ATC Day + Carrier Trial

It was ATC Day today and yet again I learned something and stretched some muscles. Vectoring is getting a little easier, I had to vector a flight in but missed on the first attempt from trying to squeeze everything in too quickly, rushing.

The last two flights to leave was BAW172 who had a few issues with a 757 but ended up with what looked like a nice flight, and PIA-109 which was a 747-400 aircraft. The last four flights were all to EDDH. I hear EDDH and EDDF ATC is very good, I intend to stop by in a ground car and listen in for a while some time.



I found that the hardest bit is working out the turn rate and response time of the pilot. So in future I'll use a pattern to vector people in then as they are following the pattern i can judge these two factors as there does not seem to be any standardisation in VR world.

I found it much easier to use different vectoring relativity depending on whether its incoming, outgoing or in a pattern. This is what I have worked out so far;

• Incoming: Use headings until they are close or in the close pattern.
• Outgoing: Use headings after clearing their first turn.
• Close quarters and Pattern flying, relative to the aircraft eg: "Turn left 9 0 degrees

Although I have found that there are a few occasions that this scheme fails, like when its just easier to select the aircraft, point at the NAV they are being vectored to and read off the heading.

The Aircraft Carrier is a great experience and I think I'll do that again. Someone landed on me but I didn't get the chance to put them on the lift. There are issues with this, the radar is not very capable, vectoring is neigh impossible like that.

I have been thinking about changing my ATC Day airport to EGLL, on the days I do ATC there is someone at EGKK now, so lets see how that works out, I don't want to step on anyone's toes and having two close close together might turn out to be pointless, but I'll have a go and see what happens. So there may come a time where I start my regular thing at a completely different location.

I have some questions I need to find answers too, and if anyone reading this knows then please do comment, I will post something up when I have found answers to them.

• Do FG players want/like to use the transponders? (no one has really used them so far)
• Are there some angles, response times or timing values or a timing protocol I should be aware of when vectoring?
• FGCom is great, Why do hardly any people use it?

Okay, that's about all I have for this post, thanks to all the pilots that came though EGSS today, and here is a picture of the radar as I was figuring out how to configure the aircraft carrier.