The Distance Tool
It is located on the right side of the main menu bar. It allows to display the distance between two points. These points can be an aircraft, a VOR, a NDB, or even a single geographic point.
After clicking on the distance separation tool icon, the user selects an aircraft by clicking on its TAG. After clicking has been done, a white line is following the mouse and displays a tag above it showing distance and heading from the first clicked point.
If the user clicks on a second point, the line remains displayed on screen.
When the user clicks on the icon the .distance
command ins entered to the command line. The user have the option to go down and write parameters manually. Two parameters can be entered that can be anything: FIX, NDB, VOR or airport name, aircraft callsign or a geographical point in the following format: N046.39.34.935,E020.24.14.512
. The user also have an option to change the .distance
command to .distance2
. This command will show direction values at both ends of the line.
Use the LEFT mouse click on the distance line to start measuring to another point.
Or use the RIGHT mouse click to remove it from the screen.
The Separation Tool
It is located on the right side of the main menu bar. Use it if you think that two aircraft are on convergent tracks and need special attention to avoid a conflict. This tool indicates the minimum distance between both aircraft and the time from now when this situation will occur. It displays also for each aircraft a bold white line from current position until minimum approach position.
The tag in the upper left corner is updated as both aircrafts situations evolve.
Use the LEFT mouse click on the lines to start measuring to another point.
Or use the RIGHT mouse click to remove them from the screen.
The Flight Plan Separation Tool
Use the same icon as before, but click it with the right mouse button. Then select two aircraft.
As seen from the picture in this case the convergent lines do not follow the actual heading, but the planned flight plan. The drawn line also turns at fixes to follow the flight plan route. But the picture you have is nearly the same as the simple separation tool.
But as far as the first intersection point is not the closest point along the route then it become a bit more interesting. The white lines are drawn from the planes to the first intersection point. The one that passes that point continues with white, but the latter one is drawn with thin red. Also you can see the distance in time to the intersection point. The lines are then drawn to the closest predicted point with time and distance data at the end. This function can be useful for planes that are following the same route from a point.
Use the LEFT mouse click on the lines to start measuring to another point.
Or use the RIGHT mouse click to remove them from the screen.