This feature request is for the controller side of the application.
Problem
While controlling controllers often find themselves zooming in and out often on a frequency. For example, when on tower a controller will often zoom out to see the airspace and then zoom in to see the order of the departure queue. On some devices this may be more challenging to accomplish and for others it just wears out your zoom fingers.
Idea
What I would like to propose is a way to set two zoom levels to your choosing. Then while controlling these zoom levels be quickly accessed on the radar screen. A controller would then be able to flip back and forth to the zoom levels on that frequency.
Potential Application This is just a business use case, not how it should be designed.
A controller starts their session and goes to their tower radar for example. They zoom out to a level they like to see the airspace. The controller goes to the gear icon and select “Set Zoom 2”
The controller likes to zoom in and see the departing aircraft. They zoom in to the view they would like and select the gear icon and select “Set Zoom 1”
Now on the radar the controller has both zoom levels set and can easilly switch between the two by the buttons on the screen.
Other Uses
This would be frequency specific. Ground may have different levels than tower. Approach may also have multiple zoom levels between wide and narrow views. I feel overall it just gives a little flexibility to the app to enhance the user experience.
When controlling Tower, I constantly switch from a zoomed out view to see incoming aircraft, and zoomed in to handle departing aircraft. So here’s my vote.
Thinking a bit more about it, and writing this while actually controlling, what would you think about the following suggestion?
Instead of manually pressing a button to switch between zoomed in or zoomed out, when selecting a plane the zoom level could be determined automatically:
If the plane is on the ground, center on the plane and zoom in
If the plane is airborne, center on the plane and zoom out
The zoom levels could be determined like this:
zoom in, show up to 5nm around the runways (so probably like 7nm around Tower?), which allows to see if another aircraft is about to land - as we’re controlling Tower, an aircraft on the ground is most likely to ask us about taking off, so making sure there is not another aircraft 1 or 2nm from touching down on that runway is most important
zoom out, controlling Tower and incoming aircraft most likely asking us for incoming landing, a radius of around 20-25nm around the airplane should allow us to clearly see the whole picture, and issue the appropriate clearance or sequence. Another thought, if the airplane is farther than 25nm, the screen should show both the controlling airport and the plane, with an extra padding of 4-5 nm around the aircraft.
This automatic switching removes an extra “click”, improving usability for our fellow IFATC. Less “clicking”, more controlling!
And if the approach of automatic zooming is approved, then since what I described above applies to Tower, a similar approach could be done for Ground (I can’t say for Radar, since I don’t yet control at that level):
If a plane requests Pushback, the importance is in the exact vecinity of that plane, so center on the plane and show very zoomed in, like seeing 10 (?) gates to either side
If a plane requests taxi, center on the Tower/gravity center of the airfield, and zoom out to see all runways.
For other requests, center on the plane and zoom in to see roughly the space that a plane could taxi to in the coming 45-60s, enough to see any immediate conflict.
