ired
of the same old radio chatter in FS? I know you've already heard that
there is significant turbulence in the area, in that smooth robotic
voice that replays every few minutes in the default advwav files...Well now, hang on to your hats! Er, earphones! With over 300 actual wav files from real ATC sources, comes REALATC by Ralph Zimmerman and soon PapaTango (the makers of FSFX). REALATC gives any sim pilot the ability to hear in the background real radio calls and transmissions while flying. These files will play during free flight or any adventure compiled by Flight Shop or WinPlanner. You will never want to fly in silence again, as your ears will be treated to loud, rapid fire, stressful and often comical ATC radio chatter just as heard in real life.
What makes REALATC so special is the fact that you will hear only the appropriate chatter for each phase of flight you're in. Here's what I mean:
|
GROUND CONTROL |
When you run the REALATC adventure, you'll be parked on the ground, and the radio will already be set to a preset ground frequency. You will here misc. ground control traffic and IFR routing clearances given and confirmed as in real life. You will enjoy this while taxiing to the runway in use. Upon reaching the runway, you must set flaps for takeoff naturally and in real life this happens near the departure end of the holding line. Well, now you will be treated to the next stage in REALATC! |
|
TOWER CONTROL |
When you have set takeoff flaps the comm radio switches to a random tower frequency and you'll hear aircraft in the immediate airport area being given landing and takeoff instructions. You'll hear real airline calls and quite a mixutre of general and commercial aviation. The action is heavy, yielding a perfect feeling of operating at a busy jetport. You will hear tower chatter until the landing gear bumps up into the wheel well! |
| DEPARTURE | Once the landing gear is up and locked - you will now be "switched" over to to a random departure frequency. This will provide you with radio chatter associated with ILS vectors, arrivals, climbs, descents and advisories. The wav files played were all taped from real departure/approach segments of ATC. You will hear no takeoff or landing clearances here...just the real McCoy! This segment will play randomly and repeat gradually if you remain below 10,000 feet I believe. At any rate this segment continues until a climb into higher altitude commences! |
| CENTER | If you're flying a jetliner in the flightlevels you will be treated virtually non-repeating chatter that's all dealing with traffic, high altitude references and other talk that's less hectic and more common with just jet traffic. I found these so nice and "random" that even on long flights I never got tired of hearing the radio. It just gives us flightsimming jet pilots more realism to listen too! This segment will last until descending to lower altitude approprate to an approach/departure facility. |
| APPROACH | You'll now hear as you descend the same files as in the earlier segment of the flight between the tower and center airspace. The randomness will make it unlikely you'll hear exactly the same as before. |
| TOWER | You will be switched over to tower upon selecting gear down. |
| GROUND | You will be switched over to ground upon raising flaps after clearing the active runway. |
REALATC simply works as it is supposed to! It's installation is a breeze and operation as simple as loading any adventure or compiling one in Flight Shop. I personally used it mostly by selecting one of the seven adv's for weather and ATC changes while flying without a Flight Shop adventure.
You will need some 30 megs of free space once it's installed, but as I found it was worth it. I don't have much hard disk space left, but REALATC had me deleting planes like crazy to fit it in!
If you want just a little more realism, you will be sure to get a lot of it with REALATC!
Currently, contact Ralph Zimmerman at
rzimmerm@cris.com
for ordering information.
Visit Ralph Zimmerman's
home page
Read Ralph Zimmerman's
Who's Who listing