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Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby Oswald » Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:59 pm

Hello Red Griffin,

thank you for this amazing AddOn.

Two issues concern me after a few flights (VA flights in Indonesia):

If I decide to not follow ATC advise, how can I switch it off? My approach to WAJJ was either faulty in ATC advise, or in my following it, either way I deemed abortion of landing incorrect and being distracted by from my point of view wrong ATC information (partly leading me into nearby mountains) might had needed a button like "please be quiet, I land anyway".

Second: It takes a lot of addtional system performance from my computer which is at the limit with a more complicated aircraft and VA connection anyway.

Regards,
Oswald

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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby RedGriffin » Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:25 am

Oswald wrote in Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:59 pm:Hello Red Griffin,

thank you for this amazing AddOn.

Hello there!
Thank you for your feedback and for using RedGriffin ATC. Also thanks for your appreciation about my addon.

Oswald wrote in Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:59 pm:If I decide to not follow ATC advise, how can I switch it off? My approach to WAJJ was either faulty in ATC advise, or in my following it, either way I deemed abortion of landing incorrect and being distracted by from my point of view wrong ATC information (partly leading me into nearby mountains) might had needed a button like "please be quiet, I land anyway".

In case you want to stop getting ATC assistance while you are approaching an airport, you can either push the "abort approach" or "abort landing" buttons and the ATC will give you a "go around" message and after that it will not give more assistance, saved the warnings about terrain, in case they are enabled.
Another way is to change radio frequency or turn it off.
In the forthcoming 2.1.0 version, which is under development, I however added a menu item to completely turn RedGriffin ATC on or off.

Oswald wrote in Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:59 pm:Second: It takes a lot of additional system performance from my computer which is at the limit with a more complicated aircraft and VA connection anyway.

This is strange because I continuously check both resource and time consumption in Red Griffin ATC and, as far as I can tell by verifying this in my machines the consumption is quite low. Red Griffin ATC basically is a timer based application which "wakes up" the addon at specific intervals. I will however check this again.
Can you please provide me the aircraft you are using and your configuration so I can test it here?

Thank you for your feedback and support.

Enjoy Red Griffin ATC!
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby Oswald » Mon Nov 23, 2020 5:20 pm

Hello Red Griffin,

DHC8 Q100 from Qseries, advanced weather (plenty of clouds and dust).
Windows 10, 64 Bit, 8 GB RAM, AMD A6-6420K APU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

Thanks!
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby RedGriffin » Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:03 am

Oswald wrote in Mon Nov 23, 2020 5:20 pm:Hello Red Griffin,

DHC8 Q100 from Qseries, advanced weather (plenty of clouds and dust).
Windows 10, 64 Bit, 8 GB RAM, AMD A6-6420K APU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

Thanks!

Thank you.
I will test it with the configuration you provided.
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby Hooray » Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:49 pm

The settings dialog has been reorganized and have been added new options to control Red Griffin ATC, in particular the "Aircraft type" used to "fine tune" some internal values to be used in take off, approach and landing procedures.
Red Griffin ATC now allows the pilot to choose from these aircraft types, each of them settings specific operational parameters


Note that there is a built-in "checklist" system which is used by many aircraft, i.e. you could use that as heuristics to preselect the proper aircraft profile: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Aircraft_Checklists

Also just FYI, since you are already using the canvas system elsewhere, you don't necessarily need to use PUI for the settings dialog: You can just as well add a Canvas ScrollArea with buttons for each drop-down:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Snipp ... ScrollArea
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Snipp ... Layouts.29

Image

Such a generic button-based ScrollArea is roughly 20 lines of code: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Proces ... ist_widget
Please don't send support requests by PM, instead post your questions on the forum so that all users can contribute and benefit
Thanks & all the best,
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby RedGriffin » Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:49 pm

Hooray wrote in Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:49 pm:Note that there is a built-in "checklist" system which is used by many aircraft, i.e. you could use that as heuristics to preselect the proper aircraft profile: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Aircraft_Checklists

Hello there!
Sorry for replying so late to your message, unfortunately month end is always very frantic for me because of my job.
This sounds as a good idea, although - as far as I can tell - not all the aircraft in FlightGear have a checklist. However, what factors/parameters I should consider in this "checklist" in order to heuristically determine the aircraft type?

Hooray wrote in Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:49 pm:Also just FYI, since you are already using the canvas system elsewhere, you don't necessarily need to use PUI for the settings dialog: You can just as well add a Canvas ScrollArea with buttons for each drop-down:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Snipp ... ScrollArea
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Snipp ... Layouts.29

Image

Such a generic button-based ScrollArea is roughly 20 lines of code: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Proces ... ist_widget

I thought about that but I opted for PUI because it seems this is the method mainly used in FlightGear for that purpose, so I simply "complied" to this. I can however consider moving the settings dialog to a canvas dialog.

Thank you for your always useful hints! :-)
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby Hooray » Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:55 pm

Actually, I would not do any work at this point, it would be redundant since you have something that works already - just wanted to make you aware of the possibility, since you seem to be using the Canvas already. Also, while it is true that PUI is the "standard" in FlightGear, it is in the process of being phased out - most aircraft/fgdata developers tend to use the Canvas system to shield themselves from any changes in the FlightGear UI department.

http://wiki.flightgear.org/PUI
http://wiki.flightgear.org/QtQuick_use_in_FlightGear

PS: Regarding the checklist, I'd probably check the V-speeds, or rather speeds in general (takeoff/landing). But again, it's just to make you aware of the option - like you said, not all aircraft will necessarily have those set up properly, but those that do, the checklist obviously contains rather useful info
Please don't send support requests by PM, instead post your questions on the forum so that all users can contribute and benefit
Thanks & all the best,
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby scarymovie » Tue Dec 01, 2020 9:35 am

Hi RedGriffin,

Good day!

Did you have to chance to test it out at WSSS? I was departing from there yesterday and again, the wind direction in the departure information given by the ATC did not match the live weather one. Not sure if this only happens in WSSS.

Thank you.
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby RedGriffin » Tue Dec 01, 2020 10:45 am

scarymovie wrote in Tue Dec 01, 2020 9:35 am:Hi RedGriffin,

Good day!

Did you have to chance to test it out at WSSS? I was departing from there yesterday and again, the wind direction in the departure information given by the ATC did not match the live weather one. Not sure if this only happens in WSSS.

Thank you.

Hello there!

I tested WSSS a couple of times and I see the wind properties on the /environment branch change at a "supersonic" rate, several times a second. I do not know why, maybe it is a bug in FlightGear related to that specific airport.
I saw metar provides more stable and reliable information, so I completely removed any reference in Red Griffin ATC to those "very unstable wind properties" and changed everything to metar. Maybe some FlightGear developer can clarify this. I will however report that in the developer mailing-list.

As far as I can tell, this bug is fixed in Red Griffin ATC and will be included in version 2.1.0 which I plan to release soon with more features and fixes, including squawking.

Thank you for your report and please feel free to share your ideas and feedback.
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby scarymovie » Tue Dec 08, 2020 11:37 am

Hi Red Griffin,

Thank you for finding that out.

I have a question related to ILS approach and landing. The ATC always advise to hold at alt 4500 ft until ILS is established. Is there a reason why the altitude is set at 4500 ft? I know there are some aircraft that are not able to capture the glide slope at that high level. Will it make a difference if a different aircraft type is selected?

Thank you.
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby Hooray » Tue Dec 08, 2020 11:48 am

the glideslope is typically 3 degrees (but not always), so the rule of thumb is 10 miles ~ 3000 ft AAL (above airport level), which is why 15 miles(/4500 ft makes sense - however, something like 10-12 miles intercept altitude would seem more common depending on the range of the ground equipment, usually ~500 ft lower than the actual intercept altitude (i.e. a vertical offset to account for the groundspeed of the approaching aircraft).

All of these things could be made configurable rather easily, and fed with heuristics using the checklists system - in fact, rleibner's GCA addon did expose these variables via a corresponding configuration hash which could then be populated by a Canvas UI dialog:

Image
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby WoodSTokk » Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:12 pm

@Hooray
We know that formula and it is fine if other AddOns have configuration for that.
The point is that Red Griffin ATC advice allways a altitude of 4500, no matter of airfield elevation.
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby RedGriffin » Tue Dec 08, 2020 3:43 pm

WoodSTokk wrote in Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:12 pm:@Hooray
We know that formula and it is fine if other AddOns have configuration for that.
The point is that Red Griffin ATC advice allways a altitude of 4500, no matter of airfield elevation.

This is completely wrong. Red Griffin ATC always considers airport altitude when giving information about approach. It also depends on the initial approach distance which is also determined by the aircraft type, ranging from 10 miles for small single engine aircraft to 15 miles for airliner jets, and approach altitude changes accordingly.
As for version 2.0.0 this is determined by a fixed value (depending on many factors including the ones above) and in the next 2.1.0 release this is going to change.
I planned since the initial development of Red Griffin ATC to also provide a proper glide slope and to set approach information accordingly. Version 2.1.0 will have this value set to 3 degrees but it can be changed in the settings dialog. I am also working on a more "complex" implementation in which also surrounding terrain will be playing its role.
The current fixed values have been determined by reading several airport charts in which I saw that for a 10 miles distance approach they usually suggest 3000 feet plus airport altitude level and 4000 feet plus AAL for a 15 miles approach. I understand these are pretty arbitrary but give a good approximation. This is going to change in version 2.1.0, though.

Kind regards.

Keep enjoying Red Griffin ATC!
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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby F-PTCZ » Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:12 pm

Hi Red griffin

First of all, congratulations for your addon, it brings quite an amazing realism.

Is there a possibility of having atc dialogs for runway circuits ?

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Re: Red Griffin ATC - Speaking ATC addon for Flightgear

Postby RedGriffin » Sat Dec 12, 2020 11:41 am

lsalvan wrote in Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:12 pm:Hi Red griffin

First of all, congratulations for your addon, it brings quite an amazing realism.

Hello there!

Thank you for your appreciation and for using Red Griffin ATC. I am glad to read you think it brings quite an amazing realism and, to tell the truth, this is the main reason why I started developing this addon.

lsalvan wrote in Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:12 pm:Is there a possibility of having atc dialogs for runway circuits ?

This could certainly be an idea for future development. At the moment Red Griffin ATC only gives guidance to the base leg and final approach circuit and only in case you ask for VFR or ILS approach.

lsalvan wrote in Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:12 pm:Laurent

Thank you for taking the time to try and use Red Griffin ATC. Please feel free to share here your comments, ideas and feedback.

Kind regards.
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