[Automated Sector File Updates]

To help me try and replicate it. Did you select the TMA profile or the Aerodrome profile for Broome?

[Automated Sector File Updates]

No I can't. What profile were you using?

[Automated Sector File Updates]

11 minutes ago, Angus McKenzie said:

Will this reset my saved settings (custom flight plan lists/departure lists/display settings) like the current installer does or will this not affect that?

Here's a copy of the VATPAC Updater Guide which is installed with the updater along with a shortcut on the desktop.

ReadMe.pdf

It explains what Euroscope settings are changed by the updater as well as the options for customising what is displayed by the .asr files. It provides more flexibility than the current Euroscope Package installer, but there are limits to ensure the package operates as expected.

To fully customise euroscope you can create your own profiles and .asr files and use the Standalone Euroscope update option explained in the guide, but I would suggest you only do this if you have an extensive knowledge of how Euroscope works.

[Automated Sector File Updates]

If you wish to remove the application you follow the usual process of opening the Windows "Apps and Features" (or the equivalent depending on your version of Windows), search for VATPAC and uninstall.

The installer places an entry in the Windows Task Scheduler to schedule the daily checks.

Use of the Updater is recommended to ensure our Controllers always have the latest sector files, but it is optional and the normal manual download of sector files will always be available

[Updates to VATPAC Euroscope Package]

The AIRAC 2005 update of the VATPAC Euroscope Package updates the following functionality

Profiles

• Procedural aerodromes now have a TMA profile to provide an approach display with radar mode.
• If aircraft are outside of radar coverage, no radar symbols will appear and only flight plan tags will be available as you would expect for a procedural position.
• An aerodrome display is also available with the "easy ground" option set so that aircraft can be seen irrespective of radar coverage to control aircraft within "visual sight" of the Tower.

To select the correct profile, the rule is

• Approach position (APP or procedural TWR) select a TMA profile.
• Any other Tower, Ground or Delivery position: select an Aerodrome profile

If you have installed the VATPAC Controller Client Updater, you will be automatically be offered the above changes.

Installer

The option of selecting where to install the Euroscope Package files is no longer available. The package will be installed in Documents\Euroscope.

The first installer prompt now requests the location where you installed Euroscope 3.1d, not where you want the Euroscope Package installed.

[Automated Sector File Updates]

45 minutes ago, Greg Barber said:

Can there be an option to turn this on or off? I would prefer to have it only check for updates when I ask it to.

To better answer your question it would help If I  understood why you would want to do this as this is the basic concept behind not having to remember to do the sector file updates. 

The program only runs once per day for about a second to do a check and consumes less than 5% CPU for that second. It does not run in the background once the check is complete and if there are no updates, you won't be aware it has run.

[Automated Sector File Updates]

14 minutes ago, William Teale said:

I hope the sector files will still be available for those of us not on Windows?

Absolutely, all previous methods of updating will still be available.

[Automated Sector File Updates]

3 hours ago, William Teale said:

I could probably achieve something similar using cron I imagine. Is the update check just looking at a url?

You will need to talk to Tom, it uses an API to the VATPAC Core

[Automated Sector File Updates]

The VATPAC Controller Client Updater has been released.

Instead of manually updating sector files or running the VATPAC Euroscope Package installer after each AIRAC update...

      Get the latest sector files automatically by installing the VATPAC Controller Client Updater.

What does it do?
The VATPAC Controller Client Updater automatically runs silently once a day and checks for updates to the following:

• Itself
• Euroscope
  • Either
    • VATPAC Euroscope Package (all files contained in the Euroscope Package, including the sector files) and VATPAC ATIS Generator Package ATIS airport control file and readme file
  • Or
    • Standalone Euroscope sector files, voice file and login profiles
• VRC
  • Standalone VRC sector files and .pof file

To install, run the  VATPAC Controller Client Updater (only the windows operating system is supported).

After installation, as well as the Controller Client Updater running silently once per day to check for updates, two desktop shortcuts will be on your PC:

• VATPAC Download Options - allows control over download options, clients enabled for updates and Euroscope display options.
• VATPAC Updater Guide

and these are also included in the windows Start Menu under VATPAC.

Existing VATPAC Euroscope Package users

You will not see any prompts after the Controller Client Updater is installed if you have the latest AIRAC as the Controller Client Updater can check the AIRAC status of the Euroscope Package.

Once you have installed the VATPAC Controller Client Updater, you no longer need to run the VATPAC Euroscope Package installer for each AIRAC update.

Standalone Euroscope and VRC users

Irrespective of whether you have the latest sector files, after installing the Controller Client Updater you will be prompted to download and install the latest sector files. After that, you will only be prompted when a new AIRAC is available.

Windows won't let me install the application

Go to Settings- Windows Security- App & Browser control and select "Warn". You then have the option of selecting More Info and Run anyway

Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the support of the beta testers (Tristan Garratt, Nathan Noble, Tracy Shiftman, Richard Quigley, Bailey Brown and Joshua Micallef) in giving their time to review and test this application in support of the VATPAC community.

I'd also like to acknowledge our IT director Tom Grozev for the development of the host admin component to securely control the release of updates and Eoin Motherway for the initial concept.

[Darwin Taxiways/Instructions]

3 hours ago, Brett Cummings said:

the holding point at the Western end of runway 11/29 is A1, not W3

Thanks Brett. I've updated the ES labels for YPDN for the AIRAC2006 release

[Marshall Islands]

Just to note. A meeting has been organised by Harrison

[Marshall Islands]

The Jepp approach charts only show Bucholz Tower 126.2. I believe it performs both an approach and tower service. When I researched the airport, I checked the MARAD.IO database and could not find a radar site, although being military may not be listed (The OZ military airport radars are listed in the database).

Thanks, your information regarding radar changes the situation, so I will work with Dir Ops on supporting the approach position as well as tower.

 

[Marshall Islands]

A good question Sean. Current plans are to stay with the real world positions.

There are only two small sectors that cover the small number of airways that connect to PKWA. 3 visibility points, one centred on PKWA and one each  covering the airways will provide coverage of the majority of the traffic from 100nm. 
 

There is no radar that I am aware of and with AFV, the radio coverage is independent of vis points, so I expect this to work for a procedural tower as you would only have radio contact until the aircraft is visual from the tower. We can review this once we have some experience operating the position.

[YMIA]

It was built with .Net Framework 4.6  I could rebuild it with a lower framework if you can't install 4.6

[YMIA]

I took an easy approach and used a ray casting algorithm that checks if each beginning waypoint lat long Coord is within a polygon boundary that defines the OZ FIR, discard those that do and add my OZ data to a sorted list to replace them. 
 

The exe file does this. 

[YMIA]

On 3/26/2020 at 1:14 PM, William Teale said:

Ah, so I need a navigraph subscription.

I've provided updated OZ data as per 

 

[Option to Update Euroscope RTE Probe for OZ Airspace]

This post is only for Euroscope users who don't subscribe to the Navigraph FMS service.

Euroscope provides a RTE probe function which shows the path of an aircraft's flight plan with estimates for each waypoint.

This function uses the SID/STAR info from the sector files and the contents of airway.txt which by default is a Navigraph file from Dec 2009 that is installed when you install Euroscope. Being over 10 years old, the airway data is now out of date, affecting the RTE probe function when there are valid flight plan routes filed.

If you subscribe to the Navigraph FMS service you can update this file to the current airways.

If you don't subscribe and want to have up to date RTE probe information for the Australian Airspace, I have extracted this from the published Australian Designated Airspace Handbook (DAH). To use this information you can either;

• run a small executable UpdateAirways.exe which will locate your copy of the airway.txt file originally shipped with Euroscope, remove all OZ air routes and replace them with up to date OZ items from the DAH. Note the air routes outside of Australia remain the same as originally provided. A once off backup is made of your original airway.txt as airway.orig.
• or, download just the OZ data, make a backup copy of your airway.txt, rename the downloaded file to airway.txt to replace your original file. Note: this file only works for RTE probe information within Australia and does not contain any data other than that in the DAH air route section.

You may need to change the Windows 10 Security, Check apps and files to "Warn" if Windows won't allow you to run UpdateAirways.exe

If of interest I can produce updates with each quarterly OZ AIRAC update.

[YMIA]

No issue at all, hence why I made the offer to produce an up to date airway.txt for Australia only. 

[YMIA]

1 hour ago, William Teale said:

Where are you getting the DAH airways data from?

From the AsA published Designated Airspace Handbook (DAH)

[YMIA]

No not too hard, you could use lat long filtering as the airway numbers and waypoint names are not unique across the world. The only requirement I am aware of is that the file must be sorted by waypoint. The only issue I see is that even the original Euroscope Airway.txt file is a navigraph file and subject to their licensing.

[YMIA]

1 hour ago, William Teale said:

Ah, so I need a navigraph subscription

If there is interest, I can generate an airway.txt file in the correct format from the DAH Airways data for every DAH update. I did a trial extract last year for the ATC training area. I have the old output file but will have to write the code again as I must have deleted it when there was no interest.

The catch: This file will only contain data for Australia, nothing for the Pacific or anywhere else in the world. So the ES RTE probe will only work for Australian sectors using this file.

[AIRAC2003]

13 hours ago, Will Reynolds said:

Just a heads up for you Peter

Thanks Will, I saw that the 2006 AIRAC files were published a few days ago. Fortunately most of the importing of this data is automated, but from past experience, I'll wait a little longer before I start as there are usually many amendments to fix errors in the DAH and ERSA prior to the release date.

But there will be a heap of work required to bring the YBBN local instructions up to date....

[YMIA]

6 minutes ago, William Teale said:

care to share those instructions for those of us unable to use the VATPAC package installer?

The instructions are in the file below. Whilst written specifically for the ES Package, if you don't use the ES Package, you just need to

1. create an FS Navigator folder where ever you like,
2. follow the readme.pdf instructions to download the latest FS Navigator FMC update
3. then open Euroscope, select OPEN SCT/Load FSNavigator data and select the airway.txt file in the FS Navigator/bin folder
4. then in Euroscope select OTHER SET/Save Profile which will save the location of the airway.txt file

Once completed, the airway.txt will be updated every time you use the Navigraph FMC Data Manager and Euroscope will automatically use it.

NOTE: The default standalone Euroscope setup with TAAATSMod installed only uses one profile - TAAATS.prf . if you have created several profile files (.prf) to use with Euroscope, you will have to repeat steps 3 and 4  after you open Euroscope with each .prf file.

If you use the VATPAC ES Package, just follow the Readme.pdf instructions as all the .prf files used in the ES Package have been pre-configured to point to Documents\Euroscope\VATPAC\Data\FS Navigator and the original ES airway.txt file copied there when you ran the installer.

readme.pdf

[YMIA]

2 hours ago, William Teale said:

(no RTE information drawn on my scope).

If you mean the Euroscope route probe, it uses the filed flight plan route and the airway.txt file which is not limited by the coverage of the sector airways data. eg using the vic_tma sector file I can select the route probe for an aircraft that has filed a  YMML to YSSY flight plan and the complete route with waypoints is shown on the screen even though YSSY is well beyond the sector file data. 

Just as a reminder to all Euroscope controllers:

If your airway.txt is not kept up to date using Navigraph then of course the route probe may fail due to out of date information.

If the flight plan is missing or incorrect you can use ATC Assist (which is kept updated with the latest Flight Planning Options table in the ERSA Flight Plan Requirements section) to get the preferred route to update the plan.

[YMIA]

As we have a very large airspace to cover we have a large number of sector files. To control the size, the sector file coverage is kept to the minimum required to support the controller positions for each sector file type. In the case of TMAs these are generally the minimum radius around a fixed point to include the controlled airports in that state to support Approach, tower and ground positions. For the Victorian TMA, it has to support the Melbourne area, East Sale and Albury, hence why Mildura is not included.

If not having Mildura in the sector file is stopping the ability to provide TMA position coverage for Victoria, please let me know why and I will look into it.