separate and sequence the volume of AI traffic generated by UT.Bruceb