Let me try to add some comments, warnings and wishes from a "user side of view" - I guess for the tech. aspects there are enough people around!
I guess I got some experience in ATCing at EDDF, TGA, etc. I also had a close look into what VATSIM is doing in that Area. Right now I would believe "VATSIM being the non plus ultra in organized flying". I would love it - especially their Radar-Screens, FlightPlanning, etc. --- BUT:
- see their organization world wide and the (ATC-) manpower they have
- see their required training, grading, qualifying, preplanned duty-hours per person
- strict operation based on flight-Planning
- ATC just sticking to Radar without a direct look into the real picture
- notice their basic operation in 4 layers: GND, Twr, Apr, Center -- and see that they use different Radar Images for those different jobs!!! (there is a good reason for that!!)
- etc
All in all: I do not believe that that is the FlightGear environment - but I believe we (in FlightGear) should get our pilots to be able to easily use that VATSIM-Network for real procedural flying - but we should in no way try to compete with them - just use them for the FlightGear
Top-Procedural Guys!
So in Flightgear we should concentrate onto our customers:
- lots of beginners (at least based on "procedural flying")
- many young people having fun and a low budget
- very experimental - daily flying different models so nobody can have loaded all the (new) ones used at a given moment at a given place (
"blue/yellow" being the most used unique model)
- etc
So our customers really are anybody, from the very beginner up to the high professional - and many many just flying the biggest planes just with "AutoPilot" and no FlightPlanning at all! If we want to grow we have to accept those and try to
convince them of: "There is something more - and it is fun too". That is what I am trying!
Technically I am very glad having 3 sys to use at once (one more than 10 years old - but still being good for Internet/MPmap):
- one ATC(ML of course), that can switch and zoom in into actual operation of a unique pilot
- one MPmap to see the traffic in the area plus the NavAids (if needed, usually just the VOR's)
- one MPmap zoomed in to show the total picture of just the ground operations all the time
- and (sometimes) in the background a second ATC(ML) tuned in to MPserver02, to be able to address those using the MPserver02 (I guess you know our problem in MPserver info-exchange. especially with MPserver02)
So that are my secrets! And in all your discussions I see that many of you (designers) also expect that at least two screens are needed for ATC -- by the way also VATSIM does this to some extend: 1 for the Radar (unique per ATC-job GND/TWR/APR/CTRL), 1 for FlightPlans etc (often merged in) , 1 for the big picture (etc. VATspy), 1 for "ChartView" to easily pop up the exact SID,STAR, ILS, etc. ect. etc. procedures. I guess even "real" controllers do use at least 2 scopes.
I could dream of something like Gijs pointed out:
http://foxtrot.mgras.net/bitmap/FGFS/KSFO_large.pngalso the
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.p ... 42a1e7.jpg would improve the situation
Probably the biggest problem I have today, is reading the Target-Lables on the radar-screen! In todays ATC-tools they are mostly unreadable (try it when two near similar target-names are close to each other!) -- but those are much more important to read correct and fast by ATC -- so the colors in the above ".jpg" should be reverse - and even then the above ".png" is much better readable for an ATC in stress!!!
I hope that, whatever you guys finally come up with,
will meet my "flightGear-ATC" needs in addition to the radar-picture:
- direct look (non radar!) onto planes on ground (see close up what they are doing, where/how they roll/stop etc - and be able to watch landings (especially for education)
- possibility to select MPchat-messages (inclusive user-codes) by mouse-click (i.e. 2 clicks: 1 select target, second for command - see ATC-ML)
- of course different ranges (at least up to 100 nm) and I would like the possibility to hide Nav-Aids and targets! And/or the distinct colors and brightness as etc. in above KSFO_Large would be appreciated a lot - maybe somebody tests those scopes
WITH AI-Ground-Traffic at EHAM and EDDF - and see how good he can distinguish between the unique targets - should be a nice test!
- of course I need support for FGCOM as well as MPchat
--- and lots of ATC's (people!) to be available - and who will stay on duty for hours - even if there is no traffic!
Look into reality: How many MP-Users do we have? How many of them want to fly by rules? How many use FGCOM? How big is the fluctuation? i.e. how much education effort!
Please get me right: I will fully support the efforts testing and supporting the new designs -- but please do not try to reinvent the wheel and do not compete with VATSIM (new scopes = yes, totally organized = NO!!
joe