MAESTRO plugin 1.1 beta 2

[Juha Holopainen]

Changes from beta 1:

• bugfixes

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Juha Holopainen

[Bernardo Reis (1096507)]

Is there an easy way to reload settings or you need to reload the plugin?

[Juha Holopainen]

The only way besides reloading the whole plugin is to click "Ok" on the setup window where you define the ICAO code and master/slave/standalone stuff. That triggers an automatic settings reload.

[Erik Wachters (815026)]

Working on the master/slave setup to an FTP server:

- For both master and slave the first time connecting triggers always a "revert to STANDALOVE" error. The second time it works.

[Lukas Agerskov (1226374)]

@Juha Holopainen Tries to get the Maestro to work. The red line that signifies the arrival time. Is there any way to have that line moved so it displays the time of the feeder fixes instead? I believe this is the setup in real life. 

 

I have attached a picture of the real one below. There the line is the different fixes, which are the handover to APP 

[Erik Wachters (815026)]

IRL you can offline define per timeline the behavior of the "red line".

[Max Kuhla (1157125)]

Testing master+slave functionality.

Is there any way to not loose the previous sequencing when taking over as master after someone else?

We first tried that the relieving controller is active as slave (web+local), and then going master after the first master disconnects, we tried (web) and (web+local), in the hopes that it would read the present local file containing the sequence from the first master. This was not the case, it always started "fresh" losing the previously downloaded data.

 

Would it be a solution for the relieving master to start only as slave (local), and then change to master (local) or (web+local)?

Any ideas, if it is at all possible to somehow keep the data?

Edited July 4, 2023 by Max Kuhla (1157125)

[Juha Holopainen]

It may work if you force the plugin to save the downloaded data in a file (see the "System_SaveType" setting). Loading a previous sequence from the file is an older part of the code though so it may not be "connected" anymore as this area is currently being worked on.

The plan is for the plugin to be able to load a previous sequence as a starting point when switching from slave to either standalone or master mode. It would load the existing sequence either from memory (always available except after a plugin or program crash) or from a file (always available assuming saving the sequence to a file had been set up).

[Juha Holopainen]

The setup possibilities for the timelines will not be nearly as extensive as the real system for various reasons. It may be possible in the future to define the feeders view to display the feeder time instead of the threshold time, but probably in some simplified way. I'll have to do some testing to see how it would work, so no promises on when or if, but the plan is at least to try it out. 

[Lukas Agerskov (1226374)]

1 hour ago, Juha Holopainen said:

The setup possibilities for the timelines will not be nearly as extensive as the real system for various reasons. It may be possible in the future to define the feeders view to display the feeder time instead of the threshold time, but probably in some simplified way. I'll have to do some testing to see how it would work, so no promises on when or if, but the plan is at least to try it out. 

Yeah I tested it yesterday with not much success at a busy event. 

One of the main problems are that as they come close to the ILS, there comes greater uncertainty, and the times starts to tumble. I had periodically a request for 30-.45 minutes delay event though there was not that busy. I think the landing prediction goes nuts when they start no downwind vectors.

 

for Denmark at least  I can certainly see the case of where a TMA capacity  is determined, and then the feeder points,  which are entries into the TMA will be the basis of the calculation, and then whatever happens on the other side (inside the TMA) is not monitored. Don't know whether its even possible to model

[Max Kuhla (1157125)]

A request/idea for functionality:

For the Swedish setup, optimally you should be able to use it for ESSA or EKCH, depending on which sectors you are covering.

To avoid the need to manually change the server configuration depending on which airport you select, I`d suggest an option, or standard functionality to create/use a folder for each respective airport on the FTP server, to be able to use for different airports on the same server.

Spoiler

E.g: The setup uses “aman.vatsim-scandinavia.org” as server, when selecting ESSA in the setup dialog, it uploads/loads the data to/from “aman.vatsim-scandinavia.org/essa” automatically, this makes it possible for EKDK and ESMM using the server “aman.vatsim-scandinavia.org/ekch” at the same time 

Would this be something possible to implement? Having to manually change the server address depending on airport could be a put off for some controllers, calling it inconvenient and not easy enough to use, making the plugin less useful than it could become on a bigger scale.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Max Kuhla (1157125)

[Max Kuhla (1157125)]

I don't know if this is a bug?  

I had issues with the plugin not reading my custom color values for unstable and stable (but somehow for superstable)

Having "System_Version=1" in the airport specific sections seemed to cause the issue, having it only on top of the settings applied for all airport solved my problem.

[Juha Holopainen]

The sequence calculation uses EuroScope predictions all the way to the destination. Generally speaking it works rather well assuming the predicted routes are reasonable and the calculated sequence is actually used. Once the tracks start getting vectored off the predicted path, the sequence starts adjusting. For shortcuts, the following aircraft are shifted forward as there is now vacant space ahead, and for delay vectors the following aircraft start getting pushed back. This is kind of natural as significantly longer paths inside the TMA mean there are much more aircraft than there should be. By far the biggest sources for errors are the EuroScope route prediction not being up to date (a stuck previous direct-to for example causing a u-turn in the route) or the calculated sequence not being followed AND the sequence not being updated accordingly. Ideally there should be someone monitoring the sequence at all times and adjusting it to match with the landing sequence actually being set up by the TMA controllers. Left on its own, the plugin sticks to its sequence until it's clearly wrong - the sequence will eventually be automatically corrected when aircraft are observed to be on final approach.

The web sequence files contain the airport ICAO in their names so more than one airport can be hosted in the same folder. It will be possible in the future to define airport-specific paths as well if necessary.

As the System_Version=1 setting sets up the version-specific colors, any settings to adjust those colors need to be below that setting line to have effect.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Juha Holopainen