VFR Stage Two: An Open World Experience Within BeyondATC
- 40 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Hello everyone! We know we've been quiet on the VFR Stage Two front - and while it's taken a bit longer than we'd like, in between VFR, we've spent some much-needed time gathering your feedback with our survey, improving our backend infrastructure, working on IFR and taking on your feedback from Stage One.
We were very excited to hear the feedback from Stage One; we heard a lot of positive feedback on our approach to focusing on three regions, those being the US, UK and AUS, as well as seeing you fly circuits and having interaction with IFR traffic. That all being said, we're really excited to now share some more details on our upcoming VFR Stage Two release, what it will include, what it won't and how you can expect the VFR Stage Two update to change your VFR and IFR experience within BeyondATC.
Stage Two brings a wealth of new features into BeyondATC that transform flights within BeyondATC from a linear journey into a dynamic experience. Read more below to find out how Stage Two achieves this.
New Features coming to BeyondATC
Dynamic Airport Loading
Our headline feature is a new dynamic airport loading system in BeyondATC. As you fly around the world, BeyondATC will now load airports around you, enabling you to tune into different frequencies, interact with any controller, land, take off and repeat - allowing you to take your VFR flights anywhere you want.
We'll be pushing dynamic airport loading into IFR at the same time as well, allowing you to tune into and listen to different controllers, weather stations, and airports along your route.
The screenshots above show a VFR flight from Kemble (EGBP) to Exeter (EGTE), showing the relevant VFR frequencies based on the aircraft's location. Using our new dynamic loading system, we can now tune to Bristol radar to request a control zone transit, letting us continue down to Exeter.
Important note: Whilst we now have a dynamic loading system, we still require a flight plan for IFR and VFR flights; this allows us to spawn traffic along your route and load the data we need for your flight efficiently. VFR flights can still interact and land anywhere they want within BeyondATC.
Important note: For optimisation reasons, traffic will not spawn (or communicate) with ground at these dynamic airports; they will start and end their flights on the runway of non-player airports. An airport is made a 'player airport' when you have it in your flight plan, or you enter its pattern/land at dynamic airports.
Expanded Radios
To maximise the benefits of dynamic loading, we've enhanced support for the COM2 radio in your aircraft for both IFR and VFR. Instead of being restricted to ATIS frequencies, you can now tune to any frequency on your second radio, with support for independent volume controls and expanded ability to detect whether your radio is monitoring COM1 or COM2.
Important note: COM2 launches with 'monitor only' support - this means you will not be able to transmit on your COM2 radio; there are some technical limitations as to why; however, we hope this COM2 support will already provide a much more flexible and immersive experience when using BeyondATC.
Look out for some examples of COM2 being used in the screenshots and videos further down.
More Frequencies and Controller Types
Stage two brings in more support for frequencies, including mappings for UNICOM, FIS, FSS, AGCS, AFIS, and AWOS, allowing us to develop flows for these new controllers that are encountered on VFR flights. We've also brought in LARS and London and Scottish Information to BeyondATC.
UNICOM: While stage one had manual UNICOM frequencies, stage two brings UNICOM mappings from mappings within the sim; this means if an airport shows it has a UNICOM frequency in the sim, you'll be able to tune to it in BeyondATC.
We've also added self-announce options to UNICOM/SAFETYCOM/CTAF/Air to ground frequencies, giving you the ability to speak your intention on the radio.
Important note: AI traffic will not use UNICOM or the other broadcast frequencies in stage two - this will come at a later date as we look to add VFR traffic. This, however, is how VFR traffic will announce their intentions on broadcast frequencies when VFR traffic is introduced.
BeyondATC now supports self-announcement on broadcast frequencies, in preparation for future VFR traffic. LARS: LARS (Lower Area Radar Service) are radar services located around the UK; they offer VFR flights access to basic and traffic services outside of controlled airspace. We've mapped the up-to-date LARS controllers into BeyondATC so you can interact with them in your VFR flight, including handoffs, free calls, squawks, and realistic boundary limits. While LARS controllers currently operate 24/7 in BeyondATC, we have the data for future LARS opening time simulation and will monitor demand and impact.
FIS: FIS (Flight Information Service) provides flight information to aircraft; in the UK, this includes London and Scottish Information, which allow you to receive basic service. We aim to expand this system as much as possible, although right now you can expect London and Scottish to act like a country-wide LARS, offering you a 'basic service'.
AFIS: AFIS (Aerodrome Flight Information Service) are controllers that operate at airfields where traffic is high enough to justify a service of some sort but not enough to justify a fully controlled service. In a UK context, AFIS controllers will control your ground movements and report airfield information, but they do not operate as tower controllers; as such, landing, taking off, and deconfliction in the air is down to the pilot's discretion.
Another addition we've started experimenting with is chained requests - take, in the case of Kemble, it is common for aircraft to request airfield information and taxi in the same call - while the system is in its infancy, we've expanded our voice system to handle these chained requests on select controllers and requests - removing the need to transmit two separate requests.
FSS: FSS (Flight Service Stations) provide US VFR aircraft weather information, PIREP handling, NOTAM updates, and flight planning. Upon the stage two launch, these stations will be mapped but won't provide their full service range; notably, NOTAM and flight planning will not be supported on these stations.
AWOS/ASOS/AWIS: AWOS (Automated Weather Observing System) and ASOS (Automated Surface Observing System) are weather reporting frequencies, unlike an ATIS that reports airfield information and is updated periodically; AWOS and ASOS's frequencies provide real-time weather information. Primarily used in the US at smaller fields, we've also added AWIS (Aerodrome weather information service) for Australian airfields.
Toolbar V3
To complement our Stage Two release, and to show some love to our VR and sim pit pilots, we've overhauled our toolbar for MSFS2020 and 2024, bringing a much closer BeyondATC UI experience directly into the sim. The toolbar will launch with Stage Two and go straight to EA on the next update after Stage Two is released to experimental, due to some client changes - a BeyondATC update is required to use the new toolbar.
What else is in the toolbar?
The D-ATIS page has been redesigned into a unified 'frequencies' page.
You can now start and end your BeyondATC flights from within the toolbar.
Turnaround support has been added to the toolbar.
Common settings can be controlled through the toolbar, including a taxi map toggle (for MSFS2024 only).
We've put a lot of effort into allowing different toolbar sizes as well, so it can be as small or as large as you require.
You can preview a short video of the new toolbar, as well as COM2 in action, below.
(This video includes a development build - certain developer options are shown)
New VFR Region Features
Stage Two aims to deliver a much more unified VFR experience - expanding VFR in BeyondATC to cover the whole VFR flow, allowing you to fly as you would in the real world. So here's a summary of what we've added in VFR to accomplish that.
Note: This list is not exhaustive, and features may currently be implemented in just one region and expanded over the course of Stage Two development.
Global
Traffic alert systems for traffic services and flight following - including new calls to IFR traffic about activity in and around controlled airspace.
Broadcast frequencies and the ability to blind transmit to them - this includes better handling at uncontrolled fields where you can now use BeyondATC natively from an uncontrolled field.
More intelligent squawk code assignment and enforcement based on region.
Utilisation of new airspace data to denote what type of airspace an aircraft is flying in.
Similar callsign detection - meaning ATC will advise the use of full callsigns if two similar shortened callsigns are on frequency.
Allow the loading of smaller fields, including private fields with no scenery data, increasing the flexibility of VFR flights.
Work has been done in cleaning up the frequency data we get from the sim, including better handling for 8.33 kHz frequencies.
Controller workload denoting if certain VFR services are available, including the ability to hold you outside of controlled airspace or deny your request if they are under increased workload.
US
Flight following.
Added ident handling, with a chance for US controllers to ask you to ident (impacted by traffic density).
An overhaul of departure and arrival handling to incorporate arrival into various airspaces.
Airspace class awareness (Bravo, Charlie and Delta handling).
This includes systems of airspace breach monitoring.
Class B transit requests and coordinated handoffs when under flight following.
AWOS/ASOS stations.
UK
Basic/Traffic Services.
LARS (Lower Airspace Radar Services).
AFIS (Aerodrome Flight Information Service).
AGCS (Air/Ground Communication Service).
FIS (Flight Information Service) - London and Scottish.
Overhaul of arrival and departure handling.
Control zone transits.
VRP's (Visual Reference Points).
ASR (Altitude Setting Regions).
AUS
Flight following.
AWIS (We've also added AWIB stations for NZ).
A note: in addition to Canada using FAA rules, we've switched NZ to use AUS VFR rules.
New option to change VFR flight region
A new option will come with Stage Two that allows you to change which VFR rules apply when flying outside of the US/UK/AUS.
What's not in stage two?
Stage two aims to bring a much richer VFR experience, building upon the foundations stage one provided. To do this, we've focused on the player-specific parts of VFR for stage two, so what does that mean?
VFR traffic will come with Stage Three of VFR - over the coming months we'll be looking to do a staggered release of traffic into the experimental build, first focusing on enroute traffic, to make flight following, traffic services and broadcast frequencies come alive within BeyondATC and then we'll move inwards, towards having VFR flights fly into, out of and around airports - with the ultimate goal of seeing VFR traffic do circuits, transit airspace and fly all around you in both VFR and IFR.
Of course, IFR traffic is present in Stage Two, and we've worked on improving deconfliction and adding IFR traffic calls to ensure ATC is keeping flights safely separated; however, systems such as VFR vectoring and deconfliction still require a lot of work and are very much going to be active parts of continued development in Stage Two over the course of its time in the experimental builds.
As VFR is generally a more dynamic experience, we want to ensure our traffic reacts in dynamic ways - from student pilots doing their training patterns all the way up to veterans navigating complex airspace, we hope to bring a variety to transmissions and behaviours that is not seen in IFR. So over the next few months, our goals will be to continue to develop VFR Stage Two in experimental - focusing on VFR traffic, as well as on the core deconfliction experience between other VFR and IFR traffic.
When will Stage Two be released to the experimental branch?
As always, we do not promise release timelines until we are sure we can commit to something; however, Stage Two is in the final stages of internal testing. Whilst we're not ready just yet to announce when Stage Two will be launching to the experimental branch, we're working hard to deliver it as quickly as possible.
A reminder that VFR is an experimental feature; VFR is not feature complete or bug-free. VFR will launch to the EA branch for all customers when all three stages are complete.
Before we go, we just wanted to give a huge amount of thanks to our internal testers and controllers who have provided invaluable feedback and knowledge throughout the development of VFR so far. We can't wait for you to try out Stage Two and experience all the new systems that will improve your BeyondATC flights.
Thanks, everyone!
The BeyondATC Team.
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