Monday, October 12, 2015

Taxi chart...

Taxi charts can be edited to make taxiing more realistic. Since version 3.0, the taxi charts are dynamically loaded by EasyATC. It is not needed anymore to put a Taxi chart in the flight plan when editing.

How it works...
Take-off
When you start your flight on ground, EasyATC detects the airport you are triggering, let say LFKJ, and try to find a LFKJ Taxi chart. If he doesn't find, he simply expects you to call the ATC of the airfield as edited in the flight plan (usually a TOWER), see Default taxi below...
If he finds an Taxi chart for the airfield, EasyATC expects you to first call the ATC as edited in the APRON line of the Taxi chart (see Edition below...) to get the flight clearance. When the departure ATC will give the flight clearance, he will give you the frequency of the GROUND ATC (this frequency is edited in the holding short lines)

Landing
When you approach on airport and have requested to land, EasyATC detects the airport you are targeting, let say LFKJ, and try to find a LFKJ taxi chart.
Once you have touched down, EasyATC looks for a GROUND frequency in the Taxi chart. If he finds one, the Airfield ATC (usually a Tower) will say "welcome in Ajaccio airport, call back runway vacated" and then (when you will have called back), "contact ground on xxx.xx, bye bye". Then you can ask a taxi clearance to the GROUND ATC. EasyATC will pick-up the closest holding point from your plane in the taxi chart and will deliver the appropriate taxiways to use to go back to the APRON. 

Default taxi...
If there is no taxi chart in the flight plan, you must ask the flight clearance and then the take-off clearance to the ATC of the airport you take-off from (usually a TOWER).

Edition...
Apron
  • The first line of a Taxi chart must be an APRON in the Waypoint type field and the Identifier field must be the name of the airport (I mean the same name that you put in the flight plan, usually the OACI code)
  • Set the ATC Callsign and Frequency to the ATC you have to contact for the flight clearance
  • The coordinates of the Apron are used for one thing: after landing, when you get the taxi clearacne to go back to the APRON, once you are at less than 0,1 Nm from these coordinates, the taxi ATC will deliver you a "frequency change approved, bye bye" message and the flight will be closed. Note that you can use the transit out request to force the ATC to close the flight.
  • Since V3.0 the DME distance field is used to indicate the magnetic variation of the airport.
Holding points
  • The Identifier is the name of the holding point used by the ATC when saying "taxi to holding short Identifier via..."
  • Select RWY, RWY_L or RWY_R to allow the ATC to know which runway this holding point gives access
  • Set at least one of the holding points with a GROUND frequency. I usually edit this frequency in the first holding point of the chart. Note that it's not possible at this stage to have different GROUND frequencies depending on the taxiway...
  • Don't forget to indicate to the ATC the Heading of the runway. Usually, a given holding point is used for one runway direction. If the holding point can lead to the two directions, duplicate the line: one with a given heading, one with the opposite heading. If you don't fill the heading cell (like in the sample image above), the holding point is only used as an exit after landing.
  • Be precise in the coordinates values. Please use the Record feature (since V3.0) to set coordinates precisely.
  • The Linked checkpoints column is filled with the taxyways identifiers separated by spaces. The ATC will enumarate the identifiers by spelling the letters and numbers : example, if you want the ATC to say "Golf one, Delta one, Charlie", the field must be G1 D1 C
Runways info
Since V3.0, you must indicate some information about the available runways. This has been added to fix problems in big airports!
  • A runway information line is identified by setting the ATC Type field value to INFO.
  • Put the Identifier you want. EasyATC don't use it. I usually write RWY 10/28, RWY 01/19 L, RWY 04/22 R, etc...
  • Set the Checkpoint Type with the appropriate kind of runway
    • RWY if this runway has not a "twin" runway on left or right
    • RWY_L or RWY_R if the runway has a left and a right "twin".
    • Note that you don't need to have one line per directions.
Example: in Los Angeles KLAX, there is 2 runways 06/24 and 2 runways 07/25. Note that only two headings are edited: 060 and 070. Let say EasyATC needs to make you take-off or land on the runway 25, he will just pick-up randomly one of the runways 07 and simply reverse the Heading value (and the side: 07 RWY_L will become 25 RWY_R!)


  • The coordinates are very important: EasyATC uses them to know if your plane is on the right runway and in the right direction. These coordinates must be as close as possible to the middle of the runway. Please use Record feature to set these coordinates precisely.

No comments:

Post a Comment