Pilot2ATC, World Traffic V3 & Active Sky XP Glue

[fearlessfrog]

@Fridge

With Pilot2ATC, it seems like you have to talk to it. How do you know what to say for various phases of the flight without being a real pilot?

I think you can just pick the phrases from the ‘say it’ window if you don’t want to use the speech recognition and keep the app running on a second monitor or something. In VR you pretty much have to know the phrases, but the fun/pain part for me was part of it. There is a ‘practice’ bit in Pilot2ATC that you can use for voice training, but it doubles up as a way to learn the expected voice procedures anyway. It’s called ‘Grammar Helper’ and looks like this:

If you pick a phrase rather than speak it, you can use the comms window to ‘Say It’ for you (providing you can see the window, which in VR you can’t really):

If you are just doing GA then there aren’t that many to learn, while true IFR is a bit more procedural. I (of course) cheat a bit and put the following two docs in my AVITab ‘Charts’ folder, so I can peek at them in VR if I’m feeling tongue tied:

A ‘one-pager’ for VFR GA:
common voice cmds.pdf (198.4 KB)

The complete delicious cannoli for reference:
voice-cmds.pdf (131.0 KB)

@Fridge

And this relates to the Air Race thread, how should I be properly figuring out my VFR flight path/route according to ‘the rules’? Right now I just take off, try to be sensible, approach my destination from a safe distance/speed/altitude and figure out a pattern. In the videos that Mr. 2001-Web-Page has, he obviously knows the VFR pattern that he is practicing but how do I learn it without going to school;

You go to school, but it’s only for 10 minutes and there’s donuts! Essentially what I do (and I’m no real pilot) is that I follow ‘The Pattern’ for all landings. What this means is that I announce I am ‘entering the pattern’, I find out if it is a ‘left hand’ (usually is) or right hand pattern. In the following diagram you can see I would enter the pattern at the aircraft symbol on the ‘Downwind Leg’ bit if I’m from the North, or into the Upwind leg if I’m from the South etc:

So I’m at 1,000 feet above ground level (each airfield will have this on their plate, but it’s usually 1000ft AGL), doing 100kts in a Cessna 172. I then ‘announce’ at each leg as per the voice commands and listen out for instructions as I do so. Down to 800 ft, 500 feet from Base Leg to Final and then set it down. Having to talk and walk at the same time does make it harder but it is enjoyable, and becomes pretty second nature after a while.

For taking off, if you are departing straight out then no pattern, otherwise it’s the same but in reverse. A better summary than I could type here:

Airfield traffic pattern