Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

[marksummerfield]

Many thanks - it's not super critical just what I would call a "niggle" - not sure it that translates ... but it means something that bugs you, but is more of a nuisance than life threatening. Great to know it will be fixed in a later version (I have just downloaded 2.2) and thank you for the pointer to the .nas file - I will have a look.

[D-MKF1]

Hello everyone,
Michat informed me that the add-on Red Griffin ATC was not working with my 707 from here https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/fgaddon/HEAD/tree/trunk/Aircraft/.
I've just tested it and couldn't find any bugs. It would be nice if someone would add them to the compatible aircraft on the wiki page: Red Griffin ATC compatible aircraft
It is important that the comm is switched on in the 707.
And wow, a really nice addition to training the take-off and approach procedures. Very, very impressive.

http://marc-kraus.de/fg/images/707-comm.jpg

[RedGriffin]

Hello everyone,
Michat informed me that the add-on Red Griffin ATC was not working with my 707 from here https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/fgaddon/HEAD/tree/trunk/Aircraft/.
I've just tested it and couldn't find any bugs. It would be nice if someone would add them to the compatible aircraft on the wiki page: Red Griffin ATC compatible aircraft
It is important that the comm is switched on in the 707.

Hello there,
I just tested your Boeing 707 and I confirm it is perfectly working with my Red Griffin ATC. I also updated the compatibility list and added the compatibility category tag to this page https://wiki.flightgear.org/Boeing_707-420 and I guess it is the right one.
It would be nice if you could confirm and check whether everything is ok in the Wiki now.
Thank you for your support and for having checked my addon with your excellent 707.

And wow, a really nice addition to training the take-off and approach procedures. Very, very impressive.

Thank you very much indeed. I am very glad to read about your appreciation.

Enjoy Red Griffin ATC!

Kindest regards.

[D-MKF1]

Wow, it was just awesome.
I let myself be guided all day. Sometimes I messed up, sometimes the tower But it doesn't matter ... When I think about what's behind it to write the complex processes in software. This is the way of artificial intelligence, really. You're crazy ... it's unimaginable to my brain. Whenever you need some dummies to finish the shit, with correct approach routes and phrases ... I'm happy to help with testing.

Funniest moment of the day ... first I completely shot down the software because I entered the wrong frequencies several times. Then after a restart I flew to the "wrong" runway because I had forgotten to confirm and in the end I was just upside down on the ILS. Oops
Software can't stop idiots from doing the bottle. Unless you have enough idiots to test. Count me in...

Greetings and all the greatest respect, Marc

http://marc-kraus.de/fg/images/707RedGriffinATC.png

[RedGriffin]

Wow, it was just awesome.
I let myself be guided all day. Sometimes I messed up, sometimes the tower But it doesn't matter ... When I think about what's behind it to write the complex processes in software. This is the way of artificial intelligence, really. You're crazy ... it's unimaginable to my brain. Whenever you need some dummies to finish the shit, with correct approach routes and phrases ... I'm happy to help with testing.

Hello Marc,
thank you for your feedback and for taking the time to test my Red Griffin ATC. I am very happy to read about your enthusiasm and, of course, thank you very much indeed for your help, it is very much appreciated.
To clear things out, you should know no Artificial Intelligence algorithm or technique has been used in Red Griffin ATC: it is just a simple, plain and straight conditional data processing.
Thank you for your proposal about correcting approach routes and phrases: did you find anything needing to be modified or changed in this regard? If so, would you be so kind in reporting them in this thread?

Funniest moment of the day ... first I completely shot down the software because I entered the wrong frequencies several times. Then after a restart I flew to the "wrong" runway because I had forgotten to confirm and in the end I was just upside down on the ILS. Oops
Software can't stop idiots from doing the bottle. Unless you have enough idiots to test. Count me in...

I am very glad to know we have a new enthusiastic tester. Thank you!

Greetings and all the greatest respect, Marc

With my kindest regards and, again, thank you for taking the time to test Red Griffin ATC.

[Michat]

Thank goodness Marc has come. From the beginning I had serious doubts that the 707 could not operate the radio.
I do not know if you know that personally I have never been able to test either the 707 or Red Griffin because I do not have a computer capable of running FlightGear. For that reason and with only 24mb of disk space and with the added limitation of not having a physical keyboard, I am typing with a virtual keyboard. I find it very difficult to interact with the group.

As I have already mentioned, our team is like the Marx Brothers, but with many limitations. Maybe it was not a good idea to put Harpo as the radio operator and Chico on the switches of the 707.

For my part, I apologize for the inconvenience that this false negative may have generated.

On the other hand I am glad that you have met and so you can exchange knowledge.

29.92

[benih]

only 24mb of disk space

You should really consider upgrading that, it seems to severily limiting you.
Maybe a simple solution could be an external hard drive that you can move data (like the fgfs installation) onto. SSDs are realy getting cheap nowadays, too.

Whats hindering you, if I may ask?

[Michat]

Well, there are simply several reasons. At the moment, my personal situation is not the best and the current situation has complicated things even more. To be honest and not go into deep explanations. I could summarize it in that I currently cannot afford the purchase.

29.92

[benih]

I wish you the best, and good that you are setting the right priorities!

[WoodSTokk]

Have tested RGATC on the Citation II and have some small findings.
I started on the runway and RGATC gives me continously the clearance to taxi to the runway (i'm allready on the runway).
So i tested and rolled slowly along the centerline. Some meters later, RGATC comes with the clearance to take off, nice.
I think this has something to do with distance from threshold or so.
But normaly you will start on the appron and taxi to/on the runway. Manually taxiing on the runway gives you other distances, so i think if i manually taxi on the runway it will work.

RGATC tell me to climb 4500ft. Okay, i climb out. Some time later the ATC advise it a second time.
Will be nice if the ATC give me enough time to climb up and not advice me every minute or so.
Maybe the ATC check if the aircraft is still climbing or not.

RGATC give me a squawk and advise to ident. So i tune in the squawk and pushed IDENT.
Some times later the ATC give me the same squawk and advise to ident (???). So i push IDENT a second time.
No matter how often i push, the ATC advise me to ident.
I think the code looks only to '/instrumentation/transponder/'.
The Citation II has 2 transponders controlled by one control unit (Collins TDR-94).
At start up the control unit was switched to transponder 1.
As the ATC adviced me, i set the squawk on the unit (transponder 1 was active, so the unit set the squawk for transponder 2),
flipped the switch (this turn transponder 1 to stand-by and activate transponder 2) and pushed IDENT.
I'm not sure but it looks like RGATC doesnt look if there is another XPTR active.

[RedGriffin]

Have tested RGATC on the Citation II and have some small findings.
I started on the runway and RGATC gives me continously the clearance to taxi to the runway (i'm allready on the runway).
So i tested and rolled slowly along the centerline. Some meters later, RGATC comes with the clearance to take off, nice.
I think this has something to do with distance from threshold or so.
But normaly you will start on the appron and taxi to/on the runway. Manually taxiing on the runway gives you other distances, so i think if i manually taxi on the runway it will work.

Hello there and thanks for your feedback.
Red Griffin ATC determines the position within the airport by evaluating the data available in Nasal, including those about runways, including threshold, stopway and length. This gave me quite a lot of problems because, sometimes, these data are totally wrong and, for example, threshold is not in the position where it should be, the same for the stopway.
Red Griffin ATC shows ready to taxi/departure according to these data. If you are near the runway (including stopway and threshold) it will be shown "ready to departure" in all the other cases - and you are inside the airport area - you are getting the "ready to taxi" button.
What was the airport you were testing this condition? Maybe it is just one of the many having runway information not properly defined.

RGATC tell me to climb 4500ft. Okay, i climb out. Some time later the ATC advise it a second time.
Will be nice if the ATC give me enough time to climb up and not advice me every minute or so.
Maybe the ATC check if the aircraft is still climbing or not.

The altitude level warning is given at specific time interval in case the aircraft has not yet reached the level or it is about that level. The time interval is set according aircraft type. I guess I need to set longer interval in general or however implement a different algorithm. It is something to fix, anyway.

RGATC give me a squawk and advise to ident. So i tune in the squawk and pushed IDENT.
Some times later the ATC give me the same squawk and advise to ident (???). So i push IDENT a second time.
No matter how often i push, the ATC advise me to ident.
I think the code looks only to '/instrumentation/transponder/'.
The Citation II has 2 transponders controlled by one control unit (Collins TDR-94).
At start up the control unit was switched to transponder 1.
As the ATC adviced me, i set the squawk on the unit (transponder 1 was active, so the unit set the squawk for transponder 2),
flipped the switch (this turn transponder 1 to stand-by and activate transponder 2) and pushed IDENT.
I'm not sure but it looks like RGATC doesnt look if there is another XPTR active.

Yes, you are right. Red Griffin ATC currently uses transponder[0] only and this is clearly a heavy limitation for some aircraft, including your Citation II.
And, of course, it is a bug to be fixed in order to let Red Griffin ATC properly detect and use any transponder available in the aircraft.

Thank you for your feedback and please keep on testing Red Griffin ATC with your Citation II.

Kindest regards.

[scarymovie]

Hi RedGriffin,

Good to see that a new version is out! Thank you.

I am thrilled about the Festival Speech Synthesis System. I have always been wanting to have that feature but it is going to take too much of work to set that up on Windows OS.

I agree with WoodSTokk on how the ATC keeps repeating herself to climb (or descend) without giving the aircraft time to do the intended thing. Probably a logic can be put in place to check if the altitude remains the same, increase (if asked to descend) or decrease (if asked to ascend) before reminding the pilot. Similarly, at certain airports where there isn't a full length taxiway that leads the aircraft to the beginning of the runway, therefore the aircraft is required to backtaxi and do a U-turn for take off. The ATC isn't patient enough and keeps telling the me to "Take off immediately or vacate the runway!".

And problem I noticed:- not sure if RGATC is getting the same metar from the default FG source, but it is always different from what the ATIS provided esp the barometric pressure, wind direction & speed and information letter (eg Information Alpha).

Requests:
1. This is going to be hard. To add a Progressive Taxi Instruction option so ATC can guide the aircraft to the designated runway or gate.
2. ATC informs aircraft to contact Departure or Tower when approaching the holding point of departure runway.

Thank you.

[RedGriffin]

Hi RedGriffin,

Good to see that a new version is out! Thank you.

I am thrilled about the Festival Speech Synthesis System. I have always been wanting to have that feature but it is going to take too much of work to set that up on Windows OS.

Hello there!
Festival support was one of those features I wanted in Red Griffin ATC since the very beginning of development because of its superior voice quality when compared to the internal Festival+HTS synthesizer. Not to mention, you can define multiple voices and this too is an extra goodie.
I do not know about windows (I am a Unix/Amiga geek since ever) and I do not use this system at all. I do not therefore know what it needs to be done in windows in order to have Festival running, apart from compiling it from the sources.
In Linux Festival is usually available for most of the distributions and you just need to install and use is "out of the box". I guess there are prepackaged Festival binaries available, but I have never investigated about this.
As for me, I compiled Festival from the source distribution and "customized it" a little bit in order to suit my needs (not only for FlightGear, of course).

I agree with WoodSTokk on how the ATC keeps repeating herself to climb (or descend) without giving the aircraft time to do the intended thing. Probably a logic can be put in place to check if the altitude remains the same, increase (if asked to descend) or decrease (if asked to ascend) before reminding the pilot.

Yes, I was thinking about something like this besides setting longer times between the warnings.

And problem I noticed:- not sure if RGATC is getting the same metar from the default FG source, but it is always different from what the ATIS provided esp the barometric pressure, wind direction & speed and information letter (eg Information Alpha).

Weather information in Red Griffin ATC are taken from the property tree and according to the weather model set by the user, in particular if you choose "advanced weather modeling" and "real-world weather".
In case you have "real-world weather" set, Red Griffin ATC uses Metar properties, otherwise it will use the weather information of "non metar" properties.
I will however re check this with ATIS.

1. This is going to be hard. To add a Progressive Taxi Instruction option so ATC can guide the aircraft to the designated runway or gate.

This is a feature I wanted since the very beginning. Unfortunately FlightGear does not propagate the airport groundnet to Nasal and this will not let me to compute the path from point A to point B by using taxiways. I am also considering alternative ways to overcome this, however the best solution would be to have the groundnet available in Nasal.

2. ATC informs aircraft to contact Departure or Tower when approaching the holding point of departure runway.

If you are tuned to a ground station, as far as I know as from what I have read in many manuals and books about this subject (but I am not a licensed pilot nor have any ATC certification, so I can be totally wrong), the radio station taking care of take off operations is departure or the tower, in case there is no departure radio.
Is this supposed to be handled differently?

Thank you.

Thank you for your feedback and enjoy Red Griffin ATC!

[WoodSTokk]

I had now a look into the transponder and how they work.
Transponders have 6 modes ('transponder[n]/inputs/knob-mode'):
0 = Off
1 = Stand-by
2 = Test
3 = Ground
4 = On
5 = Altitude

There is the boolian property 'operable' that is 'false' in mode 0 and 1, 'true' in mode 2 and higher.
The transponder transmit a squawk ('transmitted-id') in mode 3 and higher.
The transponder set 'altitude' in mode 3 and 5 ('altitude-valid' is 'true').

On the Citation II there is at every time only one transponder 'operable' (mode 3 or higher).
The other on is in mode 1 (stand-by, not operable).

I dont know if you can check how many transponder exist on a aircraft, but i think there is no aircraft with more then 3.
So you can check transponder[0], [1] and [2] do find one with 'operable' = 'true' (highlander principle: 'there can only be one').
If you have found the active transponder you can check the other props (transmitted-id, altitude, altitude-valid).
If there is no 'transmitted-id' (but 'operable'), the transponder is likely in test-mode. (ATC: 'squawk XXXX').
If there is no altitude (but 'operable' and 'transmitted-id'), the transponder is likely in mode 4 or it is a 'Mode A' transponder.
You can check the transponder type by checking 'transponder[n]/inputs/mode'.

Table of transponder type ('transponder[n]/inputs/mode'):
0 = Mode A (only Squawk)
1 = Mode C (Squawk and altitude rounded to the next 100ft)
2 = Mode S (Squawk and altitude rounded to the next 10ft and speed in knots)

So, if the transponder is a mode 'A' (no altitude), dont expect a altitude.
If it is a mode 'C' or 'S' transponder, you can expect a altitude.
If it is mode 'C' or 'S' and you dont receive a altitude, the ATC can advise "Citation ABC, squawk altitude".
This advise the pilot to switch the transponder in 'ALT' mode.

The boolian property 'ident' becomes 'true' for around 20sec if the pilot press the ident button.

Properties to check:
/instrumentation/transponder[n]/operable (bool)
/instrumentation/transponder[n]/transmitted-id (int)
/instrumentation/transponder[n]/ident (bool)

If you also want the altitude:
/instrumentation/transponder[n]/altitude (int)
/instrumentation/transponder[n]/altitude-valid (bool)
/instrumentation/transponder[n]/inputs/mode (int) [only mode 1 and 2 can transmit the altitude]

[RedGriffin]

I had now a look into the transponder and how they work.

Hello there!
I am glad to see you contributed with your transponder investigation as it seems it is the same to what I too found out and used in my Red Griffin ATC. What you found out is what I knew and used in my addon to add transponder support.
Unfortunately, at the moment, Red Griffin ATC considers transponder[0] only and I will add multiple transponder support very soon.
Oh, by the way, I strongly encourage you - again - to start a wiki page about COM radio properties as well as transponder properties.

Thank you for your time and for testing Red Griffin ATC.

Kindest regards