Radar Contact

[colwah 0]

Hello All

I was after some advice! Should I buy Radar Contact?

Is it easy to use and does it help with SIDS and STARS or do you still have to plan them etc.

Let me know your opinions!

Thanks

[allardjd 1,853]

RC does SIDs and DPs by something called NOTAMs, which is a dumb name, but not a bad feature. It gives pilot discretion to follow a published procedure or noise abatement procedures or terrain avoidance maneuvers autonomously up to the first waypoint. RC ATC will not bother you or give you vectors or altitudes until you reach your first waypoint IF you opt for NOTAMs when loading the flight plan. Using NOTAMs is entirely optional.

RC does not recognize STARS. You'll have to program the individual waypoints from the STAR into the flight plan and even then, RC will do as it wishes with you in the vertical. Also at some point as you get closer in to the airport you will begin to get vectors that will probably take you away from the STAR route. That in itself is not unrealistic as STARS generally only take you to the general neighborhood of the airport. It's my impression that you end up deviating from the published STAR a little earlier in the RC than you might in the RW, but not sure of that.

It's much more realistically done than MS ATC and is much better, however it is still somewhat divergent from RW procedures.

Is it easy? Let's put it this way - it's no more difficult than IFR flight ever is. Familiarity helps a lot - the first time using it is a teeth gnasher - the tenth time is better. RC has some good tutorials and you should take th time to go through them even if you don't care for the AC types used. You'll learn a lot.

Should you buy it? Only you can decide that. It's better than MS ATC and is definitely a step closer to reality than anything else I know in the FS world with the possible exception of things like VATSIM that use real people as interactive controllers. I've not used that but suspect that too has some disconnects with the RW, particularly with respect to traffic volumes and interactions and also the lack of a cockpit crew to take on some of the extra workload. RC is a good compromise and for me, at least, satisfies my needs.

John