Pilot Assessment

[mikeindevon]

Those of us who have been in the pc flight sim world since the start will remember subLogic and Bruce Artwick.  Apart from being the inspiration behind the first MS Flight Simulator, they produced in 1992 a program called Air Transport Pilot (ATP).

As I recall, this was probably the first sim to include a 747 model.  However, the feature that made the sim so addictive was a scoring system for pilot performance on a set of "assignments", typically an A to B flight in the US.  The scoring was based on a number of factors such as: accuracy of flying ATC given altitudes and routes, fuel efficiency, checking in with ATC as appropriate for various parts of the flight, and many other parameters.

I have wondered if there would be any interest my developing an add-on for PSX that did a similar thing - scoring performance on a specific route, flying a circuit or maintaining a holding pattern.  Times have changed since ATP and now, with a fully functional FMC the pilot has little to do but sit back and watch.  This would require the checked parameters to be changed somewhat.  If I decide to proceed with this project then perhaps forum members could contribute thoughts on the details of the functionality.

Any thoughts?

Mike

ps I have recently been able to run ATP on my 64-bit Win 7 machine courtesy of dosBox, and I still have the box, maps and all the documentation - sad fellow that I am !

[tango4]

Hi Mike,
Just a few "first thoughts" here.

The idea sounds really good, but as you mention, lots of things have changed.

An evaluation of manual flying skills for some short "missions" would certainly be of interest. You start a situ with a "goal", like "Follow an ILS", or manually fly a SID, or things like this.
Surprisingly, my skills are much better at CATIII approaches than for manual CATI... 

Regarding the evaluation of a full flight, I guess it is much harder.
Here are a few things that would make sense evaluating (at least to me !):
-Punctuality (The situ starts at a given time and you have xxminutes before engine start, etc...)
-Passenger comfort: avoiding turbulence area, avoiding high g, avoiding excessive bank and pitch angles, avoiding excessive impact on touchdown...

Apart from that, a big part of an evaluation of a whole flight would be monitoring compliance to ATC clearances. But in my opinion, PSX's ATC system although very neat and easy to use, is not complex enough to allow a real challenge. I think a more sophisticated ATC plugin would be in order before it would make sense to evaluate your performance in this area. It should be able to assign SID/STARS, different approaches including visual, direct to a waypoint, intercepting a route, avoiding for weather, and so on...
By the way if you ever wish to develop such an addon, I'd be glad to help you (regarding ATC, I have no programming skills...).

Anyway, I can only wish you all the best in your efforts, and thank you for taking the time to ask for opinions here.

Charles

[brian747]

Hi Mike!

A.T.P.     Wow, that brought back some memories!

I first encountered subLogic in the form of a wire frame 3D package for the Apple ][ in 1980, and subsequently when I was one of the first to buy the IBM Personal Computer and paid extra for the "colour" (in fact, it turned out to be a choice of four colours, I think?) graphics card — specifically so that I could run Micro$oft's rebranded version of the Bruce Artwick subLOGIC flight sim.

Is your A.T.P. documentation the (brown cover) First edition First printing, or the (blue cover) Second edition First printing, also in 1990? (From the evidence of my bookshelf it seems that I bought both, for some reason, although I do recall being seriously addicted to A.T.P. in that year and beyond).   

I seem to remember that subLOGIC also had to agree not to use the phrase "Flight Simulator" in order to evade claims by Micro$oft's lawyers....   

Oh yes, and the name of Simon Hradecky comes to mind, too, as someone who wrote ATPPATCH and ATPUTIL.

Happy days!   

Had I only known about PSX that was coming a quarter of a century later, I might have been less enraptured, of course!   

However, whether an A.T.P.-style evaluation is possible with PSX, I wouldn't like to say. I suspect that the art might be to select for evaluation only the items which make it possible to come up with useful evaluation criteria.     Given PSX's origins as a training medium for professionals, it could perhaps be that the sort of criteria that were monitored all those years ago might already be assumed to be in place??

But good luck with the concept!

Kind regards from Hampshire to Devon,

Brian

P.S. If by any chance you're going to the Flight Sim show at RAF Cosford (museum) on October 3rd, I'll be round and about the Mutley's Hangar stand for the morning and early part of the afternoon, if you'd like to drop by for a chat. (I'll be wearing a maroon-coloured "Mutley's Hangar Crew" polo shirt, to assist identification, although my face is (unfortunately) still pretty much as shown in my avatar (upper left)).

B.

[mikeindevon]

I have got both the brown and blue book and the blue box.  I can't say which box the charts came in though.  I no longer have the floppies so I am not sure whether the version that I downloaded from the internet has the graphics extensions that came later - 3Diags was it?

Mike

[HercMighty]

With the PSX to FSX addon and this addon in FSX would this fill the need:

http://www.fsipanel.com/

[mikeindevon]

Thanks for the link. I wasn't aware of that software.

From a brief scan of the features it seemed to be a tool for positioning the aircraft and setting weather etc for various training situatios, eg ILS approach. What ATP did was score your session on how well you performed, eg how close to the required flight path you were, did you check in with ATC at the appropriate phases of flight, fuel efficiency, etc, etc. From what I can see the software you refer to does not do that.

Mike

[HercMighty]

Here is a video where I first heard about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_GoiE5Jrzg&index=16&list=PLF37754A26DBC17EA

Granted this software is for specific situation practicing, have to watch the video again, but I believe I remembered that it did give a report after each attempt on performance.

I do not know of one that does a full flight eval.

[evaamo]

Hi guys, I was another user of ATP from subLOGIC! Ah! good memories!.

I had the blue cover and remember getting the East & West expansion scenery as a birthday present.

Also remember ATPUTIL by Simon H. Too bad AS3 never saw the light of day.

Anyway, I think such an add-on for PSX would be fun to have. I second Charles' idea with regards to flight punctuality, avoiding turbulence, flying ATC instructions properly (although I'm not sure how feasible this is as it would require some integration with PSX ATC robot - and I don't recall seeing anything related to that on the networker's manual).

I don't think fsipanel does anything like that and I think PSX instructor panel already does a good amount of what that add-on does. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great tool (I'm a user myself). But not aligned (IMHO) with what ATP offered and with Mike's vision of such an utility for PSX. I could be wrong tho'...

cheers,
-Enrique 

Edit: I think an MSFS utility that does something along the lines of ATP is FSCAPTAIN. I bought it but never used most of its features due to time constraints. But you might want to check it out.

[mikeindevon]

FSCaptain looks more like it.  Thanks.

Mike

[Hardy Heinlin]

... would require some integration with PSX ATC robot - and I don't recall seeing anything related to that on the networker's manual).

The network documentation is not complete; I usually add further documentation details on request.

Each ATC instruction (a sequence of sound file numbers) is sent into the network (because PSX clients need this data for synchronization). Hence, add-ons can read this data as well.

By the sound file numbers (sound fragments) you could decode what kind of instruction and what values are transmitted, e.g. "turn left heading two" - "six zero" - "speed one" - "seven zero knots".


Cheers,

|-|ardy