This is ridiculous. If no human controller is online, leave the pilots alone. Most of us can read charts and restrictions on a SID/STAR. Is it now a policy of VATSIM that their only reason for existence is control pilots? It is not educational, needed or desired. You guys are learning too much from government overreach and need to spend your time trying to solve the staffing issues that would make this a completely moot point.
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Unless something has changed recently, auto atc is only a thing in the usa, where it sends you an automatically assigned squawk so the system can identify you online as if you would have been given in your ifr clearance
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Most definitely has changed. Gone from a simple code, good enough, to giving actual instructions. Whats next? Auto Dot Wallop?
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I think there needs to be a balance here. Giving a squawk so it’s easier for any human ATC to get you sorted later is good.
I don’t like the idea of it getting too prescriptive about instructions. When there is no ATC and little or no other traffic I often give myself short cuts/vectors, pick an unusual approach or use a different runway (e.g. crosswind or sidestep) for practice. Or in the case of a departure, climb unrestricted straight up to cruising level.
One thing I would like AUTO_ATC to do is remind pilots of the destination CTAF if there is no ATC online.
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My understanding is that this particular function only comes into play when you will enter airspace currently controlled by an online ATCO to ensure that you enter that airspace at the correct level and on the correct routing so that controllers don’t have to constantly scan way beyond the airspace they control and/or use a lot of their capacity to fix pilots’ profiles/routings; to make things easier for both controllers and pilots, AUTO_ATC will simply give the instruction the previous controller would have given if they were only to ensure you enter the next online sector according to the LoA.
It is an unfortunate reality on VATSIM that many pilots do not pay close attention to what’s written in their charts, particularly if pertinent information is not an immediate part of the chart’s graphic and instead only written somewhere, maybe even on a separate text page. And beyond that, pilots of course can’t be expected to know the LoAs between different ACCs/sector groups/individual sectors, but controllers rely on aircraft to enter their airspace appropriately to ensure they can work with them and to reduce their workload which in turn allows them to provide better service for everyone in their airspace.
Is it also an “unfortunate reality” that controllers can’t be bothered by scanning, in other words paying attention? I would suggest that if someone is a controller and they don’t want to be bothered with dealing with people, then they should find another hobby. There are a lot of “unfortunate realities” from pilots and controllers, adults should just deal with that.
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My observation is that this is a request, not a requirement unless the CoC has changed. A controller may only provide services in their AoR, not in adjoining areas, which means the above example is just like codes being issued. Nothing happens if I ignore them.
Why so angry?
If a controller is too lazy to scan their own sector, then yes, they shouldn’t be controlling, even on a virtual network. But the problem in 99.9% of all cases isn’t an unwillingness but a workload-induced inability to do so.
I don’t know the exact situation in the US, but compared to Europe (which has overall more traffic from what I see but significantly smaller sectors, so it probably roughly balances out, at least for the more popular ARTCCs), but here, it is absolutely not uncommon to have 20+ aircraft in the sector for an extended amount of time (and this is at the lower end, there are also various screenshots circulating in forums and Discords that show sector predictions of 50+ aircraft in the same sector), a significant amount of which you have to call multiple times to get a response from. These are sectors that would never be handled by less than six or eight people IRL, at the traffic levels we see during prime time rather by twelve or more; on VATSIM, it’s usually all done by a single controller which can often make it very challenging to scan one’s own sector, so I’m really not sure how you expect controllers on VATSIM (for almost all of whom controlling is only a hobby that they are significantly less skilled at than real world professionals) to constantly scan even beyond their own sector, that’s simply an incredibly unrealistic expectation.
If everyone follows these AUTO_ATC instructions to ensure they enter the next staffed sector “correctly”, it can go a long way to alleviate at least some of that controller’s workload.
Though I have been told now that these types of AUTO_ATC messages also appear when the relevant downstream sector is not staffed and in that case I agree with you: pilots in currently uncontrolled airspace and not about to enter currently controlled airspace should be left to their own devices and not get some weird automated text clearances - if one wants that, they can turn on the in-sim ATC while on Unicom, you don’t need VATSIM for that.
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There should be no automated ATC. Period. Pilots come online for live ATC. Yes, I know that there are MANY pilots and MANY atc who don’t know what the heck they are doing and this is what leads to a perceived workload. I have been doing this a LONG time (811479). I agree, the influx of gamers has lowered the collective pilot IQ, but also the quality of ATC has equally gone bad with too many controllers doing things like logging into tower when on a 3 mile final and then logging off immediately after landing. Recently, I had flew into PANC and had a controller log on short final, log off after giving me taxi to the gate instructions. I spend an hour prepping another flight and the same guy logged in while I was on taxi just to give me a clearance and then scooted on wheels up. These are the things that VATSIM needs to address, not try and implement controls when no controllers are present.
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Does AUTO_ATC have the intelligence to account for separation? If not, then no such instructions should be issued.
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If this is really implemented I am with you. That’s awful.
I only knew of the pseudo-PDC (ACARS via private chat) implementation giving route clearances. But I thought even that was triggered by human controllers.
But now I learnt something new:
Yes, PDCs are only triggered by an active controller. The squawk code message is only supposed to appear if you’re departing a towered airfield that is currently not staffed.
The experience at PANC sounds like a specific controller-related issue and is probably better dealt with by giving feedback to vZAN. The pilot quality, however, has on a much, much broader scale, declined over the past two decades that I’ve been here (insert “low” CID here).
Auto ATC is designed to be a guide to assist pilots in meeting altitude restrictions that are not easily accessible to the VATSIM pilot population and there is a lively discussion taking place with the developers in charge of it as to what is relevant and useful info, and what isn’t. I control an airport for which there are no published crossing restrictions for several of the STARs and regularly see pilots that are 15-30 flying miles away from their arrival runway still cruising at FL340 when I am previewing the airspace in preparation to log on.
As a pilot, I’m somewhat with you in the sentiment that I would rather be responsible for my own altitude and descent planning, even when I am within staffed ATC airspace, but especially when I’m not. There is also no requirement, at least presently, to comply with what the message says; it just makes life easier for you and ATC, should they sign on, if you do.
I’m not fully for or against this, by the way. I’m just trying to figure out what’s useful and handy to have and what we can still get away with not having.
You do not have to follow the AUTO_ATC. If you don’t want to follow it then don’t it’s as easy as that. It’s just advisory. There is a reason why this even became a thing… Many pilots these days just don’t pay enough attention, this system is made to catch an attention of the pilots and also help ATC in case someone logs of since dealing with 5+ planes being super late on descend can take a lot of controller load.
It’s kind of funny how only old CIDs are bitching about these new features.
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The screenshot shown does not make clear that that message is only advisory! Can you please post more example messages of this software? What are the goals for that project? On what basis is it currently operating?
What I’ve seen from the various AI ATC solutions is not realistic or a way I would like to interact with ATC. In fact having human controllers is what makes VATSIM special. I am a bit surprised we already have bots on the network interacting with pilots in that way!
What gives if some planes are too high? That’s just normal stuff you can deal with in a relaxed way when you just logged on.
I am going to ignore that comment about “bitching” (which was totally unasked for IMHO).
Well, at ORD, for example, if someone doesn’t realize that they’re only 30 flying miles away from their runway and still at FL340, now they have to lose all that altitude in as short a time as they can manage, which may or may not be fun for them. From a controller’s perspective, now I have to take them off their STAR and vector them back around, telling them to reload the STAR–and hoping they and their software–are able to make that happen, while descending them through my departure corridors, finding a hole for them to fit back into the arrival stream, then getting them back in.
Or…
“Cross FIYER at and maintain 9000”
The project is currently under development and testing within ZBW airspace only and there is a lively discussion about it among controllers, pilots, and developers. As I understand it, this is only supposed to assist in situations that I’ve described above, or for LOA restrictions between ATC facilities, where pilots either don’t know or don’t have the easiest access to this info. One of the points being brought up is trying to figure out how to make it clear that the automated messages are not actually clearances (read: separation-based) but are advisory messages to make pilots and controllers lives easier.
Thank you for clarifying that this is in a test run.
I think in this form (cross X at Y) it is an additional communication channel (one-way since it is a bot) that raises more questions with the pilots than helping.
Making it absolutely clear what kind of message that is (ADVISORY: …) is very important.
Are your airspaces really that full that a delay vector is too much work? Building arrival streams is normal work and should be fun IMHO.
To be clear, a delay vector is not the same as a lose-thirty-something-thousand-feet vector. Delay vectors are indeed fun and effective ways to sequence for an airport. The good-grief vectors are easily avoidable by just a little bit of pre-planning and situational awareness on the part of the pilot or, in lieu thereof, a friendly advisory message.
The format, “Cross __ at ___” is used primarily because it’s the same format of a clearance I would be issuing if I was online to give one. But, as I said, this is all on preliminary stages and they may find a better way to format these messages if indeed there is one.
When I don’t want to deal with auto-ATC (or live controllers for that matter), I fly off-line. Easy life.
Its only a trial, calm down.