air traffic control sim

"Hyperlink" wrote in message ...

Hi guys... even though i'm sure this has been discussed earlier, searchin
google groups produces only confusion )

I'm interested in ATC sims but am not sure which are best. The Net is full
of references to "Tracon" and "Tracon II", but it seems impossible to find
any manual for the game.

TRACON was produced by Wesson International, whose real business was
designing real-world ATC simulators to the FAA, USAF, and the like. The
company's founder wrote his doctoral disertation on the use of artificial
intelligence in air traffic control.

As a bit of a visual pun, the cover of the manual for TRACON II was
designed to look like FAA Order 7110-65, which is the "bible" for
air traffic controllers.

TRACON (all versions) is a really good simulation. Several years
ago I demonstrated it to the late Pete Campbell (aka one of the
funniest -- and most pragmatic -- managers the FAA ever had). He
was highly impressed. It was also notable in that it was able to
produce highly realistic (and quite understandable) "radio" audio
using only the built-in speaker in a PC: no audio card was required.

(This audio-without-audio-card feature was CPU speed limited: systems
faster than about 30 MHz produced unintelligible speech at warp speed.)

Sadly, the game has, as you note, disappeared. You might find copies
(and I have no idea of the copyright status, or the legality of the
offerings) by googling for "tracon" and "game" to locate servers
offering so-called "abandonware". These servers might include
copies of the manual.

Joe Morris