#Atc communications simulator how to#
#Atc communications simulator software#
#Atc communications simulator simulator#

By using an app such as vPilot, VATSIM connects to the flight simulator and the radios of the plane for the voice part. Essentially, it is a platform for virtual pilots and virtual air traffic controllers to connect to and simulate real world Air Traffic Control as closely as possible. VATSIM stands for Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network. On the left, all radio channels currently used at a location are listed. So, What’s VATSIM? vPilot on a busy Tuesday evening. But, as said above, there’s a fix for that: VATSIM. You’ll quickly find out that the ATC that is provided in the flight simulator is nowhere near realistic. Pick Zürich Kloten airport (LSZH) and tune into some of the channels on a busy afternoon or evening. You can get an idea of how that sounds like on LiveATC, a website that broadcasts radio traffic from many airports around the world over the Internet. That sounds like a bit much, but in busy airspace, this separation of work and responsibility is absolutely essential. During a flight from and to bigger airports, one will talk to all of them. Flying to and from bigger airports usually involves delivery controllers, apron/ground controllers, the tower controller, the departure controller once you are in the air, one or more center controllers that take care of the transit part of the flight, the approach controller, the director, the tower, and finally one or more ground controllers again. įollowing instructions in IFR sounds simple, but it’s by far more challenging then flying VFR to and from small airports. Busy virtual airspace around Zürich during the weekly Zürich night on VATSIM. While ultimate responsibility for the safety of a flight remains with the pilot, controllers take care that other traffic does not harm them and a pilot follows the instructions from the controllers on where to fly, how fast to fly and how high to fly. Here, controllers will keep you safe from other traffic all the way from your parking spot at one airport to the parking spot at the other.

And even though by far not as common as flying from uncontrolled airports or small controlled airports, people do fly with Visual Flight Rules (VFR) to bigger airports in real live that have a tower controller, a ground controller and even a delivery controller.Ī further step up the complexity ladder is flying IFR (Instrument Flight Rules).

#Atc communications simulator how to#

ATC warns them of other airplanes when they come close.īigger airports are ‘controlled’, and depending on their size, there are one or more controllers that regulate all arrivals and departures and give instructions how to move while on the ground, i.e. When flying overland, sports pilots also talk to air traffic control to get local information and flight following services, i.e. But all of this is just information, there is no air traffic control and pilots make all decisions on their own. In many cases there is an INFO service available at the airport which can be called over the radio to get information such as the local pressure, which runway is in use and what other traffic with or without a radio is in the vicinity. In the real world, most flights with such planes are to and from small uncontrolled airports, and the pilot is responsible to look out for other traffic. But there’s a fix for that: VATSIM.īefore I dive into VATSIM in this post, let’s quickly look at what kind of ATC one gets in touch with as a pilot of a small airplane such as the DA40: That’s not very realistic and lightyears away from the challenge of talking to real people at the other end of a radio channel. MS Flight Simulator 2020 has built in Air Traffic Control, and interaction with it is done by selecting pre-formulated requests and answers from a drop down menu. Next in my list of things to improve was radio communication with Air Traffic Control (ATC).

#Atc communications simulator software#

Using such software is a huge step beyond the built-in navigation tools when it comes to flying in the simulator as realistically as possible. In episode 3, I’ve looked a bit on how flight planning and navigation software for ‘the real world’ can be used in a flight simulator. Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) night flight on Vatsim with a Diamond DA40.