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My biggest handicap... ATC...

Started by cagarini, Sun, 2 Oct 2016 08:18

cagarini

IRL, during my instruction for the GPL license, almost 40 yrs ago now, ATC was a joke.
Actually, it still is since we fly VFR all of the time, and while the modern "avionics" help us preventing penetration into controlled airspace, or at least keep us aware of it, actually talking to ATC is something I seldom have to do.

I try the best to articulate the right sentences, but ATC is probably the single most complex feature in "flying an aircraft" I ever had to deal with. Flight simulation was one of the ways I tried to overcome this limitation, but I never really found a good enough ATC add-on for the sims I have used, or tried to go online with IVAO or VATSIM...

In PSX I find sometimes the same problem I have IRL - I can't understand very well what the other girl/guy is saying. Some PSX's controllers say their sentences fast enough to put me pressing the PTT key twice very often...

But that's not really the subject of this post. Instead, I still think I didn't understand some aspects of the modeling of ATC in PSX.

Say I pick the Liubliana - Frankfurt default flight, and clear all of the Malfunctions in it :-)... I start the ATC, talk to Departure, Tower, the first Center which is the one which sends me me up to my cruise FL 400, but then.... as the aircraft rapidly approaches in this short example flight it's ToD, I keep waiting for that same Center controller to tell me to initiate my descent, but it never happens until eventually I reach Langen Control...

Now, in PSX ( an IRL ) am I supposed to initiate the descent myself ? In my FMC the next altitude restriction in this SITU is, I believe, 4,000', so... should I dial that in the MCP ALT window and start the descent anyway ?

Antonio

I press PTT 14.248 times or more :-)

Hardy Heinlin

#2
We obviously have two subjects:

1. It needs a lot of training to understand ATC, especially at busy airports, and when the radio quality is poor.

2. When will ATC instruct to start the descent?

-------------------------------------------------------


1.

The three default ATC voices in PSX are recordings of real-world controllers. They speak like in real life, with their local accent, at their personal tempo. So the PSX user can chose a suitable level for training:

• Charlotte is from the New York area; she speaks extremely fast.
• Peter with an Australian accent speaks at a mid tempo.
• Michel with a French-Belgian accent speaks slowly.

Also, the ATC phrases are either US or ICAO specific, depending on your origin and destination airport. If you know what phrases are to expect, you will understand the phrases better.

Listen to this: https://youtu.be/ztkGTke-P8Y -- if you understand every word, you are the master of all masters :-)


2.

The ATC in PSX is enabled to instruct a descent when you are within 30 nm of the T/D. But there is a random factor that may delay the instruction up to ca. a minute. In this flight phase don't use time acceleration! In many cases you get the instruction before the T/D; sometimes shortly thereafter. Like in real life, you can't always expect to get a clearance exactly at the FMC's T/D.

Also note that you may get the clearance via SELCAL, i.e. you will hear a chime and the CALL light will illuminate. In that case call ATC. Then you will get the next instruction.



|-|ardy

cagarini

Thx Hardy and Antonio,
selcal was for  the culprit in this particular

case, and I did ear that chime quite a few times and the call light, but thought it was a cabin call, mostly because I didn't yet take the time to read the manual 😉

Will

...and if the ATC randomizer interferes with your preferred descent path, you can also use the CPDLC to request descent at the time and place of your choosing. ATC usually complies. :-)
Will /Chicago /USA

Hardy Heinlin

Note that the CPDLC simulation provides various levels of restrictiveness,
from "very restrictive" to "your wish is my command".

Ivo de Colfmaker

I too have sometimes  trouble understanding the ATC, and have to hit the PTT switch more then once, the best voice for me is Michel.

I believe there are several reasons for that ,the first is that it is not a normally spoken sentence, it is a stich of words forming a sentence, thus the pitch and tone of the sentence is artificial, and not spoken as we would expect it to hear.

The second reason is that many of us are not  native English speaking , we know the language, but did not grew up with it, so we have to convert what we hear to understand it, the more a person can think in English, the better he /she will understand it,

The third reason is what Hardy means, if you know what to expect, it is easier.

If not familiar with the standard ATC phraseology , you hear a sentence but it is not one you use in daily life, your mind needs time to understand it, as a result  you are to late to keep up with the speed of the message.
That is why, for me ,sometimes I understood the first part of the message, but not the last part, so say again is a nice feature,

I read somewhere, do not know if it is true, that an average  person can remember 7 items in his short term memory, now if the message would read
" KLM 5487, turn left to 230 degrees to intercept the 170 radial to PAM , descent to 3000 feet QNH 1020 , expect vectors for ILS 36 center" that is about 7 items, spoken at a fast rate, some people , me for instance, will struggle to give a correct readback.

For this reason I made my own recordings of the ATC voices,artificial ones, male and female at 3 different speeds, slow, normal , and a bit faster, clear, and with a little static, not professionally done, but it works for me.
My 2 cents
Ivo
A day at this forum is a day learned!

cagarini

#7
Will and Ivo, good advices too - Thx!

That's what I've been told by crew while jumpseating.

Sometimes I try to follow the ATC, and it is amazing how they can keep talking to me and ear the right calls and what they say at the first time...

While I was serving at the Portuguese Airforce as a mathematics and computer programming teacher at one of their academies I used to go flying in some militar mail routes mainly flown the the good-old C337 Reims. I was also starting to use flight simulators, but by that time none had ATC. I used to ask one of the captains how he could so easily listen and understand the ATC, and he replied exactly what Hardy pointed out - when one knows what is expected, and that comes only with practice, it's a lot more obvious and easier :-)

Hardy Heinlin

Quote from: Ivo de Colfmaker on Sun,  2 Oct 2016 14:52
I believe there are several reasons for that ,the first is that it is not a normally spoken sentence, it is a stich of words forming a sentence, thus the pitch and tone of the sentence is artificial, and not spoken as we would expect it to hear.

I disagree on this point. I find the intonation of these combined sentences in PSX actually more natural than the intonation of those synthetic voices of Apple and Microsoft that can read any text. The sentences in PSX consist of very few fragments, and these fragments are extracted from complete sentences. For the recordings we intentionally asked the speakers to say complete sentences for the very reason to get natural intonations. E.g. "Fly heading 250" consists of just two fragments: "Fly heading two" combined with "five zero". And the fragment "Fly heading two" was originally spoken in a complete sentence including two random digits at the end, which were cut for the final wav file. Same with "five zero". It was recorded in one sentence with "Fly heading two" (or whatever) which was then cut for the respective final wav file.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

Sylle

Quote from: Hardy Heinlin on Sun,  2 Oct 2016 18:45
...
I disagree on this point. I find the intonation of these combined sentences in PSX actually more natural than the intonation of those synthetic voices of Apple and Microsoft that can read any text.
...

Agreed! I even made a new voice set using Text to speech software to use specifically for ATIS frequencies as I found the default PSX ATC sounded 'too human' for that. :)

Sylle

double-alpha

Hey IVO de Colfmaker,

Thank you again for your ATC voices :

http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=3501.msg35939#msg35939

I really enjoy Lisa voice, she is very easy to understand.

Double A

cagarini

Sorry for bringing the OP subject again :-/

So, I was with enroute controller, at my cruise alt, and ear a chime. The "Call" lights bellow Mic in the vh1 button and... I press "H" ... nothing happens... The Voice ATC menu in PSX still shows that active ATC agent is that same controller so, I keep hitting "H", but Nada ... : /

I select the next freq in the list, for EDDF App, and then the controller sends me down to my first "step down" FL...

I'm confused about who and how to contact when I ear that chime.

Ivo de Colfmaker

#12
Hi Hardy,
You may disagree ofcourse, and maybe it is just me that does not understand the voices for other reasons , and being not familiar with ATC in real life does not help either.
But the voices I recorded are not Apple or Microsoft voices, but TTS voices  I bought some years ago.
For me these voices are very clear and although not nearly as proffessional sounding as the real ATC voices you use in PSX, they help me better understand the message, and that is a big help for me and gives me more pleasure  using PSX, and that is what it is all about no?
Ivo
A day at this forum is a day learned!

Ivo de Colfmaker

Hi Double Alpha
Glad you enjoy them, and thanks for your kind words!
Ivo
A day at this forum is a day learned!

andrej

Quote from: Hardy Heinlin on Sun,  2 Oct 2016 13:04
Listen to this: https://youtu.be/ztkGTke-P8Y -- if you understand every word, you are the master of all masters :-)

Listening to JFK TWR is always fun. When I used to live close to EWR, I used to listen to EWR TWR whilst doing my homework....this was some 15 years ago (time really does fly). On a good night, I could hear EWR APP and planes it talked to.

There are several recordings on the YouTube, but this is one of the classics.

José,

if you have a difficulties listening and understanding ATC instructions on PSX, allow me to suggest three things.

1. liveatc.net
This is a very good website and you may access various locations globally. Try to listening to approach/departure/tower/ground on less busy airports and eventually work your way up to the JFK! :) After a few hours of listening, you will see that instructions are of similar nature and are not that difficult. What may help is also approach/departure/airport maps so you can visually confirm the instructions (at least for me that always works).

2. Interesting recordings
Going in line with previous example, there is a very good YouTube channel that shows animation and has subtitles of actual conversation.
VASAviation
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuedf_fJVrOppky5gl3U6QQ

3. Join VATSIM/IVAO
You can fly online and enjoy having real world ATC and fellow traffic. It is free to join, there are very good tutorials/education available on their respective websites. I have been member of VATSIM (and SATCO before that) for many years and it is always a joy. I have to say that guys in and around EDDK are very professional and helpful (then again, if you say "STUDENT PILOT", most of the ATCs are very helpful :) ).

Cheers,
Andrej

tango4

Here are my own 2 cents on this topic.
Regarding the voices, their tone indeed sounds professional, but I too have some trouble understanding them sometimes. I have the feeling that it comes mostly from the recording quality or some post processing effects that are there to mimic the quality of a real radio. I have the feeling that those effects (if they exist) are a bit too strong. I'm not familiar with HF radios, but modern VHF communications are usually very good. Once in a while, I'll be having some trouble communicating with a pilot because of poor comms quality. Usually this is just a temporary mike problem fixed by the pilot when you tell him you don't receive him very well. Now on some old aircraft types sometimes equipped with old GA type VHF, comms can be of very poor quality (in some of those cases, quite worse than PSX voices) and you have to deal with it. Types that come to my mind would be old aircraft like F27, C130, old Russians liners etc.
But usually, on most modern liners,I'd say the quality is pretty good.


Now about the ATC simulation in itself. Having a "realistic" ATC using every type of procedure used everywhere in the world is basically impossible. I've seen many software try and do this, and usually fail miserably because they become mostly unusable.
Personally, what I'm looking for in an ATC module when flightsimming is that it adds a layer of constraints and unpredictability in my flight in a BELIEVABLE way, not an unachievable REALISTIC way.
I do like what Hardy has made with his ATC robot but there are a few things that I too would like to see in it.
For me, if there was one feature I would like to see, it is an option between LNAV only or full Vectors.
Both of these options make sense, but they are not the most common. LNAV only makes sense for training purposes. Sometimes you want to have ATC running but want to know that you'll be able to fly the whole FMC route. Once again for some specific training it is nice to be able to force vectors. Or if you lost your NAV integrity you can use that to vector you back, so once again it makes sense. But what I'd like to see is an intermediate option, which is what happens almost everyday in real life. You'll be expected to follow LNAV plan. But sometimes, ATC will unexpectedly vector you out of your published track. Then at some point tell you to resume own navigation direct to a point (which in the case of PSX could be the last sequenced point).


Charles

Hardy Heinlin

Quote from: Ivo de Colfmaker on Mon,  3 Oct 2016 07:58
Hi Hardy,
You may disagree ofcourse, and maybe it is just me that does not understand the voices for other reasons , and being not familiar with ATC in real life does not help either.
But the voices I recorded are not Apple or Microsoft voices, but TTS voices from Ivona I bought some years ago.
For me these voices are very clear and although not nearly as proffessional sounding as the real ATC voices you use in PSX, they help me better understand the message, and that is a big help for me and gives me more pleasure  using PSX, and that is what it is all about no?
Ivo

Hi Ivo, yes, of course! :-)

I just disagreed on the "intonation theory", not on the other points you made. -- Of course, whatever helps is a good help; feel free to tune your PSX as you like.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

Hardy Heinlin

Quote from: jcomm on Mon,  3 Oct 2016 06:02
Sorry for bringing the OP subject again :-/

So, I was with enroute controller, at my cruise alt, and ear a chime. The "Call" lights bellow Mic in the vh1 button and... I press "H" ... nothing happens... The Voice ATC menu in PSX still shows that active ATC agent is that same controller so, I keep hitting "H", but Nada ... : /

I select the next freq in the list, for EDDF App, and then the controller sends me down to my first "step down" FL...

I'm confused about who and how to contact when I ear that chime.

Do you have a situ file of this for analysis?

If Approach called you, you probably had replied with your H key to the enroute Center already before without being aware of it. Center probably told you to contact Approach, and you didn't hear it for some technical reasons, but you confirmed it by the H key nevertheless.


|-|ardy

Hardy Heinlin

Quote from: tango4 on Mon,  3 Oct 2016 09:00
For me, if there was one feature I would like to see, it is an option between LNAV only or full Vectors.
[...] what I'd like to see is an intermediate option, which is what happens almost everyday in real life. You'll be expected to follow LNAV plan. But sometimes, ATC will unexpectedly vector you out of your published track.

A modification of this kind is something I cannot do in the near future, but it could be easily done by an add-on: The add-on just needs to select and deselect the "LNAV ..." checkboxes at random. The respective Q variable is available in the PSX network.


|-|ardy

cagarini

#19
Quote from: Hardy Heinlin on Mon,  3 Oct 2016 12:17

Do you have a situ file of this for analysis?

If Approach called you, you probably had replied with your H key to the enroute Center already before without being aware of it. Center probably told you to contact Approach, and you didn't hear it for some technical reasons, but you confirmed it by the H key nevertheless.



|-|ardy

Hardy,

it's one of the default situs, the one ( 09 I believe ) with a flight from Liubliana to Frankfurt.

The only thing I did was creating a new situ with the Malfunctions cleared, because the default situ comes with malfunctions of different probability for the various stages of the flight.

Last night I flew it again and I never ear the enroute controller handing me to approach or commanding a descent. Only thing I do ear when approaching ToD is the chime, and "Call" lights in the VHF1 button of the RCP.