In addition to Microsoft's press release about the upcoming "Flight Simulator - A Century of Flight", I have read the preview article by Maury Pratt published here on AVSIM. There's a lot of interesting news there, and in particular what he writes about the new ATC system is bound to interest this forum. I quote:--------------------------------------------------------------"It now supports requests for altitude changes in route, and there's an improved and expanded text and voice interface. It's also "weather aware" and "terrain aware" for improved vectoring. You can request approaches for specific runways, and even open a new flight plan while in-route. There's three female and nine male voices available. And the ATC messages you've received are automatically recorded in the kneeboard for easy reference."--------------------------------------------------------------Adding to this that the ATC will of course be controlling the AI traffic as well, it seems RC3 will have a hard time to beat it. I fully realize that MS is likely to put less emphasis on realistic procedures than RC3, but even so, there's reason to believe that many users, in particular amateurs like myself, may well find the built-in ATC the better option.While this may be bad news for RC3, there's also good news for RC4. I quote again:--------------------------------------------------------------"Kevin told us you can expect an ATC SDK."--------------------------------------------------------------

You're right I see MSFS ACF more as an opportunity for the team of RC3 than an obstacle.

If what MS says actually happens, FS9 offers only 3-4 of the 60 items RC has. MS has been struggling to keep up with RC. I see no problem for RC's current state, or any future development.

>I fully realize that MS is likely to put less >emphasis on realistic procedures than RC3, but even so, >there's reason to believe that many users, in particular >amateurs like myself, may well find the built-in ATC the >better option. Quite likely so, but I think the same can be said now for FS2002. Some (maybe most) folks just want to keep things simple even if it means giving up a degree of realism. They feel that something like RC is too complicated, or too expensive, or they don't feel any motivation to explore options. One size does not fit all.>-------------------------------------------------------------- >"Kevin told us you can expect an ATC SDK." >-------------------------------------------------------------- That would be great. If ms actually makes that available, it will be much more likely that RC will be able to incorporate improvements like terrain awareness while continuing to add the features that ms leaves out. Everybody wins. :)Sidney Schwartz [KPDX]MyTraffic/Radar Contact/FSMeteo/FSSE/FSassist/FDC

>If what MS says actually happens, FS9 offers only 3-4 of the >60 items RC has.Nobody knows the full feature list of FS-ACF, but already now we know that we'll be able to request different altitudes, approaches, runways, alternates, etc. Surely, there'll be some things that RC3 continues to do better, but I doubt they'll be seen as core functionality by the majority of users.>MS has been struggling to keep up with RC. I honestly don't think they care much about what RC can and cannot do. Undoubtedly, they find inspiration in some of the things you have made, but the things they may choose to immitate pose no great problem for them to implement.All the difficult stuff that RC3 has no means of doing - like terrain/weather awareness and control over AI traffic - FS-ACF will do. Maybe not to perfection, but certainly better than RC3, which has none of these. And I think that those are far more important to the immertion factor than 100% simulation of real-world procedures. I know some will think differently.RC3's only important weakness is that many of the things it does, it does in a sort of parallel world, because of the inherent limitations to what you can do with an add-on and no SDK. You hear a lot of realistic sounds in your ears, but around the airports your eyes remind you that these sounds do not come from somebody sitting in that tower down there with a radar screen and full awareness of everybody's position and declared intentions.>I see no problem for RC's current state,Not immediately, no, but in a year or so, when FS-ACF is out in great numbers, you may.>or any future development. If MS release a good ATC SDK, I'm sure you guys will push the limits once again :-)