More realistic Tower!3D

[Delfino]

Hello

I've been having a lof of fun so far with Tower!3D Pro. Thank you for such a wonderful simulator. However I decided to put a little more realism into my gameplay to make it feel more like real life ATC work. I've noticed watching youtube videos, that many people find ATC perfection as possbility to handle more and more aircraft at a time. But it's not that simple in real life. The job of ATC is not only giving proper clearances but also monitoring every aircraft and trying to imagine the whole 3D picture by using only the projection he can see with from tower. It's also remembering who is where and what he was cleared to do. Therefore I want to share with you my idea which puts a little more realism into Tower!3D by enforcing more usage of visual view and flight strips instead of ground movement radar.

I've chosen KSAN for my first try as single-runway airport will be easier to help understand proper ATC work scheme. So you will need both KSAN and Real Traffic add-on. You will also need a printer and at least scissors (paper cutter highly recommended). The idea is to print and use flight strips the exact way as real ATC would do while playing Tower!3D at the same time minimising the usage of ground movement radar which is a bit of a cheat and makes whole work too easy in my opinion. Of course before you start you will need both some experience in Tower!3D and in KSAN airport in particular. You need to be able to identify visualy which taxiway is which and which apron is which without hesitation.

Here you will find a short manual on how to setup your Tower!3D view and on some basics about how to use flight strips: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B58R9LWp4kniSTdvaFFvbV9LdDA

Here you will find flight strips for the default KSAN Real Traffic schedule:

Departures part 1: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B58R9LWp4kniNGxEc2YydXRMS3c

Departures part 2: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B58R9LWp4knibVdad3JoOGRuV3c

Arrivals part 1: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B58R9LWp4kniTXRINWg2VDd1eU0

Arrivals part 2: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B58R9LWp4kniYjFFZVpaU0Zyb0E

You will need to download all 4 files. When you chose simulation hours for your game just find these hours in all 4 files, print the pages and cut out the flight strips. I know there should be only one file for departures and one for arrivals, but this is how it came from my spreadsheet - sorry :)

 

All comments highly appreciated. If you find it interesting I can make similar flight strips for any schedule and any airport.

 

 

 

[Delfino]

Hello guys.

No feedback? Nobody tried the challenge?

[Methos]

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"

 

[Methos]

And now, Boston.  :)

 

 

[AirborneCDS]

Delfino, great idea.  Thanks!  When I get the time I would like to try this.

[lgvdbroek]

Hello,

I want to buy Real colors and Real traffic for the airports.
But Servicepacks are needed.
Does anyone knows: Is this nessesarry when you purchased Tower3D via a steam-purchase ?

[Delfino]

Wow thanks for the videos. It is really difficult when you can't actually move the strips yourself as you have to remember whos is where :)

[BullRot]

Delfino,

That's a real challenge and You choosed San Diego really well for this. I can't imagine doing it yet at 6h since it's the rush hours but it is a "as real as it gets" then.
The idea is brilliant and represent really a Tower operations. As the bigger airport is managed by more controllers and the ground is somewhat sectorised, it is somewhat tricky at Atlanta or LAX, but TIST KSAN, maybe KLGA with experience is great for it :)

It is now somewhat like ground part of "I am an air traffic controller 3 or 4" ;)

Thanks for great work on strips. 

I will give more feedback and my methods soon.

[Methos]

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.

[BullRot]

Delfino, could you PM me with a template of your work?
I'd like to create some another airport strips since I have some free time.