PAR GCA scope?
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A nice feature for a future BMS update may be the inclusion of a GCA PAR scope, allowing a “controller” to issue Azimuth / Elevation information to a pilot who has suffered combat damage and has no avionics / ILS landing capability in IMC conditions. As a sim IP that issues GCA approaches to pilots training in a full flight sim I’d like to see the following information on such a feature:
1. GCA PAR Scope with Azimuth / Elevation scales (Profile and Plan views)
2. Display of realtime aircraft heading and track information
3. Distance of A/C to landing runway
4. "Real time " weather ( ceiling, visibility, winds )
5. Dedicated final GCA controller frequency ?-Moose
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would be nice to see in the sim one day. To be honest, I would like to see other related stuff sooner - AWACS screen, ATC screen, for instance. Ability for human ATC to do PAR approaches would be handy from time to time.
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It is possible, we 've been shooting PAR approaches for quite some time now. All you need is F4AWACS (and validator for the persons flying) and some cleverly designed slope overlays.
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It is possible, we 've been shooting PAR approaches for quite some time now. All you need is F4AWACS (and validator for the persons flying) and some cleverly designed slope overlays.
Can you post some pics?
thanks
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Sure, here you go.
Thanks for posting. I would prefer to see something more dedicated to precision radar plots (both in azimuth and elevation) as shown in the simulator screen. I don’t really see this as a precision tool, although it may get the job done with the “overlays” you mention.
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In this case, azimuth is determined by the delta of the aircraft and the point over the ground (shown in the overlay). The idea is that if you are flying over the dots, you are doing good.
Elevation is determined by the position of your aircraft in relation to the elevation thresholds shown (admittedly, in a not so clear fashion) in the picture above. If you cross each threshold at the correct elevation, you are good.
It might not be accurate enough, but barring any calculation errors when creating the overlays, it’s the best one we have at this point, as far as I am aware of, to simulate PAR approaches. If anyone comes up with a better one I would be very interested to know. -
A nice feature for a future BMS update may be the inclusion of a GCA PAR scope, allowing a “controller” to issue Azimuth / Elevation information to a pilot who has suffered combat damage and has no avionics / ILS landing capability in IMC conditions. As a sim IP that issues GCA approaches to pilots training in a full flight sim I’d like to see the following information on such a feature:
Your wishes are my commands
I was a little bit bored this morning and I decided to create a tool (FSUIPCEmulator) that will let us use the vPAR tool for FS2002/2004/X in BMS. Teaser video of the first test flight
vPAR has a client-server architecture, so of course it runs in multiplayer.
As soon as I run a few more tests online, I will release FSUIPCEmulator in the 3rd party forum. I’ll update here as soon as it I release it.
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It is possible, we 've been shooting PAR approaches for quite some time now. All you need is F4AWACS (and validator for the persons flying) and some cleverly designed slope overlays.
Hi, Netstat
well, we’ve done the same thing as you but that’s still a non-precision approach !
It’s called ASR and the advises the GCA controller will be able to give you are of the kind like: " Cowboy1, you are 5.3 NM from touchdown, your altitude should be ……"
Of course, with F4Awacs you will also be able to determine the altitude of that “Cowboy flight” …BUT:
F4Awacs uses a refresh rate of (standard) 10000 msec - best value you can enter is 6000msec…
This turns out to be a refresh rate of the positions as well as the altitude of a/c connected via Validator of about 6 sec !!
These are exact the values for a 360° turning airport radar - used only for NON-Precision approaches!
For Precision Approaches you need to have a much higher refresh rate (reduced vertical and horizontal scan and therefore much quicker) and there comes this PAR RAdar scope into play!
I would love to have one of those displays handy for all airports where there is no ILS on specific RWY directions!!
Then, and only then you could tell these a/c: “Cowboy1, you’re on course, on glideslope - 5.3 Nm to touchdown” - or: " “Cowboy1, you’re slightly left of course, slightly low on glideslope - 5.3 Nm to touchdown - turn right by 5° and reduce rate of descent !”Can’t wait to work with this
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You can enter a refresh rate of 1000 in OSC.
In any case Ahmeds tool is being tested right now and it looks very good. You´ll still need F4 Awacs to vector the planes into the PAR but from there you can use the new tool instead of the somewhat complicated and overlays that are only a workaround (Still with a bit of practice we managed to fly all the way down to the published minimums.
Ahmeds tool mainly makes the job of the controller easier
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Your wishes are my commands
I was a little bit bored this morning and I decided to create a tool (FSUIPCEmulator) that will let us use the vPAR tool for FS2002/2004/X in BMS. Teaser video of the first test flight
vPAR has a client-server architecture, so of course it runs in multiplayer.
As soon as I run a few more tests online, I will release FSUIPCEmulator in the 3rd party forum. I’ll update here as soon as it I release it.
Ahmed,
That’s a very nice looking GCA Scope you’ve created !
Can you extract wind information to be displayed in the scope? The new dynamic weather engine makes updated wind information helpful to the controller.
- Moose
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Looking good!!
FSUIPCEmulator
Am I understanding correctly that FSUIPC is, or can be made, compatible with BMS? If so, wouldn’t that open a whole new portal to 3rd party tool development? (never quite knew what FSUIPC did, so I may be way off, but I know a lot of MSFS addons need it in some way)
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You can enter a refresh rate of 1000 in OSC.
In any case Ahmeds tool is being tested right now and it looks very good. You´ll still need F4 Awacs to vector the planes into the PAR but from there you can use the new tool instead…
Not correct this.
We can just get a Fix via radial and DME if a TACAN station is present or via GPS coordinates exactly there that the PAR (by Ahmed) start to receive signal from the incoming aircraft, over the extension of the RWY centerline.
Nikos. -
Not correct this.
We can just get a Fix via radial and DME if a TACAN station is present or via GPS coordinates exactly there that the PAR (by Ahmed) start to receive signal from the incoming aircraft, over the extension of the RWY centerline.
Nikos.Niko, some members of the 87th have already tested it and F4 AWACS is much better and easier for the GCI/ATC part, upto PAR finals, and I must say, it sounds far more intuitive too. I would say that F4 AWACS and Ahmed’s tool is the best combination for the job.
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Your wishes are my commands
I was a little bit bored this morning and I decided to create a tool (FSUIPCEmulator) that will let us use the vPAR tool for FS2002/2004/X in BMS. Teaser video of the first test flight
vPAR has a client-server architecture, so of course it runs in multiplayer.
As soon as I run a few more tests online, I will release FSUIPCEmulator in the 3rd party forum. I’ll update here as soon as it I release it.
Looks nice Ahmed! Tank you!
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Neystratu, technically you are of course correct. A pilot could find the entry to the precission approach using a tacan station.
But since you have a human controller around it makes much more sence to use radar vectors, via f4awacs, to get the pilots to the PAR entry.
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To friends “Netstat” & “Hans”:
Gents, i didn’t said that F4AWACS is not a great tool or that can’t do the job in order to guide the pilots to the entry of the PAR tool by “Ahmed”.
I just said that is not mandatory the presence of F4AWACS in order to we make that (there are real alternative ways), means to guide the pilots to the entry of the PAR.At “Ahmed”: Great work there mate, Bravo!!! Keep on it.
Nikos.
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Ok gents, released here
Regarding some of the comments above:
Can you extract wind information to be displayed in the scope? The new dynamic weather engine makes updated wind information helpful to the controller.
Nope. I didn’t develop vPAR so I cannot add new functionalities to it. I just made it compatible with BMS. Anyway, not having the wind info will make things more challenging, wont it?
Am I understanding correctly that FSUIPC is, or can be made, compatible with BMS?
FSUIPC in the MSFS world allows external addons to extract data from the sim. More or less like BMS’s shared memory API. The tool I created does have potential to make other MSFS tools compatible with BMS, but for the time being it is only limited to making vPAR compatible.
I just said that is not mandatory the presence of F4AWACS in order to we make that (there are real alternative ways), means to guide the pilots to the entry of the PAR.
You are right on that. vPAR also has a ‘normal’ approach radar view, that can be used for initial approach control. However, during online testing, we found that the best experience was when using F4AWACS together with vPAR, as F4AWACS provides more information overall, and just lacks the PAR glideslope view. So, not really required, but recommended
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Niko, some members of the 87th have already tested it and F4 AWACS is much better and easier for the GCI/ATC part, upto PAR finals, and I must say, it sounds far more intuitive too. I would say that F4 AWACS and Ahmed’s tool is the best combination for the job.
I’ll have to agree with this statement, as a combination of both tools is more like a real world transition onto the GCA Final.
Although, Nikos does make a valid point in the event the local radar station has been hit and no longer available to provide Terminal guidance.