Post by Travis on Mar 21, 2023 21:54:43 GMT -5
Captains,
Feature coding for 1.8.4 Alpha has finished. We will now start a testing cycle, looking for bugs and fixing them. We may be finished in 4-5 days, or it may be two or three weeks.
We need to test all aspects of an FSCaptain flight - with flights that are PAX, Cargo only, Ferry only, pressurized and not, deicing and not, scheduled and not, along with emergencies and failures, and in different aircraft.
------------
The new feature for FSCaptain 1.8.4 is what I like to call "Runway awareness." It's not just that your aircraft knows when you take 12L, but if you specify your departure and destination runways (and you can change your choices at any time), you can have a greater situational awareness at times. Plus cool features to come.
So here is the Runway Information screen for KSFO. It's not just my favorite major hub airport, its runways show all of the details of the display.
You can see here that runways are packed together in reciprocal pairs - 10s & 28s, 1s and 19s, etc. If you come to this screen via the PLN page, you would be able to select any of the available runways by clicking its LSK. (There would be a left caret visible for all available runways.)
All runways will list at a minimum the headwind/crosswind components, the runway's length, and the runway's width.
"28L" is listed in white because that runway was previously selected as the runway for takeoff. (In this case, it was done automatically by having a PLN file which has "RW28L" as its first waypoint.)
If you look at the 28s, you'll see an "offset" value of 300+ft that the other runways don't have. This marks a runway's displaced threshold, which is used for calculating a runway's Touchdown Zone. The 28s have a displaced threshold in order to keep Captains from landing in the water just prior to the thresholds.
If you look at the 1s, you'll see that they're both designated as Closed for Landing (CL). That's because if you wanted to land here, there are two significant obstacles. First, you would need a 5.5° glideslope to avoid the hills to the west. Second, the runway thresholds are within 1500ft from the Bayshore Freeway (US101). So if you're a fan of a "Dive and Drive Landing", you can't use that on the 1s.
The presence of that freeway is the reason there is an EMAS flag on both of the 19s. The 1s both have an EMAS so RTOs won't drop into SF Bay. Threshold-to-Water distance here is only 550ft.
You will definitely hear more about EMAS'es in 1.8.4 Beta.
Now if you look just after some of the Runway IDs, you'll see punctuation marks:
* The 1s both have a period " . " to indicate that AI traffic have listed both as takeoff runways.
* 28R has an apostrophe " ' " to indicate that AI traffic have been assigned to land.
* And 28L has an exclamation mark " ! " to indicate that AI traffic has been assigned to takeoff and land there.
19L and the 28s both have ILS - Glideslope and DME. 28L is CAT II, and 28R is CAT III.
Having a CAT II/III ILS will become important for FSCaptain later on in 1.8.4!
Look at the Flight Rule at the top of both screens. If the Flight Rule happened to be CAT II, then the runways without ILSes as well as 19L would be listed in grey as non-selectable for landing purposes. If the Flight Rule was CAT III (and it happens at KSFO more often than you'd think) you could only select 28R to land.
Today, FSCaptain will give you an airport with an ILS as a possible Alternate, in order to account for low visibility / ceilings. But by the time of 1.8.4 Beta, if an airport can only support CAT I landings... and its weather is CAT II or worse... you won't be given that airport as an Alternate.
------------
Here's the Flight Menu screen during Taxi Out.
A few things have been moved around to allow the Runway Info line to exist in a single location.
You can see the Runway Info is in Cyan because it is using Ambient Wind information to list the Headwind / Crosswind values for the chosen runway. "Ambient Wind" is the wind that's outside of your aircraft at that moment. Ambient Wind values can change from second to second, unless you have a "weather helper add-on" that limits wind changes near an airport.
On the left image, you can see that 28L still has AI both taking off and landing. There is an ILS with a DME which the Captain can use to line up for takeoff. The ambient wind speed has increased to provide a 12kt headwind component and an 11kt crosswind component. Future FSCaptains will allow aircraft types to specify their crosswind capabilities, and this display will be in RED if the crosswind component is too great for an aircraft.
I may try to fit the runway length onto this display, but that would be a very full line.
On the right, I've selected 1R as my runway, and you can see the wind differences (again, since it's ambient wind, it can change from second to second). You'll also note that there is no AI takeoffs currently scheduled. AI takeoff and landing runway data comes from default ATC, and takeoff runways are assigned before an AI goes OUT, and persist until the aircraft has been handed over to Departure or Center control.
There's no ILS for this runway but there is an EMAS to keep you out of the water!
You can see that "<RUNWAY INFO" LSK that's available before takeoff. It's not there for any other flight phase... being "<EMERGENCY" in flight, and "<PARKING" after landing.
That's about it for the Flight Menu runway info display.
------------
And finally here are two screenshots of the new Deicing screen (#70) that now displays some choices if there's more than one DDF at an airport....
On the left, is the DDF that was assigned to me as I was departing KBOI - with a departure runway of 10L. I used the "<NEXT DDF" to cycle around to the other DDF which I could have selected... but obviously didn't.
Clicking on "CLOSEST DDF>" just has the FCDU to make its choice again.
In this new system, if you do not have a departure runway selected, it will choose the DDF that is closest to you... even if it takes you in a direction away from your departure runway. However now... with a departure runway selected... the FCDU will find the largest DDF that is closest to your runway.
The DDF needs to be assigned to your runway in the "ddf_fsc.txt" or "ddf_user.txt" configuration file.
------------
That's it for now. There are some bug fixes and changes that I'll list in the README files, so for you Captains who are adventurous enough to be Alpha Test material... get ready for the latest and greatest!
Best regards,
Feature coding for 1.8.4 Alpha has finished. We will now start a testing cycle, looking for bugs and fixing them. We may be finished in 4-5 days, or it may be two or three weeks.
We need to test all aspects of an FSCaptain flight - with flights that are PAX, Cargo only, Ferry only, pressurized and not, deicing and not, scheduled and not, along with emergencies and failures, and in different aircraft.
------------
The new feature for FSCaptain 1.8.4 is what I like to call "Runway awareness." It's not just that your aircraft knows when you take 12L, but if you specify your departure and destination runways (and you can change your choices at any time), you can have a greater situational awareness at times. Plus cool features to come.
So here is the Runway Information screen for KSFO. It's not just my favorite major hub airport, its runways show all of the details of the display.
You can see here that runways are packed together in reciprocal pairs - 10s & 28s, 1s and 19s, etc. If you come to this screen via the PLN page, you would be able to select any of the available runways by clicking its LSK. (There would be a left caret visible for all available runways.)
All runways will list at a minimum the headwind/crosswind components, the runway's length, and the runway's width.
"28L" is listed in white because that runway was previously selected as the runway for takeoff. (In this case, it was done automatically by having a PLN file which has "RW28L" as its first waypoint.)
If you look at the 28s, you'll see an "offset" value of 300+ft that the other runways don't have. This marks a runway's displaced threshold, which is used for calculating a runway's Touchdown Zone. The 28s have a displaced threshold in order to keep Captains from landing in the water just prior to the thresholds.
If you look at the 1s, you'll see that they're both designated as Closed for Landing (CL). That's because if you wanted to land here, there are two significant obstacles. First, you would need a 5.5° glideslope to avoid the hills to the west. Second, the runway thresholds are within 1500ft from the Bayshore Freeway (US101).
So if you're a fan of a "Dive and Drive Landing", you can't use that on the 1s.The presence of that freeway is the reason there is an EMAS flag on both of the 19s. The 1s both have an EMAS so RTOs won't drop into SF Bay. Threshold-to-Water distance here is only 550ft.
You will definitely hear more about EMAS'es in 1.8.4 Beta.
Now if you look just after some of the Runway IDs, you'll see punctuation marks:
* The 1s both have a period " . " to indicate that AI traffic have listed both as takeoff runways.
* 28R has an apostrophe " ' " to indicate that AI traffic have been assigned to land.
* And 28L has an exclamation mark " ! " to indicate that AI traffic has been assigned to takeoff and land there.
19L and the 28s both have ILS - Glideslope and DME. 28L is CAT II, and 28R is CAT III.
Having a CAT II/III ILS will become important for FSCaptain later on in 1.8.4!
Look at the Flight Rule at the top of both screens. If the Flight Rule happened to be CAT II, then the runways without ILSes as well as 19L would be listed in grey as non-selectable for landing purposes. If the Flight Rule was CAT III (and it happens at KSFO more often than you'd think) you could only select 28R to land.
Today, FSCaptain will give you an airport with an ILS as a possible Alternate, in order to account for low visibility / ceilings. But by the time of 1.8.4 Beta, if an airport can only support CAT I landings... and its weather is CAT II or worse... you won't be given that airport as an Alternate.
------------
Here's the Flight Menu screen during Taxi Out.
A few things have been moved around to allow the Runway Info line to exist in a single location.
You can see the Runway Info is in Cyan because it is using Ambient Wind information to list the Headwind / Crosswind values for the chosen runway. "Ambient Wind" is the wind that's outside of your aircraft at that moment. Ambient Wind values can change from second to second, unless you have a "weather helper add-on" that limits wind changes near an airport.
On the left image, you can see that 28L still has AI both taking off and landing. There is an ILS with a DME which the Captain can use to line up for takeoff. The ambient wind speed has increased to provide a 12kt headwind component and an 11kt crosswind component. Future FSCaptains will allow aircraft types to specify their crosswind capabilities, and this display will be in RED if the crosswind component is too great for an aircraft.
I may try to fit the runway length onto this display, but that would be a very full line.
On the right, I've selected 1R as my runway, and you can see the wind differences (again, since it's ambient wind, it can change from second to second). You'll also note that there is no AI takeoffs currently scheduled. AI takeoff and landing runway data comes from default ATC, and takeoff runways are assigned before an AI goes OUT, and persist until the aircraft has been handed over to Departure or Center control.
There's no ILS for this runway but there is an EMAS to keep you out of the water!
You can see that "<RUNWAY INFO" LSK that's available before takeoff. It's not there for any other flight phase... being "<EMERGENCY" in flight, and "<PARKING" after landing.
That's about it for the Flight Menu runway info display.
------------
And finally here are two screenshots of the new Deicing screen (#70) that now displays some choices if there's more than one DDF at an airport....
On the left, is the DDF that was assigned to me as I was departing KBOI - with a departure runway of 10L. I used the "<NEXT DDF" to cycle around to the other DDF which I could have selected... but obviously didn't.
Clicking on "CLOSEST DDF>" just has the FCDU to make its choice again.
In this new system, if you do not have a departure runway selected, it will choose the DDF that is closest to you... even if it takes you in a direction away from your departure runway. However now... with a departure runway selected... the FCDU will find the largest DDF that is closest to your runway.
The DDF needs to be assigned to your runway in the "ddf_fsc.txt" or "ddf_user.txt" configuration file.
------------
That's it for now. There are some bug fixes and changes that I'll list in the README files, so for you Captains who are adventurous enough to be Alpha Test material... get ready for the latest and greatest!
Best regards,