Improve Pilot - ATC communication!

1

Hi!
So, we’ve all been there, where we need to ask ATC something specific or communicate something else, but the in-game button just doesn’t exist. Plus, the realism doesn’t feel as fun when you are clicking buttons like trying to input a order in a McDonalds cashier machine.
So, in my topic now, I will be requesting a new feature to Infinite Flight, which I call ‘direct communication’.
What is Direct Communication?
A new method where you can directly enter something in the chatbox and send it to a controller.

Example Scenarios

EXAMPLE 1 - REQUESTING OTHER
A flight has aborted takeoff, though a button can be added a message along the lines of:
“Flight 000 aborting take off. Requesting to line up again” OR “requesting to taxi to gate”.

Another scenario:
“Flight 000 requesting to backtrack runway 03L in order to line up to depart straight out.”

EXAMPLE 2 - REQUEST TO FOLLOW PLAN
Something which likely happened to you before - ATC is giving you directives against either your possibility or convinience, e.g:
“AB-CDE requesting to land runway 27R”
“AB-CDE, expect vectors for the ILS at runway 03L.”
Here, the game only lets you REPLY, but with direct communication:
“I won’t be able to turn in time following vectors” OR “it will require me to completely change my descent profile, will request to stay on current runway heading”.

EXAMPLE 3 - SPECIFY
Suppose you need to divert.
“N-OPQR is diverting due to low fuel”
“N-OPQR, confirm souls on board and fuel left” (bonus realism feature)
“400 on board and we have 30 minutes of fuel left, enough for priority landing”.
some time later, aircraft is still on approach and has 4 minutes of fuel left.
“Mayday Mayday N-OPQR, we don’t have sufficient fuel left to reach KLAX.”

Another Scenario, assume the airport is busy and the aircraft has to divert:
“N-OPQR, is it possible for you enter the holding pattern or would you like to divert instead?”
“What diversion options do we have, N-OPQR”
" N-OPQR, you can divert to London Stansted, it is 10 minutes away and a British airways Boeing 777 has already landed there, also waiting to for the airport rush hour to pass by. Accomodations and refueling available"
“We’ll hold, N-OPQR”

So, with that I conclude examples of Direct Communication.
I also recommend even though there isn’t a emergencies tab in game, MAYDAY MAYDAY and PAN PAN also get added as emergency buttons.

What about language barriers?
I believe this should be impleneted to the already existing system, to allow ease for people with weaker english.

What if people begin spamming or cursing?
Firstly, there should be a cooldown (not for button-reply messages though, especially STANDBY).
Second, a filter should be applied input of any letters except of the Alphabet, numbers, fullstop, hyphen, question mark and exclamation mark, this also means foreign language characters shouldn’t be included.
A basic filter should be applied for cursing.

Lastly, a few more voices of both genders would be nice!
I hope this feature really gets considered, because this would be of great assistance to realism & aid in fewer wrong violations.

I’m so dedicated to this feature, I even drew a potential design.
Glad to clear any queries in comments!

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I feel like some may use it in the wrong way no matter the cooldown and stuff. Even if its 1 in 1000 people it’s still an issue. As much as i’d love to see a feature like this, I feel its safer without it until and unless we get a proper solution to spamming/cursing.

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I agree with you, but this feature should be restricted to Level 3 only, and Level 3 violations also come with 7 day bans, not worth it for any troll. If a pilot is to lose his rage for literally no reason, he can get a violation. Another option could be alongside violations, a *mute option is added, anything that pilot sends will not be recieved by the controller and will carry on to other frequencies, limiting usage to only the buttons. With each time increasing, it will also keep pilots in check.

4

A good idea in my opinion, but it has some weak points.

  • it would be hard to accommodate this while preventing things like spams, swearing, and inadequate behavior
  • language barrier. For most people playing, English isn’t their first language.
  • it might be hard for some people to choose what to write, especially those with weaker English and when it’s busy
  • everyone would need to have at least some aviation knowledge and be familiar with IRL ATC communications. It’s not just practical with the current amount of people playing
  • replies will take longer
  • we already have buttons to communicate most of the things you mentioned
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  • it would be hard to accommodate this while preventing things like spams, swearing, and inadequate behavior
    Refer to reply above
  • language barrier. For most people playing, English isn’t their first language.
    I mentioned that specifically, the buttons will stay and can remain as their form of communication.
    *** it might be hard for some people to choose what to write, especially when it’s busy**
    True, but again, buttons.
  • everyone would need to have at least aviation knowledge and be familiar with IRL ATC communications. It’s not just practical with the current amount of people playing
    Assuming Grade 3 pilots aim for maximum realism, it is likely that atleast they are familiar with basic phrases, this can also be more so a ATC tool who are already familiar.
  • replies will take longer
    Valid point.
  • we already have buttons to communicate most of the things you mentioned
    True, but again it significantly enhances realism and can help specify everything much more clearly as in the example scenarios.
6

Pilots need to learn following basic vectors first. The ATC communication system in Infinite Flight is very well thought out and it’s working very well with heavy traffic. But even with the current system, ATC is getting bombarded with unnecessary requests, which would even get worse with the new ideas you’re proposing.

Plus, creating this topic just after getting a violation for following flightplan instead of ATC instructions is kinda ironic.

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Example 1 could be covered by buttons.

Example 3 for diversion currently exists, and approach controllers realistically don’t have the time to type out all of that and ask, or have time to read the examples you’ve given above. So at most it’s a proceed on course to the diversion airport with your own means of navigation.

Which leaves us with point 2, once you are taken off the flight plan, we’re managing your descent 90% of the time with speed commands and vectors with altitude and heading. Personally, I can’t think of a scenario where it is not possible to do so in the if enviroment since the biggest change from your end is retuning the ils frequency and (possibly) briefing the other approach plate.

PS: Grade 5’s sometimes still can’t fly, it’s just how much time you spend daily to do landings.

TLDR: Enhancing realism is a valid point, keeping it acheiveable in the IF space is another.

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That would mean a lot more violations would be given, resulting in the playerbase decreasing.

Well, fair.

That’s just a wrong assumption. You’d be surprised how little people care for realism, and there’s a lot of pilots who are incompetent with ATC even in IF, let alone when typing it out or using IRL communications.

Yes, I know that the buttons would still be there, but why add direct communication in the first place? Sure would be fun but it’d affect so little of the playerbase while requiring work from the devs - who obviously have priorities on other things right now.

Once again, it would be used so little it’s not worth to implement. The current communications work fine. Why fix something when it’s not broken.

Additionally, all of IFATC has Discord, you can DM them while flying for direct communications.

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A lot of time at the hub this isn’t possible which is why you get vectors.

At airports that require backtaxi, the “cleared for takeoff” command allows pilots to backtaxi if they need to and we have to anticipate additional room being needed if this is the case.

If you need to divert just “request diversion” and change your flight plan - simple.

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10

Definitely see where you are going with this and could not agree more—ESPECIALLY with rejecting takeoff. The few times I was accidentally cleared for takeoff with very little distance between someone on a way too fast final approach speed and unwilling to go around… so I decided it was best to reject and exit immediately.

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I swear man the violation wasn’t my reason behind it, but back in training server these problems were incredibly frustrating

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I mean especially for training server controlling. Having a message that, for example, reads: “Please request pushback prior/[before] to taxi [clearance?].” (That could be placed over/under the, “Please wait for clearance before taxiing,” [bar]. Again, one of those things that I’m sad as a former tutor to CONSTANTLY hear CUG on ES when someone requests to taxi before pushback. Though, again, do I blame the misunderstanding: not necessarily.

13

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Unknown/Not Einstein. (Source: https://www.history.com/news/here-are-6-things-albert-einstein-never-said.) Not just useful—I would think in just TS but ES too, and I mean does that not (not at you, @Cap_Dans) inform in a relatively short statement?

14

Your ideas would be very nice to implement in a perfect world. But unfortunately there are bigger issues like very heavy traffic levels, combined with inexperienced pilots, which is sometimes unbearable for ATC. Plus, getting bombarded with such requests like “can I follow my flightplan” or “I can’t descend like this because you change my descent profile” would create much more unnecessary distraction for controllers, hindering them from what they are actually supposed to do.

Controllers are already doing their part of keeping pilots safe from any collisions and maintaining a clean airspace. And pilots need to do their part following the instructions, instead of looking for ways to do their own thing. It’s really not that much to ask :)

Since you’re pretty new to the Expert Server, you can observe the airspaces and different type of pilots to see how the basic communication with ATC works. At the moment, there are several options for pilots to communicate with ATC in a deeper sense, like requesting a diversion or declaring a fuel emergency. Hopefully we’ll get more options for communication in the future, like more misc messages where you can ask or instruct more specific things, without stalling the controllers while doing so.

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15

I’m with you. The ATC needs some more options. But! The existing messages are well thought of and absolutely enough for giving the possibility to achieve safe operations. I guess, there is an emergency button IF you are really low at fuel. Never had this, but read about it here.

One thing I have to say: If you want to land on runway X and ATC gives you clearance for runway Y, there is no option for you to “pleeeease let me land on X”. No! ATC order has to be followed. No space for discussion.

I don’t think text entries will be a good way. A better way would be “real ATC” via discord. I wrote an article about it. But also, it isn’t that easy in terms of spam, language issues and even misuse!

We should be happy with what we’ve got. I tell you this as a becoming IFATC. More options or even messages not following standards will make it even more difficult for ATC

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16

AGAIN: YES, I am aware not every spot requires a pushback.

17

You should add this to the features category. 100% I’d vote for this

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18

I know I just wasted about an hour of my time, though the placement and order of, in particular, the most used transmissions don’t make sense to me. The others are just some that I don’t feel make sense for TRAINING server considering the limitations for being unable to teach or train.

  1. (Picture 1, top left.) That at least addresses the issue immediately and for those actually trying to learn the mistake may not repeat in ES by receiving CUG. (Training/teaching the correct procedures.)

  2. (Picture 2, right side of grid.)
    —Without just realizing until I was typing this, I would think and maybe it would help that Pushback is #1 and Taxi to is… #2. Which may at least help a little when flying considering that pushback is number 3 and request to taxi is number 2.

Again, I would think it would make a little more sense to flip them considering in most cases a pushback is required and occurs before taxi.

—I use ‘Hold Position’ much more than ‘Give way to…,’ though they should remain together, but farther up. (Frequency of use.)
—I have rarely used ‘Progressive taxi’ outside of ‘Drag and Taxi’ if that is considered the same.

Just realized that this is the POV of Ground ATC, but still should apply to flying and controlling.

  1. (Picture 3, bottom left.)
    —Yes, it would make more sense to change the "title” of the prior “menu” option, though I would think having one area dedicated to frequency changes or instruction in one spot would make more sense

Yes, I am aware this is the POV of a ground controller, though I would think it makes sense for every station and, in general, hopefully we see where I am going.

Such as…:

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@Cap_Dans you should add this to the features category so people can vote on it. I love the idea and I think others do too!

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20

This is honestly an amazing idea. But I feel like it should be only exclusive to Grade 3 users or Expert level servers only.

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