Weekend at EGSS

Hi folks!

I had another great weekend at Virtual Stansted again so expect some screenshots. Some interesting things have been happened since my last post. There is the FlightGear Fall Festival  starting November the 5th (2016) which sounds like its far off but its already being planned out to be a great event.

The event will be held in the U.K, so that means that the whole of Europe will be a frenzy of activity with ATCs and pilots aplenty. I can say that I will be at EGSS for the event and will be controlling from REDFA down to my doorstep. So when the event comes around come and pay me a visit.

I am working on adding some scenery for Stansted so it is ready for the event. I'm a complete newbie when it comes to doing that so its yet another learning curve. I will initially start with the gates and jetways and if I can find an object large enough the terminal building.

A note about routes, if you are coming to Stansted grab a copy of the airport plate from my description in mumble (mumble.allfex.org) and have a look at the routes. The SIDs are easy and the best STAR to use would be something in ABBOT.

Before I get into my (brief) weekend log I would like to mention that I have an unusual week ahead of me, and should REALLY give me something to write about (if I have any luck with pictures!). I'm not going to jump the gun by shouting off what it is (some of you I know already know) but its bloody brilliant and you really should subscribe so you don't miss it.

Saturday
Was a nice night, some familiar faces came by and went off to Ireland which was cool, which you can see below in the screenshots. What I tried here was bunching up the outbound flights more so it was more efficient. I find now that if I just let the pilots contact me when they are ready I don't make them feel rushed and I have a little more time myself.

In this situation what happened was everyone filed their flight plan before they did anything else, everyone was pretty much chilling out and agreeing where to go. The pilots decided their destination and I had a succession of  flight plans to set up, then it was a matter of getting them there. I just about had holding points S1, S3, R1 and R3 filled up and as soon as the currently departing AC was positive climb the next one was lining up. It was all running just like its supposed to! it was very cool!

Here are some pics of that:
 

 

One of my visitors on Saturday was flying Donald Trumps aircraft, he kindly sent me some screenshots and said I can post them, so here they are.

Sunday was REALLY quiet.

There isn't much more I can say really, yet here is a picture of something happening on Sunday.

FlightGear Spring Festival - We love Japan!

Hi everyone!

This is my first post after the FlightGear Spring Festival, and it was SO much fun! I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did and I would like to say thank you to everyone that joined in.

Festival time at RJGG

I was stationed at RJGG with ElGaton running centre, the airport was really nice looking (from the pilots perspective). This was my best experience with having a centre operating over me. We had quite a few people come by and the region was fairly busy, I would call this festival a success.

I met a lot of new people and spoke to members of the FlightGear community that I wouldn't normally see which was great. Trying out a new airport was really interesting and I started out with "this is really hard" but by the second night and some more documents (Thanks ElGaton) it hit the floor running and started to appreciate the way things are done over there.

Here are a couple of pictures of RJGG airport that t-urbo took for me. (you can click these)

  

The DME approach for the airport was really difficult for many pilots, its a circle! it was also a challenge for me as ATC to vector someone round a circle, the area has very few fixes, only 4 VORs and a couple of DME. But I gave it a go and I was really impressed with my progress, ill post some pictures of it here. Big kudos go out to pilot BA_007 for flying this SO well and actually got the "feel" for what I was vectoring and I don't think he had the DME route available to him at the time (I could be wrong).

There are a number of pictures here all showing a time separation of about 2 minutes, observe the contact trails showing how well he tracked the approach.

    

So "Pilot of the Day" went to ...

Busy busy!

We had quite an active service in my area of Japan which was cool, here is a screen of the tower activity on Sunday night.



And we also had lots and lots of people flying, it was fantastic!

The Troll

Yep there was a troll being a pain, spamming and all that rubbish. But like all trolls they had a poor attention span and soon left. To critique their griefing I would say it was unimaginative and lacked the real pazazz that really gets people going. Spamming swear words and lame ass 'insults' don't really cut it I would rate this troll at a 2/10 which rates them as "Slightly less than annoying", sorry pal.

The end

Well, the event came to an end, and on mumble all the centres came round and thanked everyone for coming which was really nice I thought. And on this note I hope you enjoyed my brief summary of the event and the pictures. Until next time happy flying, and I hope to see you at my usual haunt of London Stansted (EGSS).

Catching up and some news!

Good day!

I have been absent doing other things but I shall be trying to do more regular sessions now; you can now visit me on Saturdays and Sundays as a regular slot and I am on during the week late evenings most nights.

On Thursday the 21st of this month President Obama came to England, and what would you know he came in through Stansted, very cool!!

I am still looking to get the APP and TWR audio but due to legal issues in the UK surrounding the capturing of ATC messages it might be difficult. Here is the Standard's report on his arrival.

The London Stansted official Facebook page posted this picture for the event, to me it looks like he was debarking at the Business Centre, what do you think?

I was in my tower at the time, its a shame that I didn't know about it earlier I would have liked someone to try and simulate it real time, that would have been pretty neat.

FlightGear news

The event this weekend (Spring Festival) is being hosted around Asia and the Orient, I hope everyone is going to turn out for a fly! I will be in my tower as usual, so if you want a break from the high-traffic airways come to London and visit, I'll even get the kettle on.

In November TheJabberWocky group has another event lined up for early November, this event will be hosted in and around the UK. I have put my name forward to ATC in my tower for that event but I think they might want experts on for that event so I may have to sit out (I'll grab a remote AP somewhere else).

EGSS News

I have added a new webpage to my server where I will be uploading all the PDF files required for the airport. There are some there now, but I will be updating it with the more comprehensive versions. The link to that site is here.

I have an alteration to the route "ABBOT 1F" on my chart than the official one, this is just to clean up traffic above the airport and to make the turn into ABBOT holding/pattern easier. I shall now explain:

• ABBOT 1F official takes from BPK direct to ADNAM(fix), ABBOT(fix).
• ABBOT 1F modified take deom BPK to BKY to ADNAM(fix) ... and so on.

This means you do not have a hairpin right turn at ADNAM and I can keep that FL060 traffic away from approaches. 

Squawk Codes

As you know I do not always use these (and I will be more in the future, see below) but if you want that level of realism that feel free to say something like "with you, using squawk xxxx" or when making contact, if you mention a squawk code on contact I will then take it that you are using them and I'll do the same. Not everyone uses them or knows how, so I do not automatically assign them.

ATC Pie

I am looking at moving to ATCPie for my client software, it looks good but I have a few issues with it. When these are sorted out I will be using squawks more often .

Rant

I do not use direct vectoring for everything, I will use VOR's and fixes (if the pilot can see fixes) and I will route ALL inbound via the ABBOT approach (I rarely use CASEY as its the same as ABBOT with 5 degrees skew). I will also use LOREL but that simply ends up being an ABBOT approach once the AC has passed BKY.

There is a reason For this, when I started off I was direct vectoring EVERYONE to the runways, and once you have more than a couple of people coming in that way it becomes a mess, especially when you have a couple of outbounds too. I spent a lot of time learning and internalising the routes and so I will use them.

This does not mean I expect the pilots to know them too, if a pilot does know the route then tell me and all is great. If you do not know the route that's perfectly fine, I will just vector you on that route.

All in all I am trying to provide as much of a service as I am, if you are passing by I will update your FP for you. I'll check weather on your route if you ask, and outbounds get their route checked if they are unsure. Thats right, that extra 1 minute delay some people experience when they go somewhere I am unfamiliar with is down to me searching the exit points and planning your route for you.

Tips for new ATC

I am new too, and NONE of us are 100% perfect ATC. Bare this in mind.

• Get the CAP documents from the CAA, these are great!
• Give heading slightly early and add/subtract 1 degree to the heading for every mile you gave the heading in advance.
• You are in control, but you are a service. Try to be helpful and treat pilots like valued customers, they are the nice guys!
• Its not all about us, we are only there to help pilots play a flying game. We only see our screens and its easy to think of it as an ATC game, it is not its a flight simulator for which we are volunteers.
• Pick one airport and "move in", make it yours and be proud of your reputation.
• Direct vector EVERYTHING until you know your routes, and vector using chat as much as you can, this REALLY helps to reinforce learning.
• When things get busy, take a breath, slow down, redirect someone across the map and back again if you have to. The "long way round" is better than an frustrated, stressed ATC. Planes take time to get from one place to another, this gives you time when you need it.
• If you make a mistake, its OKAY, real ATC make mistakes all the time, no one will complain if you correct yourself, readout someone's callsign slightly wrong, or gave someone the wrong vector etc.
• Listen to the pilots! Those guys really know their stuff.
• And MOST importantly of all be consistent!! Even if you never use routes, SID, STAR or any procedures at all, have your own procedures in your head. Which VORs wil you use to route people into your active runway? pick them and stick to them, pilots will remember them next time.

Okay, its time for me to go now, I hope you guys found this post interesting and ill leave you with one more picture.

The end of a weekend shift at EGSS, one last inbound. (This display is showing the modification to ABBOT 1F which I mentioned earlier)

Thanks for visiting EGSS

Jay / Morlan (Stansted Approach/Tower)

EGKK -> LOWI + Update

Hi,

I have not posted in a little while as i have been busy on other projects. I have done a few other flights and had a few ATC days that I have not logged as they were not very eventful.

EGKK -> LOWI
This was a nice flight I have been trying to get right for a while, the problem with this route is;
1: Fuel
2: Mountains

Getting there is not a problem of course but the problem this time was crashing into the mountains (My apologies to any skiers). Next time I shall fly to Munich then from there to LOWI. I think its about time I downloaded the routing information for that airport.


UPDATE:
I have been getting a LOT of help with the routing for EGSS I shall be providing links to the documents ill be using for routing (The published routes available from the CAA), Thanks Mike! Anyone intending on visiting EGSs whilst I am on ATC, please ask which contact point you should be coming in to if you don't have the routes.

There is a holding at ABBOT which I will be making a lot of use of so expect that if you visit me and there is a queue then I will probably use ABBOT holding to get you down to approach altitude.

Lastly I have worked out how to use the ATIS recording system so When I am on ATC I will update the ATIS recording every hour and assign a sequence identifier to it so if you have listened to this please tell me what information you have when you contact then I know if you have heard my message or just looked up METAR for yourself (which some people do).

If anyone has suggestions how I can improve my ATC skills, things you would like me to do differently or any special handling then feel free to contact me via this blog, on the mumble server or even post a comment.

All comments are welcome.

Mors

ATC Log

Well, I spent most of the weekend at EGSS tower, and I must say it was one of the best ATC weekends so far. I have some pictures which ill insert below. We had a plane party at Alpha-East with some great landings and landing recoveries from all the wind problems recently.

I have learned a fair amount about routes too! I have started adding some XML files to to EGSS which if anyone thinks its a good idea then post comments and I'll put them up for download so if anyone else wants to use EGSS then they can have the routes.

I have updated the "ATC at EGSS" page (linked to on the right) with information about visiting EGSS when I am in the tower. I will add the routes to this and some guidelines/hints that might help.

This week has been a great week, I have learned SO much I'm not even sure if I can express it all in one post! We have had some visitors from all over the world this week. I have learned most about vectoring, routes and more procedural stuff.

Okay, here is a little of what I learned recently;

• Vectoring into turns: I try to do it gradually, this means take a position around the apex of the turn I want them to manoeuvre, just as they are reaching this position I give a vector halfway between their current and the exit, when at this point simply give exit+10 degrees and they will come around. One pilot even remarked that on his map when I did this it looked like he was perfectly on the bow line. 

  

• Not so accurate: I have very recently been told that real ATC only give headings where the last digit is a 0 or 5. Makes sense due to the fuzzy nature of flying, also it seems to let the pilots let on edge trying to keep such a tight course, thanks guy that told me this thing.

• Navaids are my friend!: Yeah, now I can use simple routes I have been using these, and I'm trying to be smart about how I do it too, as you never know when a pilot knows about it or not (this IS the internet after all) so I give a heading TO a position, if the pilot in his read back just said "HDG to blah blah" whatever waypoint or route then I know I can use whichever safely.

A friend on FlightGear took some pictures when I was in the tower, he said I could post them here, so here is a picture of me giving a shortened ATIS to a pilot (I sometimes cut the radio bit off if I'm already in voice and just using the ATIS button to be clear).

In this picture you can see the Stansted tower model.

If any FG scenery makes are watching this ... ahem .. ahem .. more buildings please. But the tower model is nice.



And here is my friend leading a regular departure to his holding position.

I love having ground crew! so much fun to have people there with you.







Okay, I'll post up very soon when I have something constructive to say, I'm also working on "Morlan's tips for newbies" which will be a list of the things I was doing wrong and what I did to fix them, and some things I find helpful when things get hairy.

Also, if any FG Flyers are reading this come visit me at Stansted, you aren't in the mood to fly that's fine Alpha East is reserved parking for the Stansted Airport Chat Group.

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.

Circuit Training

I did a little circuit training today at Chatteris airfield. I learned a few things. My handling is getting better and not using any autopilot to maintain headings was fun and great practice. I flew in a Cessna 127p Skyhawk (1981) and a Diamond DA 42. I really liked the Diamond , Here is a picture of it.

My initial flights were in the Cessna, I flew a left handed circuit targeting about 700ft, this varied a LOT because of the wind, wow those small planes feel it. I was also at a different airport for this section of my flight, I moved to a small UK airfield to avoid traffic (two AI liners fighting for a RW). Here are a few pictures of that part.

[PIC1]Awkwardly making my crosswind turn
[PIC2] The airliner train.

During my flight at Chatteris I also included a few landings at RAF Mildenhall. I kept coming in a little low, I find it quite hard to maintain a steep glide slope but it's getting better. The following pictures are a medley of my session.