Global ATC Simulator

As a line pilot on the B738 based in Cape Town, South Africa, I thought I'd have a bash at things from 'the other side of the screen' as it were. I've tried other ATC sims in the past, but frankly the hideous text interactions have always put me off - speech recognition has also not been up to spec, plus I've always wanted to play in my own back yard, ie the airfields I normally fly to. Thankfully, the simple drag and drop type interface in GATC, as well as the global database makes this all possible. Wall-o-text to follow: The simple tutorials give you the basics of the interface which are easy to grasp, but very little 'training' in how to be an ATC (more tutorials are available on the Aerosoft website and are apparently more comprehensive, so this isn't a knock against the product). There are however, quite a few simplifications of procedures; some examples are no altimeter setting changes, no Mach/IAS conversion (you essentially tell the aircraft what ground speed to fly it seems unlike RL), likewise you tell the aircraft what track to fly (they seem to compensate for wind drift for you, not always done IRL unless asked for). The pilots are also all vegetables (don't joke, most of us are at least one step up from that!) in that they will happily fly into each other, and possibly the ground too. As an example, my very first flight was ended almost immediately after I cleared somebody for take off, then told the aircraft following to line up. IRL, the crew in the 2nd aircraft would simply wait until there was space to line up behind the departing traffic, but nope, the scenario ended as they taxiied straight into the other aircraft, which had actually reached 40kts already so was well clear (there is no simulation of intersection departures). There is also no simulation of ACAS RA's or EGPWS terrain avoidance (IRL a crew will avoid terrain and other transponder equipped aircraft). Also, with a bit of a crosswind aircraft will be unable to land and will constantly go-around - IRL, operational and procedural constraints often dictate a less than optimal runway; crews will only refuse in an emergency, or if the crosswind is considered excessive (crew restrictions, aircraft crosswind limits). For example, I 'forced' the use of RWY01 in FACT, with a wind of 340@15 aircraft were unable to land - IRL, using RWY34 (a shorter runway) isn't often done. Basically I was looking for a bit more intelligence from the aircraft, perhaps an unrealistic expectation (actually, given the poor progress of AI in games in general, definitely unrealistic). As it stands now, you're basically remote controlling some drones (the way of the future?) The other thing I'd like to see is being able to clear aircraft for a visual approach without such harsh angular restrictions (they must be basically on final to accept a visual in game, in which case what's the point of the visual? May as well use the ILS.) IRL, if I can see the field and certain other constraints are met, if I'm cleared for a visual I fly myself onto final and land, from any direction (right or left, as cleared). I'd also like to be able to give them the option of flying at whatever speed they would like - IRL, the aircrafts FMC and company policy would dictate some kind of 'econ' descent (and as mentioned earlier, there's no transition between Mach number and IAS) and that's what crew would like to fly at - which brings me to my next point. I would have really liked to see some kind of efficiency rating - as it stands there seems to be no penalty whatsoever (and conversely no reward) for doing anything efficiently. IRL, pilots would scream bloody murder (after the flight of course) if you just 'forgot' to clear them to land (as I just did with Air France, sorry guys). Likewise, companies would like direct routings in empty skies - currently, you can leave everybody on a long roundabout departure and it makes no difference. To counter this, I'd like some kind of 'fuel efficiency' rating, comparing my performance to the worst case (ie all departures/arrivals flown in their entirety, aircraft held up in their climbouts etc). Along the lines of Max fuel burn/time enroute until clear of the sector vs actual fuel burn/time in the airspace. Something like that. Some nice points, which I've found you can't always take for granted, are realistic times for lining up and getting rolling, as well a plausible simulation of what we often struggle with - energy management on the approach, in other words the old 'I can go down or slow down, but not both at once' problem. But I'm being picky. At it's core, GATC offers a taste of the practical business of safely routing aircraft into and out of a worldwide database of airfields, including real world SIDs/STARs which is great. The simplifications of procedures don't really get in the way of this IMHO. It works, it's fun (if you like ATCing) and it covers the basics quite neatly in an easy to use interface. All my gripes could really be summed up as 'aircraft AI', perhaps something that is a bit beyond the scope of this project to do properly. I can therefore recommend it, again, assuming you have an interest in the subject at hand of course.

I did honestly not expect it to be this basic Yes, you can import AIRAC, but the level of simulation is something you expect out of a tablet game. No communication, just order planes like you do on tablet games with no rules. Don't even dream of QNH, transision levels, flightplan, transponder, hand-offs or crosswind for that matter.

This is one of the most technically compehensive ATC sims I have ever seen. Being a private pilot myself, I find it very interesting to be able to load up a controlled airport in my area and see the operations from the perspective of the controllers on the ground. So far I have played around in CYXU and CYYZ with real weather and I am impressed. However, the sim does lack and could use some more immersion elements like text to speech and speech control, but it makes up for it by providing a highly detailed TRACON sim that conveys accurate approach and depature procedures for pretty much every airport around the world. I recommend this mostly to people who have an interest in the procedural aspects relating to civilian aviation. Casuals will indeed lose interest fast I imagine.

Short: Too pricey for an airport database with something added that feels like "what-if" - trial for landing and departure. Long: Yes, yes - this is a SIM. I get it. And it is maybe quite accurate when it comes to airport data base data. However: a) I could not find any type of real traffic. So, only the Airport basis may be accurate. At least with scenarios, the game can somewhat emulate real traffic like here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/270830/discussions/0/619574421615322074/ b) This "game" runs almost by itself as if the simlated world was perfect with perfect pilots and weather conditions. There is no real challenge - except make the settings harder or chose "Rush Hour" as increasingly hard mode. c) The interface (click-and-drop + Mousewheel) removes the tension by making communication too easy. d) GUI lables with randomly changing font sizes on Win 8.1 However, http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/apps-and-windows-store/app-display-issues --> "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" should do the trick e) No active Steam Forum support - to me it appears that the game is more of a hobby-project than a professional product by a game development studio. Keeping this in mind makes the poor support somewhat bearable. All other statements about this game may be accureate (see reviews below) - but for a casual ATC gamer ("Air Traffic Controller 3", "Tower! 2011", "atc-sim.com") that seeks for some challange, this game is not worth the high price. I would be happy to see some improvements on the actual game mechanics so I can change my assessment. Just to make it clear: The game has quite some potential and I enjoy arcading with it a lot. But it is too arcady to be a sim and to simplistic to be an arcade like I am ATC3 or Tower!2011 But with a few tweaks, the game could be a real good sim. Price tag however, is still too high.

Great for aviation enthusiasts and non enthusiasts. Don't expect high graphics as this is a simulator of an air traffic control radar screen. This can be rewarding and frustrating in equal measures. The biggest downside is that you cannot zoom in and out of specific sectors of your radar screen, you can only zoom in on the airport it self. This sometimes makes it very difficult to find specific waypoints. Despite this, you can order the movement of aircraft by means of drag and drop. Even though it is difficult to sometimes find the required waypoints which can be frustrating, this is a good simulation.

[h1]Summary[/h1] As a longtime ATC fan, I cannot recommend this game. It is too shallow and oversimplifies too many things - my main issues are: no MVAs, no other controllers beside you that you have to cooperate with, no realistic traffic, no realistic flight models, and of course, no voice control. ATCpro has it all, and trust me, you'll do much better buying that one. [h1]Pros[/h1] 1. A lot of available airports with correct weather and navs. 2. Graphics are clear and approachable. 3. It's easy to learn. [h1]Cons[/h1] 1. No MVAs (Minimum Vectoring Altitude). 2. No voice control. 3. Very few airlines/callsigns. 4. No other controllers except for multiplayer. 5. There is only one station for you to man, no different radars, stations like approach, tower etc. 6. Flight model seems worse than in ATCpro and with fewer planes available. 7. It lacks a lot of commands an ATC operator can issue.

I have to say, I enjoy playing this game. I'm 55 year old, old school gamer, so the graphics are not an issue, for they are realistic enough. I wish there was a larger following of this game, and I wish there were other options in ATC type games. Younger folks who complain about this game need to learn to use their imagination, which seems to be lacking in many much younger folks. This is one of those games you can run in a second screen, while you are doing other things at the same time, yet, if you want something that demands more attention, turn up the complexity. I guarantee, there will always be a level that you can't keep up on. It also a small educational example of 3D thinking in your head. You will need to track and assign aircraft at different altitudes. Its actually a lot of fun.

If your a fan of Air Traffic Control simulators, then your going to love this. Easy interface, not a HUGE learning curve and you can play casual or ramp up the settings to a nightmare of traffic. It IS however missing some things that tried and true fans of ATC are going to miss. First off, it's not very accurate in how ATC is done, I believe this was done for playability...but even some basic things are missing....no hand offs to center, no frequency changes or transponder codes, no pop up traffic, no transition traffic, no vfr or small non-commerical traffic, no limits on altitude settings, no barometer settings...etc. Also, no scoring or evaluation system...just keeps track of how many are in the air, landed, departed and collided...but it don't track your overall career or ratings. So again, not horribly accurate, but very cool in that it allows you to control at airport locations all over the world and it's easy to jump right into and play. The point and click/drag interface makes a HUGE improvement over the old Tracon game many of us loved.

As a professional air traffic controller with many years of experience, this simulator is incorrect in many aspects, and does not give anywhere near an authentic experience. There is also a lot of incorrect information that simply hast been updated to the current regulations and SOPs. Save your money.

I've played many ATC sim games since the 90s. This one looks good at first but once you get into it, the bugs are too much to overcome. I can't see the flight strips, I can only see my mouse cursor change when I mouse over them. I tried changing the compatibility settings in the .pif file many different ways, nothing worked. There is no exit menu command option anywhere in the game, simply clicking the x on the upper right only closes the window and doesn't shut the game down even though the computer will think its not running, it still is running. Only way to exit game is to ctrl alt del and close the game in the task manager while the window is still open.