How does ATC work ?

[jfsimon1981]

Hi

Have few questions about the ATC scope, for pilotedge in particular, not only:

What informations are available for aircrafts ? I can see a cross with several informations attached to it on the atc radar on one video made, pe radar view ?
What is different from one aircraft squaking 1200 on 122.8 or any random frequency from one which actually is followed on the scope view ?
Can you identify a pilot from a drone if squaking 1200 ? Can you see the frequency we're on when not transmitting ?

What's happening if we have no squak on board ?

Maybe you could post some screenshots of the ATC view

Thanks for all, hope to get some more interesting infos

PE really helps becoming fluent for real life pilot my opinion.

J.F.

[Keith Smith]

Our drones don't appear any differently on the scope than regular aircraft. There are 3 distinct states for an aircraft on the scope:
- squawking standby
- squawking altitude with a VFR code
- squawking altitude with a discrete beacon code

In the 1st case, we can't see any information about the airplane.

In the 2nd case, we can see altitude and that's about it.

In the 3rd case, the system correlates the discrete code with the code associated with your flight progress strip and displays a full data block as a result. The full data block contains altitude, ground speed, type of aircraft, destination and other custom information entered by the controller.

We can also observe idents for targets (even if squawking VFR). This is why in the real world, you might be told by the tower to ident. If they have a radar feed, they can use it to assist them with sequencing, although it's not necessarily used to provide formal separation.

[jfsimon1981]

Ok does it mean that if we enter a wrong squak code, the (correlated) informations are not displayed.
If we are in stand-by or do not have a squawk installed, do you simply see a dot then or not at all ?

Do you see which frequency we're on at the scope ?
Can you differentiate a VFR traffic from a drone and how ?

Thanks for all

Jean-François

[Keith Smith]

If you are not squawking the code that you were assigned, then we don't see a full datablock. We only see the altitude (assuming you're squawking Mode C).

When the scope is configured as a normal radar display (as opposed to what we use in tower mode, which operates differently since we allow for the fact that we can't see out the window, unlike a r/w tower cab), we will only see a dot in cases where you're not squawking altitude. R/w scopes are slightly different in that you could squawk the right code but have altitude turned off and it will still be able to track you.

As I said, drones appear the same as normal targets on the scope...there is no fundamental difference, they're just driven by a different program rather than a simulator.

[jfsimon1981]

Hello,

If this is not asking too much, could you post a screenshot of atc in radar display and in tower mode ?

Thanks,

Jean-François

[wmburns]

Check out the following Youtube video from a well attended event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnT3IJa ... tw&index=8