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- Facility
- HOU Hobby Tower
Compiling a list of limitations for STARS/ ARTS IIE, not sure there are any ARTS IIE facilities left, but besides weather for STARS and the sweeps for ARTS, anyone want to add anything?
STARS Limitations
- Thread starter ClutchingTin
- Start date
Maybe it's just us but I'm certain that you can't start an automated handoff to an adjacent facility if the aircraft is more than 50 miles from the boundary of the facility. It just flashes "IF".
Having to amend altitudes to flash guys is idiotic. Or amending route. I should be able to flash an aircraft to literally any of my neighboring facilities.
Having to amend altitudes to flash guys is idiotic. Or amending route. I should be able to flash an aircraft to literally any of my neighboring facilities.
Think about if your neighboring facility had multiple sectors? How would the system know which sector to flash it to? This is the same concept as the center feeding a tracon. It's based on the altitude and routing in the machine, which is why you need to update that.
I agree it's not ideal, but it alerts you that something is wrong in the flight plan, and with the exception of maybe an arriving aircraft, you really should be updating the route so the next guy knows where he's going and what he's doing. Happy flight plan = flashes all day.
32andBelow
Legendary Member
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Does the tracon not just flash it to the “correct” sector and the combination on the center side will sort it out
yes? but we aren't talking about combining sectors. would be nice if tracon to tracon interfacility you could see what scope it went to, though.
HenryTheAce
Forum Sage
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Center controller who transferred to a tracon checking in.... literally the whole thing. All of it. All of STARs is limiting.
The goddang freaking blasted ABC keyboard.
For us if a guy is on an IFR flight plan he'll start flashing automatically but if he's on VFR flight following you have to enter a "requested" altitude (++NNN, slew-enter) in order for the tag to auto-flash. Otherwise you have to initiate it yourself. Is it like that everywhere? That's stupid.
We do see what scope it goes to, you see it in the left-hand scratchpad timesharing with altitude when it's in the flash and for a few seconds after they buy the handoff.
The center sees which scope in the tracon gets it, but the tracon-to-tracon doesn't see the scope at the receiving tracon that I'm aware of. But i work at a level 4 tower, so just talking out of my backside!
HenryTheAce
Forum Sage
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You are correct
Peter Gibbons
Legendary Member
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The keyboard. Flight planning. No ability to edit without deleting everything typed after what you need to edit.
Basically all interface issues as far as I'm concerned at this point.
Basically all interface issues as far as I'm concerned at this point.
We specify the sector for all handoffs, local and those in the NAS.
Ours auto flashes to center but not other TRACONS. And I agree, the ABC keyboard is terrible.
For us we see three characters in the format "21P" where "2" is the facility (for us it's clockwise, the surrounding facilities are 1, 2, 3, 4... starting with the one to our north) and "1P" is the specific scope at that facility. Or for center it's "C28" where "28" is the center sector. The characters show up timesharing with the lefthand scratchpad and the Mode C readout, and we see them going both ways—both inbound and outbound handoffs. This is at a STARS facility.
You guys don't have that?
I'll add another stupid limitation, the fact that all these different features aren't standard...
FightingIrish2012
Legendary Member
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How about STARS gets a RTE route key like the center? Route key, slew and enter, and it pops up a line showing the remaining route of flight.
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From a user interface perspective STARS is one of the most miserable systems I’ve ever used. I’ve worked with everything from a 30 year old payroll system to a prerelease version of new cellphone activation tool. It’s not even close either. It’s so unintuitive and unforgiving, it knows when you’ve done something wrong but offers no clues on how to fix it. FDIO is the same but at least that has the excuse of actually being really old.
Auto flash can be the devil. Apparently it also pisses off center controllers.
Okay, maybe that explains why after the next facility buys radar on the tag the SPAT changes.... makes so much sense. Now if only I could decipher the gibberish in the scratch pad I could actually understand what it means. It's possible I learned something today! I'll take that info back to my level 4 tower.
It's old and clunky but it's also amazing what you can actually do with both systems if you know how. They're quirky and almost designed in the DOS era where you had to know what you wanted it to do and how to do it or you effectively couldn't do it. I mean, the fact the FDIO knows every airway, fix, intersection, etc, and what ties in and what doesn't... and they can maintain that database, it something I think a lot of us take for granted.
Speaking of is there a way to tell what center sector bought the hand off?
GulfBravoPapa
⭐SuperStar
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- 1,987
It says when it is in the handoff status who it is flashing to
Maybe we should make another thread of STARS tips and tricks...
you guys ever done *z slew? I don't know what all the info is but I know it tells you the track your plane is actually on. Helps figure out how much the wind is actually pushing your planes.
I know I'm asking about after it's been accepte. Same for other TRACONs as well.
Ours shows in the data block who took the hand off or it's flashing to. so you could flash it to 41P but then see that 41E took it.
