Introduction
Customize and display aircraft labels
In this topic, you learn how to assign different aircraft data elements to create an informative label that displays with each aircraft on the Map screen. You also learn how to adjust the size of the font used in those labels.
We estimate that this will take 4 minutes to complete.
Detailed explanation
Click the user name (Trainer_PF) dropdown button.
Click the User Settings list item.
Click the Aircraft labels menu item.
When you first access this screen, there will be no labels listed. Click Add to add one.
Click the Add button.
The font size you choose applies to all labels. Consequently, if you create labels that include a large number of data elements, using a small font may be the best option.
If you decide later that a particular aircraft label is no longer needed, you can always access this screen again and click Delete (beside the label name) to delete it.
Click the Aircraft label name input field.
Enter FULL into the Aircraft label name field.
Click the Fields to display input field.
Click the Registration list item.
Scroll through the list as needed to find the data elements you want to include in the label.
Click the Airline list item.
Click the A/C Type list item.
Click the To list item.
Click the ETA list item.
Click the Flight ID list item.
Click the Flight number list item.
Click the From list item.
Click the OFF list item.
Click the Ground Speed list item.
For this example, you have selected the maximum number of data elements you can include in a label.
To replace one of those elements with a different one, click the associated X to remove it and then add the new data element.
Give some thought to the font size that works with the labels you create.
The default font size is "small", but depending on the monitor you use -- and the number of elements in your labels, you may choose to use a larger font size for display.
Click the Font Size dropdown button.
Click the Medium list item.
Click the Save button.
The next part of this process is to associate the new label with particular aircraft or types of aircraft.
Click the Aircraft labels association menu item.
You can search by aircraft registration number to assign a label to a specific aircraft, if that number is not already shown on this screen.does not display on this screen, you can search by registration number to find it.
You can also search by aircraft type; if, for example, you want to assign the label to all B737 planes.
Assign the new label to registration number N805SY.
Click the Aircraft labels dropdown button.
Click the FULL list item.
Make the same assignment for registration N808SY.
Click the Aircraft labels dropdown button.
Click the FULL list item.
Always remember to save your changes.
Click the Save button.
The N-Tracking administrator has defined a default label, and in this example, has assigned it to some aircraft (e.g., N710SY).
You can use this default label or assign a customized label, using the drop-down list on the right.
Having assigned the more detailed label to a couple of aircraft, let's see the difference on the map.
Click the Map button.
At this zoom level, the aircraft labels are too close together. Let's fix that.
Click the + (Zoom in) button.
The aircraft label for flight SCX342 displays the "FULL" label description that you defined.
Other aircraft are assigned the "default" label which contains six data elements. This default label was set by an N-Tracking administrator).
At this zoom level, the labels for SCX596 and SCX624 overlap.
To correct this, click the aircraft label for flight SCX624.
Click SCX624.
By default, aircraft labels display above ("due north") their associated aircraft and a small pointer points to the aircraft.
If you re-position a label, its pointer also moves -- so that it always points at its associated aircraft.
The label re-positions by moving clockwise (or to the next cardinal direction point -- in this case, east).
In this example, the data element SCX342 displays twice.
This is not an error because in this example, Flight ID and Flight number are both included in the label.
If, for your airline, these identifiers are the same, you may want to remove and replace one of those elements for labeling purposes.
If air traffic in a particular area is congested, you may find the the aircraft labels overlap, even with your ability to re-position them around their respective aircraft.
In that case, you may wish to set the aircraft labels to automatically re-arrange themselves every 10 minutes. For more details, consult topic, Automatically re-arrange aircraft labels.