Playing Tips
In this tutorial i will try to explain as brief as possible some things in order for the new players to be able to understand the game and play it. It will be quite simple and i stongly believe that if you know why you doing somethings the satisfaction of the game is much much bigger than just moving airplanes around and praying to the god of luck.
!YOU CAN READ ONLY THE BOLD COLOURED LINES IF YOU WISH AND SKIP ALL THE OTHERS.
Imagine air traffic as moving cars in roads. There are high traffic roads, small roads, fast cars slower cars etc etc.
An ATC ( AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER) is the responisble one that must guide all this traffic with safety.
Because we have no trafiic lights or policemen in the skies or in the airport we use radio communications, radars and as on the street our eyes especially on the ground movement.
Now we must start our shift and take airplane from one place to another.
In the game we must do only a part of what an ATC does in real life. imagine that we drive a car a few blocks away from our house and then we dont care about it. This is the case.
lets begin assuming we are playing the game in NORMAL mode and not EXPERT.
Evey plane gives a flight paln to us YELLOW IS FOR APPROACHING a/c and the GREEN FOR DEPARTING a/c. WE WILL TALK ONLY FOR DEAPRTING PROCEDURES IN THS PART OF TUTORIAL
There are a lot of infos in flight plan i will describe it below.
Departing fp.
JAL 305: NAME OF FLIGHT FOR ATC
777-200: TYPE OF A/C.
06:25: TIME OF STARTING PROCEDURES
RJFF/FUK: Destination airport in ICAO AND IATA codes
ON TIME: airplane is on schedule
i dont describe ready for departure and the icon on the right cause these valuses constatly changing accordingly to what instruction the a/c takes.
if we make a left click on the fp we have this
JAL 305: NAME OF FLIGHT FOR ATC
RJFF/FUK: Destination airport in ICAO and IATA codes.
SPOT5: PARKING POSITION OF A/C
06:25: TIME OF STARTING PROCEDURES
ON TIME: airplane is on schedule
FROM THE TIME WE WILL TAKE THE FP (FLIGHT PLAN) WE MUST GIVE ADVISES-INSTRUCTIONS VIA RADIO COMMUNICATION TO THE AIRPLANE WHEN THE AIRPLANE ASK THIS FROM US. WE CAN UNDERSTAND THAT AIRCRAFT ASK SOMETHING FROM US WHEN THE ICON ON THE RIGHT OF THE FP BECOMES RED AS SHOWN IN THE PICTURE ABOVE
There is an order where things are happening imagine for one more time a long trip with a car. The crew of the car makes a council with open maps and it starts. Ok guys we are going to our destination from this road do you all agree? Yes we do. We will follow this road and after this and after that until we reach our destination do you all agree? Yes we do. OK lets start the engines of the car and start driving.
Exactly this is what happening in real life between the crew of the ariplane and the atc. This procedure is called clearance. After this the a/c will be contact with ground services that will guide it through a series of procedures to the end of the runway where will contact with the tower for take of.
THE AIRCRAFT REQUEST FROM US WITH THIS ORDER
CLEARANCE AFTER THIS
GROUND NEXT
TWR NEXT
DEPARTURES NEXT
ACC (AREA CONTROL CENTER)
THIS PROCEDURE OF GOING FROM ONE FREQUENCY TO ANOTHER IS CALLED HAND OFF AND IN EVERY SERVICE OF THE ABOVE, DIFFERENT ACTIONS IS BEING TAKEN FROM THE CREW.
REMEMBER TO GUIDE AIRCRAFTS TO TAKE OFF ALWAYS AGAINST THE WIND AND BY THIS WAY YOU CAN FIND RWY IN USE FOR T/O.
Lets describe a bit the procedures taken in every services of the above mentioned.
Clearance as we prementioned is the confirmation of the route we will follow. Hey wait somebody will tell, what is this all about? what routes and where? inthe sky??? Does not every one goes where he/she wants and a radar watch him? No. Imagine again the happy friends who wants to go from Holland (for the shake of our administrator who is from there) to France. They must follow some specific routes ( they cant drive to the opposite direction for reasons that everyone can understand)) They start from narrow roads turn right turn left they are forced to keep low speed until they reach the highway yes yes there is the heaven no turning no low speeds no nothing and the journey begins.
You can call the low speed and turing often routes SID routes ( stantard instrument departures) and the highway routes airway routes. The purpose of SID ROUTES is to guide you in the airway routes. Dont forget that all of these routes has names and limitations (i.e why to turn right and left and dont start flying immediately to our destination?) but these are deeper waters.
On the ground things are simplier after clearance we push-back thus leaving our parking position
On the gorund we have pushback and taxi. Taxi will guide us to the threshold of rwy were we will contact tower and take off. After take off we will contact with departures were they will guide us through our SID to selected destination and pass us in acc and there the airplane is finished for us.
EVERY SERVICE HAS ITS OWN PROCEDURES WHICH CAN BE SELECTED FROM THE APPROPIATE BUTTON WHEN AIRCRAFT IS READY TO TAKE THIS ACTION THUS
CLEARANCE==== GIVES CLEARANCE -- STAND BY AND THEN ---GRND HND OF
GROUND ===== PUSHBACK AND STANDBY AFTER ---TAXI OR STANDBY --- AND WHILE TAXING CROSS RWY AND -----HOLD UPPON REACHING RWY THRESHOLD---- TWR HAND OFF.
TWR ====== TAKE OFF ------ STAND BY ------- LINE UP AND AFTER TAKE OFF ----DEPPARTURES.
DEAPARTURES ------ CONTINUE SID ----- ACC ( OUT OF CONTROLLED ZONE)
This is the first part of the tutorial regarding general guidelines for Departing aircrafts only, for approaching aircrafts will follow another one. Just remember that there is a thousand things we have not mentioned in here literally a thousand and more. Some of these that i consider important is that what in an airport is being done by alot of different frequencies in the game is on only to a user, and in some cases seperation limits in game do not exist so users have the impression that they can guide airplanes like they are passioned lovers which is not good, as an example i can mention that if an controller land or take off an airplane while the rwy is not vacated automatically looses his/her license. The expert mode is only according to my opinion for some users that are extremely familiar to japan airports and procedures or else i dont think its too intresting to find out every airports sids stars and enroute navigation in order to play it right. if it was in my country Greece where i see as an example NEVRA 1C DEP and i know by heart the rwy the airport and where this sid will lead to what airway then ok but i believe its not worth too much effort for another countrys airports and having to read to much maps but that is up to the users.