SubLOGIC's Flight Assignment ATP
U6IC
I have been reading postings on the above product and must admit
to a whetted appetite. There are however some questions that I would
like to ask concerning same, since the guys at the local store
selling the product do not seem to be too familiar with it.
1). How good (thanks to Mr. Dorsett, I know not to use the word
realistic), is it when compared to FS4 with respect to graphics,
handling, etc?
2). I gathered from some of the postings, that it is rather
involved (or at least more so) than FS4 in terms of flying according
to flight plans etc. Now The closest I have gotten to a cockpit is
the front door of an aircraft, and I somehow always seem to be
guided in the opposite direction by some alert flight attendant. I
guess I am concerned that some of the requirements of the
assignments will pass right over my head, and I would lose the full
purpose of the simulation. Though I will welcome this new aspect, It
is something that I have not had to worry about with FS4 and I do
wonder how easy/difficult the transition will be.
3). How detailed is the ATC? Do you really interactively
communicate during flight or (or even just on takoff and final approach)
or is it just a more varied version of the canned responses that you
get with FS4? "Microsoft Flight Simulator, cleared for landing" ,
even if you are nowhere near an airfield, or on the ground for that
matter.
4). How might it run on a 386DX/25MHz? I find that even with some
modest sized static and dynamic scenery I have created with A&SD
(about 16k or so), the simulation with FS4 is unacceptably jerky on
approach and takeoff with the above machine. I am aware by the way that
ATP is not compatiable with A&SD scenery, and have just chosen this as a
reference.
5). Does anyone have any idea if a new version is scheduled for
release soon?
I WOULD APPRECIATE ANY RESPONSES WHETHER BY POSTING OR E-MAIL
Hayden
_____
/ | \ 'With sticks in hand, I don't beat, instead, I play'
/\___/ \___/\
| | o | | | De Man Wid De Pan
| \__| o o |----| 0----- | -----------------------
|/ \ o / \ | 0 | Hayden Nanton
\ __/ | \/ | | E-Mail:- U6...@UNB.CA
\ __|__ / |
.
Hoi Chong
> RE: SUBLOGIC'S FLIGHT ASSIGNMENT ATP
>
> I have been reading postings on the above product and must admit
> to a whetted appetite. There are however some questions that I would
> like to ask concerning same, since the guys at the local store
> selling the product do not seem to be too familiar with it.
>
> 1). How good (thanks to Mr. Dorsett, I know not to use the word
> realistic), is it when compared to FS4 with respect to graphics,
> handling, etc?
Handling is the same as FS4 (both came from the same "root"), graphics
it is set at EGA.
> 2). I gathered from some of the postings, that it is rather
> involved (or at least more so) than FS4 in terms of flying according
> to flight plans etc. Now The closest I have gotten to a cockpit is
> the front door of an aircraft, and I somehow always seem to be
> guided in the opposite direction by some alert flight attendant. I
> guess I am concerned that some of the requirements of the
> assignments will pass right over my head, and I would lose the full
> purpose of the simulation. Though I will welcome this new aspect, It
> is something that I have not had to worry about with FS4 and I do
> wonder how easy/difficult the transition will be.
You can either fly any-way-you-like, or follow the procedure.
>
> 3). How detailed is the ATC? Do you really interactively
> communicate during flight or (or even just on takoff and final approach)
> or is it just a more varied version of the canned responses that you
> get with FS4? "Microsoft Flight Simulator, cleared for landing" ,
> even if you are nowhere near an airfield, or on the ground for that
> matter.
You get to key in the command (CTRL-X for request clarence), and then
the Clarence reply via words on top portion of the screen. But if you
have SB and got the new "blue box" version (rather than the old "purple box"
version), then the computer will actually talk back to you. I closed my
eyes and could actually understand the ATIS.
> 4). How might it run on a 386DX/25MHz? I find that even with some
> modest sized static and dynamic scenery I have created with A&SD
> (about 16k or so), the simulation with FS4 is unacceptably jerky on
> approach and takeoff with the above machine. I am aware by the way that
> ATP is not compatiable with A&SD scenery, and have just chosen this as a
> reference.
25MHz is ok.
> 5). Does anyone have any idea if a new version is scheduled for
> release soon?
I bought the new version "blue box" this weekend.
> I WOULD APPRECIATE ANY RESPONSES WHETHER BY POSTING OR E-MAIL
Do you really have a choice?
John P. Mechalas
> RE: SUBLOGIC'S FLIGHT ASSIGNMENT ATP
>
> I have been reading postings on the above product and must admit
>to a whetted appetite. There are however some questions that I would
>like to ask concerning same, since the guys at the local store
>selling the product do not seem to be too familiar with it.
>
> 1). How good (thanks to Mr. Dorsett, I know not to use the word
>realistic), is it when compared to FS4 with respect to graphics,
>handling, etc?
Very good. Same basic graphics engine as FS4, since the code is
so
similar between the two, though with ATP you can "turn off" all scneery
except for the runways...a useful feature on final approach where you aren't
concerned with airport and city detail as much as you are with lining up with
the centerline and glideslope. It speeds up the display-rate considerably.
Also, ATP handles high altitude scenery better than FS4 does.
> 2). I gathered from some of the postings, that it is rather
>involved (or at least more so) than FS4 in terms of flying according
>to flight plans etc. Now The closest I have gotten to a cockpit is
>the front door of an aircraft, and I somehow always seem to be
>guided in the opposite direction by some alert flight attendant. I
>guess I am concerned that some of the requirements of the
>assignments will pass right over my head, and I would lose the full
>purpose of the simulation. Though I will welcome this new aspect, It
>is something that I have not had to worry about with FS4 and I do
>wonder how easy/difficult the transition will be.
Not very difficult at all. You can fly in "free flight mode" (like what
you do in FS4), or you can fly "assignments".
> 3). How detailed is the ATC? Do you really interactively
>communicate during flight or (or even just on takoff and final approach)
>or is it just a more varied version of the canned responses that you
>get with FS4? "Microsoft Flight Simulator, cleared for landing" ,
>even if you are nowhere near an airfield, or on the ground for that
>matter.
Yes, it is really interactive. You get your clearances and flight levels
and radar vectors and everything else. If you don't follow ATC, they
yell at you, and you are derated appropriately.
> 4). How might it run on a 386DX/25MHz? I find that even with some
>modest sized static and dynamic scenery I have created with A&SD
>(about 16k or so), the simulation with FS4 is unacceptably jerky on
>approach and takeoff with the above machine. I am aware by the way that
>ATP is not compatiable with A&SD scenery, and have just chosen this as a
>reference.
A&SD scenery is very slow compared to scenery disks, so it may not be the
best reference to use. But I digress...a 386/25 is fine...that is what
I am using. Well, I have a 387, too...but I have seen ATP on 386/20 and
on 386SX/16 and 20, and it runs fine. You might want to select "complex"
instead of "very complex" scenery, though (you won't see much difference
in the scenery, and a modest improvement in speed).
> 5). Does anyone have any idea if a new version is scheduled for
>release soon?
--
John Mechalas "I'm not an actor, but
mech...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu I play one on TV."
Aero Engineering, Purdue University #include disclaimer.h
John P. Mechalas
>From article <29NOV92.18...@UNBVM1.CSD.UNB.CA>, by U6IC <U6...@UNB.CA>:
>
>> release soon?
>
>I bought the new version "blue box" this weekend.
>
Is there an upgrade available for us "red box" people? I haven't heard
anything from subLOGIC about any upgrade deals...
Babu Gopalakrishnan
>I bought the new version "blue box" this weekend.
What other additional features does this 'blue box' version
have that the old 'red box' dosen't? More planes perhaps?
Babu
Hoi Chong
> In article <1992Nov30.0...@netcom.com> hch...@netcom.com (Hoi Chong) writes:
>>From article <29NOV92.18...@UNBVM1.CSD.UNB.CA>, by U6IC <U6...@UNB.CA>:
>>
>>> 5). Does anyone have any idea if a new version is scheduled for
>>> release soon?
>>
>>I bought the new version "blue box" this weekend.
>>
>
> Is there an upgrade available for us "red box" people? I haven't heard
> anything from subLOGIC about any upgrade deals...
I talked to the owner of SubLogic (that is what his card said) Stu Moment
at Comdex. He said something like you can send in $20 (or was it $10) plus
the old disk for the new ones. I saw it at the shop during the weekend
and said "to hack with upgrade" and just bought it off the shelf.
Hoi Chong
I have not tested it thoroughly, but I bought it primary because of the
speech engine for my SB Pro. I saw the speech engine at work at Comdex,
and with my eyes closed I was able to understand the ATIS.
If you have the original "pink box" w/o patch, and have a SB, then it is
probably worth it already since it gives you the jet sound (synthisized,
not digitized like FS4 w/SGA). In fact for the speech engine to work the
jet sound has to be synthisized so as to leave the voice channel on the SB
to the speech engine.
Yiannis Papelis
> RE: SUBLOGIC'S FLIGHT ASSIGNMENT ATP
>
> I have been reading postings on the above product and must admit
>to a whetted appetite.
"logged" about 5-10 hours with it so far.
> 1). How good (thanks to Mr. Dorsett, I know not to use the word
>realistic), is it when compared to FS4 with respect to graphics,
>handling, etc?
Graphics are very similar, but complexity is user selectable, and
the standard scenery includes all major airports and most
VORs located exactly at their real coordinates. You can actually use
the default scenery for flying cross country using established IFR
routes etc.
One important feature that I love is time acceleration. You can
have time accelerated by up to 16 times, so long cross country
is feasible without leaving the computer running all night.
> Skipped one already answered question.
> 3). How detailed is the ATC? Do you really interactively
>communicate during flight or (or even just on takoff and final approach)
>or is it just a more varied version of the canned responses that you
>get with FS4? "Microsoft Flight Simulator, cleared for landing" ,
>even if you are nowhere near an airfield, or on the ground for that
>matter.
ATC interaction was the major reason I was so interested in getting my
hands on it. Here are my comments and a review of the features.
It is much better than the interaction of FS4 and in some cases the
interaction is exactly the same as in real ATC but in other cases things
are not as smooth. BTW, I'm not using a sound card and only depend
on the screen prompts for ATC interaction. Things might be different
with a sound card.
Interaction is in the form of messages from ATC appearing on the top
of the screen. You talk back by using a fixed set of available responses
which have been associated with keystrokes. Some of them are
"I'm with you", "Need new altitude", "Leaving ... altitude for ..",
"Request clearence" etc. There is also a standard 'readback'.
If you are in either a single or career assignment you start sitting
by the terminal. You have to tune one of the radios and listen to ATIS.
Unless you listen to ATIS first, you can't talk to clearence delivery.
First problem here, not all ATIS frequencies are active, and once you
tune the radio to the proper frequency it might take 10-20 seconds before
anything happens. This is very confusing because you don't know if you
have tuned the wrong frequency or what, especially considering that
in airports that in reality (and in the provided maps) have more than
one ATIS frequency, only one of them is active in the program.
Once the ATIS message appears on the screen you can then talk to clearence
delivery. You get your clearence and then have to talk to ground control.
Ask for taxi to a specific runway, then taxi there, talk to tower,
get takeoff clearence, and takeof. That's where the fun starts.
If your clearence was with radar vectors, you will get a sequence
of turn/climb instructions, including handoffs back and forth to
the various centers, departure/approach controllers etc. You even
get an occational 'expedite descent or ascent' or even 'please fly
heading 120' when you drift off course!!.
In most trips you get vectored to a 45 degree intercept
angle to the ILS and are immediately cleared for landing by the tower.
This whole process is VERY realistic, I found myself feeling overloaded
and it reminded me of my student pilot days, when you are so concentrated
on flying the plane that the simplest ATC instruction like "turn right
heading 120" seems so hard to follow. I also found some logistics
problems very similar to the ones in a real plane, i.e. reading a number
and then forgetting what it was, writing a clearence on paper and then not
being able to read your own writing, having problems folding charts
while flying etc.
If your clerence is specified as airways, you initially get vectored
to the starting point and then are told to "resume own navigation" at
which point you have to follow the airways by tuning VORs and tracking
radials. You can identify VORs and ILSs by their morse code id and
if you don't you get points taken of your "score".
Flying is very "numbers oriented" which is probably the only way
to fly these planes (737, 767, 747). Temprature, air density and
altitude effects are taken into account.
Now some of my gripes regarding the ATC interaction.
In reality, if you don't listen to ATIS you either get the vital info
when you talk to the next ATC (clerence deliver on departure
or approach control during landing) or you
are told to get atis and come back. In ATP, an "outside"
entity tells you that you can't do that independently of
whether you have tuned the radios to any valid frequency.
This is very distracting as it reminds you that this is not for real.
A similar problem occurs when you tune the radio to the wrong
frequency and you are told by some ourside entity that this
is the "wrong frequency". It would have been much better to either
not hear (see) anything, or if you tune to another "live" frequency
to hear (see) other clearences, or conversation.
I have often gotten in loops where I'm told to turn to heading 140
even when I'm at heading 140. The ATC function seems to get stuck and
there is nothing I can do to get out of the loop.
I have had similar problems when being vectored to a VOR. I pass the
VOR and get on my way but ATC keeps saying 'direct to XXX, resume
own navigation' even though I'm past that point. I guess it doesn't
realize that you reach the VOR unless you pass directly on top of
it.
Somehow, keystrokes are buffered and if you hit the "roger" key (Cntr-Enter)
more than once, they stay around and messages keep flashing on the screen.
I haven't figure out if I'm doing something wrong or the program's logic
is wrong, (probably my fault).
Many of the ground communications don't have any variety in them
and as such seem fake. For example, once you get the clearence
from Clr. del. the sequence of keystrokes until you are cleared for
takeoff are the same and I have seen no variation whatsover. It would
be nice if you can be given progressive taxi instructions, or other
"hold short" instructions. As it is now, once you get clearence,
the progress until takeoff is one of these things that you just
want to get done with because there is no variation. Oh well.
Another thing I would like to see is non ILS approaches. Currently,
as far as I have seen, all approaches are ILS where you only have
to worry about decision height. It would be nice to have no-precision
approaches where you are graded based on you performance similar to the
ILS grading. Of course no one sais you can't do them
but there is no performance feedback.
As a summary, I would say that if one just wants to fly around and
see scenery, this is not a good program to buy. Scenery watching at
250 knots is not very good. On the other hand, the precise US coverage
of VORs and major airports is excellent, the instrument graphics are
good enough for IFR flying, and the ATC interaction, even though
still has some way to go, is by far the best I've seen anywhere.
For a taste of real IFR flying (or at least the logistics associated with
it) this is a must have!! Now, I'm interested to see how long it
will take to do the 96 flights before finishing a career.
> 4). How might it run on a 386DX/25MHz?
I have a 386DX/20MHz and it runs fine, where fine means that I have
never seen oscillations because of the slow response time. I think
the intelligence of the program to reduce scene complexity at critical
moments is responsible for that.
--
Yiannis E. Papelis, - Electrical & Computer Engineering, U of Iowa
Center of Computer Aided Design- Home of the Iowa Driving Simulator & future
e-mail: yia...@ccad.uiowa.edu - home of the National Advanced Driving Simulator
John P. Mechalas
You can dial 122.20 (Flight Service) and they will come back with the proper
frequencies for the current airport. Thus, no guessing on which ATIS or
Tower frequency to choose. Not realistic, sure, but it helps playability.
J. Daniel Ozeran
>I have a 386DX/20MHz and it runs fine, where fine means that I have
>never seen oscillations because of the slow response time. I think
>the intelligence of the program to reduce scene complexity at critical
>moments is responsible for that.
>
I also get the infinite loop ATC errors, sometimes routing me
around an airport until I just quit.
Dan.
--
J. Daniel Ozeran | Dept. of Biochemistry and
dan-o...@uchicago.edu | Molecular Biology and
oz...@midway.uchicago.edu | The Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.
joz...@biovax.uchicago.edu| Mental Retardation Research Center
Chris Craig
>Is there an upgrade available for us "red box" people? I haven't heard
>anything from subLOGIC about any upgrade deals...
According to the subLOGIC rep on Compu$erve, here's the deal:
Send $19.95 plus $3.50 s/h to
subLOGIC
501 Kenyon Rd.
Champaign, IL 61820
You *have* to send your original disks, too. If you bought it less
than 30 days ago, also send the receipt and I believe it's free.
People outside the US have to go through the appropriate distributor.
New stuff includes:
All known bugs are fixed.
Talking ATC via SoundBlaster
HSI (horizontal situation indicator)
and a few others I can't remember.
Chris
Hoi Chong
> In article <1992Nov30.0...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> mech...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (John P. Mechalas) writes:
>>Is there an upgrade available for us "red box" people? I haven't heard
>>anything from subLOGIC about any upgrade deals...
>
> According to the subLOGIC rep on Compu$erve, here's the deal:
>
> Send $19.95 plus $3.50 s/h to
>
> subLOGIC
> 501 Kenyon Rd.
> Champaign, IL 61820
>
> You *have* to send your original disks, too. If you bought it less
> than 30 days ago, also send the receipt and I believe it's free.
> People outside the US have to go through the appropriate distributor.
>
> New stuff includes:
>
> All known bugs are fixed.
> Talking ATC via SoundBlaster
TALKing to ATC? This is a new one. Please let me know how. Thanks.
Chris Craig
>From article <1992Nov30.2...@athena.mit.edu>, by crc...@athena.mit.edu (Chris Craig):
>>
>> All known bugs are fixed.
>> Talking ATC via SoundBlaster
>
>TALKing to ATC? This is a new one. Please let me know how. Thanks.
No. I guess I worded it poorly. ATC talks to you via the SB. You
still use keyboard commands to talk to ATC.
Chris