GCA?

[alb469]

Has there been any mention of a GCA function being added to fsx. With visibility down to almost zero it could make for some interesting landings

[expat]

Seems "talk down" is a sticky subject that myself and Charlie have broached a couple of times. The thread always seems to end up with a raging argument stimulation conversation about how a civilian flight sim will be hijacked by the military nuts and turned into a "shoot em up".  :(

However I will say it again:

GCA......YES PLEASE

Matt

[TheBod1357]

GCA stands for what?

[Delta_]

GCA stands for what?

Ground Controlled Approach.  

It means the atc can guide you into land in poor conditions using precision radar.  Basically the atc tell you what bank, rudder, throttle settings etc you need... They will tell what to change so you stay on track and land safely.

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

May I add that Cloud9's Aviano Air Base scenery has that GCA thing for FS9...

[C]

May I add that Cloud9's Aviano Air Base scenery has that GCA thing for FS9...

Mmm, I saw the demo video and was almost tempted. Maybe with a little tweaking it could be realistic enough. However, if MS were to write it into the code of the sim, then it would be much better...

As Matt says, we've debated this at length once or twice... I'm all for it...

[alb469]

Interesting We did not know it was military only.Is it? We were stationed at an RCAF base and was on many practice flights were the pilots practiced GCA landings. I just assumed it was commonplace at all airports. It is a tough course to learn how to be a GCA controller, having known a few during my RCAF time. Are there any at civil airports?

[C]

Interesting We did not know it was military only.Is it? We were stationed at an RCAF base and was on many practice flights were the pilots practiced GCA landings. I just assumed it was commonplace at all airports. It is a tough course to learn how to be a GCA controller, having known a few during my RCAF time. Are there any at civil airports?

I wouldn't say it was military only. Certainly I've never seen a civilian PAR (Precision approach radar - Talkdown) in my experience, but I'm sure civilian fields with radar could something such as an SRA...

[logjam]

GCA is used only by the Military, but some Aerodromes allow civilian flights to practise what they once did every day.  Actually, GCA approaches were never considered by the CAA, believing that all approaches should be in the hands of the pilot. The Military use it as matter of course, as a badly damaged aircraft may have lost most instruments during a mission. During my time with the RAF, I was most impressed with the US GCA controllers at Lakenheath and Mildenhall as they would seem to be more accurate, giving height information within 10 ft. I'm sure though that some of them must have been dreaming. The Brit GCA controllers all have to be trained pilots too, so they probably were more realistic with their precision approaches.