Airfield Diagrams

[Frederf]

I didn't realize the ruler tool in the ME gave to the nearest 0.1° >.<. For Batumi I get 311.3T with both my long-winded PS method and with the painfully obvious tool. -5.5 (ABRIS) for E declination would give 305.8M. Airfield elevation appears to be 10m. This is in DCS:BS.

 

I went nuts trying to click on the airfield in F11 view in DCS:BS, but in BS it's the F10 view for the flat map. F11 is the 3D cycle through major airports in BS.

 

Lat/long grids are made by noting a distinctive point in the ME where the lat or long value was a whole number of minutes and drawing a line through it. Half minute lines and tick marks were placed with PS's "distribute" feature which positions objects at calculated intervals. I regret orienting the the airfield other than true north up. Gaining additional size was not worth the extra work and difficulty in reading that it caused.

 

Overall Format & Style

Nationalization: I have to assume that the primary users will be DCS: A-10C pilots, but that a significant portion will be DCS: BS and those of future DCS products. The best conclusion I can draw from this is to keep the heading and form as neutral as possible. Omitting unnecessary labeling only frees up more page space for useful information and reduces printer resources.

 

Page Dimensions & Scaling: The overall dimension of the document should be printable to the A4 (210x297mm) and US Letter paper (216x279mm) sizes at 100% (300dpi for raster, vector whenever possible) centered with allowances for unprintable area, say 15mm margins. This results in a document area of 180x249mm without margins, 210x279mm overall. If practical the diagrams should be readable at 50% scale for A5 paper.

 

Style: A consistent sans-sarif font, varying only in scale size. All wording in capitals for clarity. Only B&W shades #000000, #FFFFFF, and #CFCFCF used. All text conforming to a left boundary or anchor point is left-aligned, similar for right. Text labels anchor based on the nearest corner to the location described or center bottom/top if directly above/below.

 

Cover Page

 

Title, list of charts listed by region and then alphabetical by airfield name. Any special notes or legend.

 

Header 15mm

 

Document Name: UL. Something like "Airport Diagram" but perhaps a different wording as likely more information will be included than simply the airport's local features (as those are likely to be few). I say this because it's unlikely that a virtual pilot will want to carry all the usual documents for complete information (area chart, airport diagram, approach plates). Font to be largest, tall or nearly as tall as the location labeling area.

 

Location Labeling: UR. Line 1 airport name (IDENT) in larger type. Line 2 associated city, country.

 

Facility Data: A boxed area contains the common airfield information. Tower frequency (for A-10, Ka-50 is 127.5 assumed everywhere), airfield elevation, airfield location (mean of runway centers), local declination, and possibly some more. This should be consistent from chart to chart.

 

Footer 15mm

 

Volume Labeling: LL, line 1. Some sort of "page number" is appropriate. If the information (frequency, taxiway layout, coordinates) between different DCS versions, then the volume label should differentiate. Considering the size of the volume is small, it is probably unnecessary to include any region coding in the label. Something like DCS-001 to DCS-999 should do in the simplest case.

 

Date Labeling: LL, line 2. Sim charts rarely go out of date but a discrete creation date is valuable. The NACO charts use YYDDD (out of 365) but they are updated frequently. MMYY should be sufficient.

Location Repeat: LR. Identical to location in header except in reversed order.

 

Map 234mm

 

Border: A thin border encompasses the map area, the entire usable document width and height available.

 

Alignment: Align true north up when possible. Align true north directly left if necessary. If absolutely necessary for scale and readability, align in whole units of 15° between N-up and N-left. Center runway center or runways mean center as near as possible to the center of the page.

 

Runways: Depicted solid black their entire usable dimensions. Runoff, closed, or stopway sections colored as taxiway. Labeled with dimension A X B in meters or feet depending on region using the label M or ' after each number. Preferred label southeast of runway or consistent with multiple runways as practical. Runway heading displayed XXX.x° magnetic and placed near runway ends on the right hand side with regards to the landing direction along with arrow. Labels in XX (L or R as 3rd character as appropriate) format oriented as read in landing direction centered before thresholds.

 

Taxiway: Denote in gray all usable taxiway accessible via taxi from any runway. Label names only if in-game signs are present and agree. Label parking based on in-game behavior individually (1 to 100) or in groups bounded by a rounded hollow rectangular form with the first and last parking spot numbered.

 

Structures: Mark in simple black silhouette all permanent structures on, adjacent, or within an aircraft wingspan of any taxiway. Label any fixed obstacles (walls, lamp posts) too small to depict.

 

North Arrow: Place in UR corner or as practical in another corner showing true north and with a 20° arrow pointing more east or west as local declination directs. Label below with +/- X.X° E/W based on declination.

 

Grid Guides: Place latitude and longitude lines every 0.5' or 1.0' depending on airport size. Face 6'' ticks W and N. If 10 ticks exist between 1.0' lines, face the center tick both directions. Interrupt all grid guides briefly for text labels but not arrows, taxiways, runways, or structures. Label erect each solid line in 000°00' fashion (add .5 to minutes as necessary) along the right edge for latitude and the bottom edge for longitude or as practical keeping the labels along the same periphery.

Edited October 27, 2010 by Frederf

[thenewarea51]

If you register here:

 

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadcms/eadsite/index.php.html

 

Which is free to register, you can view real Instrument Approach Procedures (IAP) for Georgian Airports such as the ILS approach to Batumi.

 

All the charts are in PDF format :-)

[shu77]

You can also get them here

http://aviadocs.net/AIP/html/eng.htm

But theres a fairly significant number of differences between these charts and the game.