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Methos

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Everything posted by Methos

  1. Delfino .. yeah, it's tough but, I try to keep everyone in sequence as they called so the strips technically don't move. Makes it hard in that you have to keep them in that order but, I think with the right hold short commands, it can be done smoothly. Gona do another KBOS soon with JUST the tower window view. I'll put the strips and radar on a separate monitor to keep the screen "clean" - maybe I'll do a, "behind the scenes" style video of me standing behind all the mess instead of just the screen. I like KBOS in that there are several runway patterns used which result in many different taxi patterns, depending on which one you're using. So far I've used the southwest and northwest patterns .. maybe next time I'll go for the southeast which is wild cause you really have only 15R for arrivals .. and 14 isn't that long for departures .. maybe send the Embraers out that way. AA uses a number of them as does DL which are terminals A & B so that works fine .. just B6 with their 190's at terminal C would have traffic criss-crossing each other so maybe send those to 15R. Will be a good show from the tower view though as the start of 15R is closest to the tower.
  2. Don't know if this has been resolved yet but, if I remember right, in 2011 there were quite a few issues with runway lengths and even approach speeds (I think it was the E190 that had an approach speed of something sick like 230 or something .. ran over everyone). In terms of the 77W .. I BELIEVE it had a field length minimum of something like 11,000 (there were a few aircraft that had to modified in order to work at KBOS). Too bad we don't have an aircraft editor for 3D Pro.
  3. I've been taking a break from Tower for a bit to dive into (of all things) Farming Simulator 17. (Lol! Yeah, cause they're SO similar! ;p ) Now that my home airport of KBOS has been added, I WILL be back! :) But anyway, this is a cool idea and I actually did something similar a while back with KPHL. Basically working without ground radar and going by the view out the window. Flight strips would be a nice addition (to the chaos - lol) Here's my "KPHL Challenge"
  4. That's the one that gives you all the, "random" camera positions that follow an aircraft. I'm talking about locking the tower view so that it doesn't automatically point to the aircraft selected.
  5. I agree the auto camera can be a great tool but also annoying. I'd like the option to disable it .. don't think it would be too hard, just put a checkbox in the settings. (If by auto camera we're referring to how it automatically pans to the aircraft you're calling.) I think we should have the option to leave the camera stationary/manual pan. Many times, I'd like the camera to remain focused on one area of the ramp while giving commands and the auto camera spins me around and around.
  6. Glad you liked it .. my first time - with video that is. I'll do better next time (Ha!) I actually parked at Wonderland and rode the blue line down there .. only $5 to park for 14 hours (as opposed to parking at KBOS which is closer to $100/second - eyeroll). I love that spot in central parking, just to the right of the tower! Too bad they flipped runways just after I got there! They WERE going out 33L and 27 and landing on 33L but soon switched to 33R and 9. Weird too, hardly any wind but thinking maybe they're still not finished the work on 4R/22L. I know they were repaving it and working on the approach lighting but not sure if it's been reopened yet. Gona have to get out again when terminal E is more, "involved." :)
  7. So I decided to take a drive to Logan Airport for a little planespotting and did a video. I also discovered some interesting ground control details that I was unaware of, some of which may be of interest for the design of KBOS for Tower!3D. :) First, taxiway E is used to bring traffic into the ramp area: Terminal B south pier (the old US Airways where I used to work), Terminal A and South Cargo (Fedex). Taxiway K is for traffic outbound from that ramp. Taxiways A & B however, are not necessarily used in the same manner as one might expect (like KJFK seems to use, A running clockwise and B running counter-clockwise. I have seen (not in this video) instances of traffic taxiing on A & B in the same direction, almost side by side (slightly offset to allow for wing clearance). So for the designers, aircraft at KBOS seem to have the ability to travel in either direction on those taxiways, depending on what ATC has planned. Apparently those pads in the middle of the ramp area between Terminals B (north pier) & C and Terminals C & E are where all aircraft are pushed prior to exiting the ramp. having this as a common pushback area for ALL those gates would certainly make KBOS a real challenge during peak times as ALL traffic in and out of those ramp areas have to pass through that one point. Twice in this video, we see aircraft taxi left to right on B, turn around at A2 and then right to left on A to hold short C, because of departing aircraft exiting the ramp. SCX (24:06 - 31:00) has to wait for AAL and NKS .. and NKS (1:07:26 - 1:15:10) waits for VRD. That will certainly make for some interesting decisions. Personally, knowing NKS was heading in, I would have held off pushing VRD until they were in. Terminal C by the way, if I'm not mistaken, the gates that are along the outer edges of the "T's" pushback right onto Taxiway A. Just something else to screw with ground traffic. :p Finally, all international arrivals at KBOS go to terminal E .. after which they may be towed to their official terminal for departure. This is true of domestic airlines like Delta and American whose international flights arrive at E and then are towed to terminals A and B respectively .. and also some foreign carriers like Aer Lingus which departs from terminal C. Most airlines based outside the US do arrive and depart from terminal E but the idea of having them towed to different terminals for departure - might be something to consider in the next version. ;) And one funny note: I was watching Flightaware to monitor arrivals and I waited forever for the last arrival coming in 15R before running back to the B/C area (it seemed to have the most activity), only to see it was a stinking C172! Lol Anyway, enjoy the scenery! Note: the video includes some shots of the drive into Boston, through part of the Big Dig and the Callahan Tunnel into the airport; then a drive around all the terminals before the actual aircraft footage above the Terminal B Garage and Central Parking. To skip those parts: 04:00 Start of terminal drive 12:28 Start of spotting from the roof
  8. I second that! I needed the original download link for Tower!3D Pro so I could get the update. I emailed BMT Micro and had a reply (and the link) within hours! Didn't expect to hear until the next day - and these days with some companies, you're fortunate to hear within a WEEK! GREAT customer service! 5 stars!
  9. For that matter, what about some kind of AI system to handle some aspects of controlling with you? Maybe you want to just be ground controller - so you check the box, "AI controlled tower" and all tower operations are handled for you. Reverse for being tower controller. Or maybe a combobox where you select your desired position: Tower, Ground or both. And, how about splitting the ground and tower audio between the speakers so for example, all ground comms are heard on the left, tower is on the right. And I agree that adding ramp in there would be awesome because then you don't have to worry about what gate an aircraft will get, you would assign it yourself! :)
  10. Okay so next thought: since in single player you're basically running ground control as well as tower, why not simulate the 2 frequencies? I think it would just add another touch of realism. So there would be 2 buttons to key the mic: one for ground control and one for tower. Along with standard commands, you will have "contact tower on" and "contact ground on" as well. This means when an aircraft calls you will need to respond on their frequency. There should be some indicator as to which frequency is being used when an aircraft calls .. maybe an indicator will illuminate to display green for ground or red for tower? Obviously anything on the DBRITE will be tower and on the ADIRS aircraft on the runways also. Maybe the flight strips could be an indicator .. have them change color OR maybe a red or green dot on each to indicate which frequency it's on. We could even have 2 sets of flight strips, one for ground and one for tower. Each frequency would be restricted to which commands it can issue. For example, tower cannot issue taxi commands .. only ground commands would be lineup and wait, cleared for takeoff and exit runway. Ground would have to handoff to tower when at or near the runway but could still issue taxi commands if there's a runway change or something. So handoff would be MONITOR tower so you can still give commands via ground, until you send a tower command to taxi onto the active. Tower handoff on arrivals would be simply, "United 3687 ground on 121.9" Only real issue I see here would be, could aircraft on different frequencies potential call at the same time and step on each other? Need to have something in place to prevent that. Again, just tossing out a few thoughts. :) ~ John
  11. I didn't see a place for this so figured I'd just drop it in here. So, I was thinking of something that would be (I think) a nice feature to have in the next Tower version. Certainly not something that could be patched into the current version as it deals restructuring commands and pathfinding. So, instead of setting the destination of each aircraft and then directing how to get there .. I'm thinking the aircraft will know where it's going (gate or runway) but will not be restricted to the most direct route. Further, have commands issued in stages (if desired). For example, I'm sure we all know how complicated things can get at KJFK. They have to sometimes send planes all over before getting where they're going. Having the ability to just direct an aircraft along PART of the path at a time, I think would be a great feature. Quick example, again taking from KJFK. Say you have an aircraft coming off 31R at W. It's a DL heading for terminal 4. Well maybe you've got a mess going on down there and rather than clear it all the way to the ramp, you just want it to go so far and then wait for you. By 3D Pro you would issue one command to taxi to ramp via blah blah blah and then could issue a second to hold short of somewhere. So how about combine those and do something like this: "Delta 175 left on alpha hold short of echo." Another example, say you have jetBlue coming off 31R also at W and heading into terminal 6 but there's no free gate and aircraft are pushing back. And, you have aircraft coming in on 31R. Also figure this arrival is going into the ramp at W. Since there's no gate and you can't leave him there, do something like this: jetBlue 652 left on alpha short of echo When things clear up - jetBlue 652 left on echo to bravo short of whiskey And when gate is clear - jetBlue 652 taxi to ramp For taxi to runway it could be the same, just issue clearance for the section of the route you want them on at that time: American 75 pushback approved expect runway 31L American 75 left on Bravo hold short of Mike Charlie American 75 continue on Bravo hold short of Kilo American 75 continue on Bravo, cross 4L, hold short of yankee, monitor tower 123.9 Which brings me to another thought that I'll put in the next post. :)
  12. Sounds like a plan! Enjoy vacation! ~ John
  13. I can add a bit of possible insight (and possible confusion too). I was testing some traffic files a while back .. wanted to test each of the airlines callsigns to see if they were being properly spoken. So I took the RT file for the airport in question and selected about a dozen departures and their corresponding arrivals. I set their times all the same so I would get them all at once (well, you know). When I tried to load the airport, it decided to hang at 57% and refused to go further (as you said, sound of cars, etc). I honestly have no idea what went wrong but this could indicate that the issue is with the schedule.txt file .. something is amiss there .. or perhaps it's not loading it at all (maybe in the wrong location?). Just a thought that might help track it down. ~ John
  14. Ground: "Tug 5 proceed to taxiway X to unscrew a screwup" Beyond that, I got nothing. :p As for the log file, I thought that's what I attached. Tower3D.bat generates something different? And do we run that "during" the issue or after shutting down? I just reviewed the log file that was already there and uploaded thinking that was it - you see the repetitive commands indicating something going on.and figured that would she some light on it. Please let us know exactly when to run that bat file and I'll attach it here. Thanks! ~ John
  15. Well even something basic like that KATL setup I feel would be a benefit, especially at an airport like KBOS where airlines share all terminals. It will keep them in their proper places and even if you don't know the exact gate, you know the part of the terminal they are going to. For example, you might have some DL flights ready to come out of Terminal A and a WN flight is just rounding the corner of A onto E. If gates 18-22 are WN only and DL is coming out of say, 15, you know you can move them simultaneously cause WN will pass by on E and DL can head right out K. But if DL and WN are just set to Terminal A, they could be going anywhere. Of course, by the time WN gets to E you should know what gate they are going into but still, adds to realism. :) Personally, I feel the main reason for splitting up terminals at KBOS is for Cape Air (aka - the bane of my existence in T!2011. Lol). They are based out of Terminal C but ALL go through C27, though they may have several aircraft on the ground at any time. Jetblue is a monster at KBOS, having taken over almost all of Terminal C so having them AND Cape Air with it's half dozen or more C402's that are normally all parked at just one of it's gates, as well as ASA and VRD on 40-42, Terminal C would EASILY be overburdened at an given moment and many flights may not even show up for lack of gate space. One thought would be to make that area around C27 like a small GA ramp with several spots and dedicate it just to Cape Air. Another would be utilizing the overflow parking area just to the east of South Cargo - there are several GA type parking spots at the end of the Fedex complex. The other terminals aren't that much of a big deal and it's mostly for realism. Terminal E is international; Terminal A is basically Delta, Delta Connection and Southwest, Terminal B is primarily American and United and while it would be nice to split off B1-3 for Jazz, B5,7,the 9's, 11 and 13 for the old US Airways express carriers it's not as big of a deal as that Cape Air fleet mashed into one Terminal C gate. Just my 2 cents :) ~ John
  16. Yes, you use the same link as the original download. I made the mistake of deleting it once I downloaded the initial file but if you email them with your contact/payment info, they will resend it. ~ John
  17. YES! Lol Yes, I've had the same thing! Had a Fedex down the end, gave pushback instructions and 5-10 minutes later, checked because they never called for taxi. Still sitting there. (Must be Lan Super Tug blocking traffic again :p ) And yeah, had an Air France 777 push out of T1 and I held a pair of Delta's heading down to 13R so they could taxi out and they were doing a pirouette in the alley! I also had a Delta flight push off T2 and do the same. First chance I get, I'm gona remove all T3DP files and reinstall the original download file, then KJRK, Real Traffic and Real Color KJFK and see if the issues are still there. I didn't get KJFK until after SP3 so maybe there's a conflict somewhere in between updates that we can nail down. ~ John
  18. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! :) Without the clickity click? (Lol)
  19. Well that's the thing . it doesn't seem to be a consistent issue. I can sometimes go hours with no clicks and no slowdowns .. other times, it happens every 10 minutes or so, clears up by itself. And it also doesn't SEEM to be when traffic is higher or lower. Really strange. I would have been interested to see if it was caused when you reach a certain number of aircraft at the same time, but nope, doesn't seem to be the case. Personally, I can deal with the slowdowns because I'm about 95% glued to the ADIRS anyway and it tends to work itself out. The clicky stuff though gets to be a real pain. ~ John
  20. Sorry, I forgot about this thread. No Vic, nothing else running at all. At first I thought maybe it was a conflict with Bandicam recording but it does it even when not recording. I run a very clean setup on that PC, virtually nothing running in the background, no automatic updates (I prefer to update everything manually), etc. Now I'm seeing others are experiencing slowdowns too and they seem to be with the addon airports. I don't have KATL (yet! Sorry Andrew! Had to do KJFK first. :) ) but KJFK has shown performance issues that I never saw/see at KPHL or KLAX. ~ John
  21. Me too Gareth! It's a controller's nightmare but great fun if you love sorting things out and keeping a good even flow going overall. And thanks for pointing out the slowdowns. I've also had visual slowdowns, though it's odd .. mine tend to come and go. Like after 20-30 minutes, scrolling from one plane to another is at about 2-3 FPS and like stop-motion. But then it'll sort itself out and you're back to normal. I had thought maybe it was Bandicam but same thing happens when not recording. And my PC is no slouch: AMD 8350 (black edition Vishera) cpu at 4.0 GHz, 8 GB Corsair and HD6900 2 GB video. Any pc that can handle FSX with all the sliders up is no slouch so, something must be up here. And now that I'm hearing it's not just me, maybe I won't take a screwdriver to the case just yet. :p
  22. hartleecub .. crossing runways are part of what makes KBOS a fun challenge too. (cough cough - cheap plug for KBOS :p ) Not only that but, the "joy" of Cape Air being vectored into your perfect plan for arrivals! It's fine when they're coming in on 4R/22L .. you just sidestep them to 4L/22R but when you're dealing with say, 9/27, that's another story. C402 coming in just above seagull speed with a big DC10 bearing down makes for an interesting time! Tower!2011 was fun bringing them down on 22R as well because, now that you have the runways sorted and lateral separation is no longer an issue, now you have the added joy of getting that little twin prop to the gate! Landing on 22R, the C402 would taxi off at N1! So if you've got the famous lineup for 22L all down N, that bird isn't going anywhere for a while and when it does, you're holding up EVERYONE on A and B at N! Emotionally, I came to fear Cape Air calling the tower. Lol ~ John
  23. Sure seems like it .. at first I wasn't going to mention it because I thought it was my keyboard. It's really like they key is broken and you're making intermittent contact. But after it happened on 2 different keyboards and then buying one SPECIFICALLY because of the feel of the keys (got one with less "wiggle" in keypresses) .. yeah, don't think it's my keyboard anymore. :) And again, referring to the section of the log file I posted, you can see the multiple calls to key the mic ("Command") right as I was experiencing clickity click. I'll post a short clip of it happening for those who haven't experienced it.
  24. Thanks Kev .. I'll try that next time. Question: are you saying just hitting the clear button or with the intent of clearing what's in the command panel? Cause mine will do it with nothing in there. Weird .. it'll do it over and over, just clickity clickity and then it'll be fine for 10 minutes, no worries. Then, it'll start again. I was thinking maybe it's more prone to occur when traffic is higher but that doesn't seem to be the case. ~ John
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