Today’s feature request is about Air Traffic Control.
Whether you are an IFATC, or a Training server controller, I’m sure you’ve had an issue where an aircraft departing starts turning into another departing aircraft. They are both at very close altitudes and it looks something like this.
What I am requesting is an extra command for ATC to tell an aircraft to stop it’s climb until it is clear of a conflict.
For example, in the picture above, TUIV003 is rapidly converging on KING12, who is also climbing at a similar altitude.
In this case, I would send a command that says, “TUIV003, stop climb immediately”
TUIV003 would respond with, “ Stopping climb, TUIV003”
When TUIV003 and KING12 are clear of each others conflict, Tower would tell TUIV003,
“ TUIV003, continue climb.”
“Continuing climb, TUIV003,thanks!”
I think that this will help with many daily conflicts that happen while controlling and improve the professionalism and safety while flying/ controlling.
It’s easier to understand from a pilot‘s perspective than a normal traffic alert, where you have to locate the traffic before taking action (especially as we have no TCAS advisories in IF).
In case of a loss of situational awareness this can save prestigious seconds and help to clear the conflict.
Building on to Julian, Stop climb is more simple than traffic alert, where as in traffic alert you have to turn and all that extra stuff. With this, you just simply set your VS to 0 @Lil_Qaz
I do think this is needed. I have had several altitude issues with other planes, especially at IFATC controller airports for some reason.
Just last week I was on crosswind and I heard an aircraft being cleared for takeoff on a runway where he would smash right into me
IRL, departing aircraft would get handed off to a departure frequency, therefore making this unnecessary. However, in IF, IFATC rarely gets app/dep (usually only at busy airports), so tower would need a way to ensure that separation rules are met.