Introduction
Working with flights in the Flight list
In this topic, you learn how to work with the Flight list to view different sets of flights and how to interpret the information the Flight list contains. You also learn how to switch between its three supported "views".
We estimate that this will take 6 minutes to complete.
Detailed explanation
Using the Flight list
The panel that displays on the left of the Map screen contains the Flight list.
The list includes entries for all of the aircraft shown on the map. Some of these aircraft, you may be tracking, while others display to provide a realistic view of air traffic or congestion at airports, for example. N-Tracking counts the aircraft in various statuses or categories.
In this example, the list shows:
- 4 aircraft being tracked
- 6 flights being planned
- "other" aircraft (those of other airlines)
For the flights listed in all sections except OTHERS, you can expand the table listing to display the Flight Details pane for a selected flight.
You can also search and filter the Flight list to further refine the flights listed. For example, you can filter by attributes such as aircraft type.
The Flight list "standard" view is the most used view.
N-Tracking also provides "extended" and "minimized" views. Use the view that best serves your needs.
Flight list views
You can use the Flight list in any of three different "views" or layouts. As they look quite different, it is easy to tell them apart.
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HINT
Search and filtering features are accessible only when the Flight list is in standard or extended view. For more details on searching within the Flight list, consult the topic, Searching and filtering flights in the Flight list.
HINT
Type hint to help learners. (12pt)
The Flight list contains the following sections:
WARNING: all flights with any alert at a warning level
(not always present)
CAUTION: all flights with any alert at a caution level
(not always present)
TRACKED: all flights of aircraft from your fleet without any alert condition
PLANNED: (not shown here) plans for which a flight plan has been computed by a flight planning system or communicated from ATC
OTHERS: when activated, provides a count of aircraft not declared as part of your fleet at departure or arrival of tracked airports (not shown in this example)
In this example, there are so many tracked flights that the other banners are pushed off-screen. In your operational environment, you can use a vertical scrollbar on the right of the pane to bring those other categories into view.
Use the Flights slider to display the flights in each category.
Search or filter the Flight list
To reduce the number of flights shown in the Flight list, you have two options:
- enter text in the Search field
- use the Filter icon to filter listed flights by attribute
The aircraft you see on the map match the listed aircraft. If you filter the Flight list, that filtering affects the aircraft that display on the map.
In both cases, N-Tracking contributes to situational awareness by adding a label to the map that identifies the criteria you used to fine tune the Flight list.
For detailed information on using search and filtering techniques, consult the topic, Searching and filtering flights in the Flight list.
In these examples:
- Searching the entire list for KBOS shows at least one flight in each category with destination KBOS airport.
- Filtering the list by attribute "To" shows nine tracked flights with destination KMSP airport.
Your N-Tracking administrator chooses the colors used for the section headers of the Flight list and these colors match the associated aircraft icons on the map.
If a flight is subject to a warning or caution, those two categories display at the top of the list, in red and orange, respectively.
If the list of tracked flights is extensive, use the vertical scroll bar on the right of the Flight list to display the other categories.
Let's review some of the features and capabilities you just learned about with a practical scenario.
In your operational environment, you use the scrollbar on the right of the Flight list to scroll through the listed flights. For the purposes of the interactive training version, follow the on-screen instruction.
You can also use the Search field to search for a specific flight.
To display the list of planned flights, enable the Flights slider on the PLANNED banner.
Click the Flights slider.
Use the vertical scrollbar again to scroll down and display the list of planned flights.
Next, review how the OTHERS list works by enabling its Flights slider.
Click the (OTHERS) Flights slider.
When you enable the Flights slider in the OTHERS banner, N-Tracking provides a count and displays all those flights on the map. For most purposes, this can be too much information!
For now, disable the Flights slider again.
Click the (OTHERS) Flights slider.
Depending on the aircraft labels you have in use, you can already see a lot of information about any given flight, but let's dive deeper.
Select an individual flight in the Flight list.
Click SCX234.
You can see more information on the Flight Details pane. Review the flight's STD and STA. For any enroute flights, N-Tracking calculates whether the flight is ahead or behind schedule and displays the difference in green or red, respectively.
For airlines using Surface Tracking, you can click the icon to view the airport map for either the departure or arrival airport.If you select a flight that is subject to a warning or caution, you can acknowledge the alert and/or add notes, as applicable. For more details, review the topic, View automatic alerts and add manual alerts.
Such messages look like this:
Click the Flight Plan slider.
The flight plan for your selected flight (SCX234) displays on the map while you have its Flight Details pane open. If you want the flight plan to remain visible after you close the pane, enable the Flight Plan slider.
Click anywhere on the map to close the Flight Details pane.
Click anywhere on the map.
The flight plan for flight SCX234 continues to display. Zoom in for better visibility.
Click the Zoom in (+) button.
REMINDER
You can always click an aircraft icon on the map to display its flight details.
Click the SCX234 aircraft icon.
Now that you know how to use the Flight Plan slider, disable it for flight SCX234.
Click the Flight Plan slider.
Notice the one-line display of the flight route string.
By clicking on the small version of the flight's route string, you make the full route string display (in larger text).
Close the Flight Details pane for this flight.
Click anywhere on the map.
Scroll down to view the PLANNED section of the Flight list.
Click the vertical scroll bar.
Click SCX3030.
Take a look at the detailed information available for a planned flight.
For planned flights, the information in the middle section of the pane is not yet available, except that Altitude is still GROUND.
The Flight Plan slider is inactive for planned flights, but the proposed flight plan displays on the map (in a dashed line).
You can access route analysis directly from this pane. Take a quick look at the Route Analysis pane, but for more details, review the Route analysis topic later in this section.
Click the Route Analysis button.
When you click Search in the Route List pane, N-Tracking displays all possible routes for the flight. For now, close the pane and continue working with the Flight list.
Click the Close (X) button.
Click anywhere on the map.
Next, explore the different "views" or layouts of the Flight list that you can choose.
The Flight list is currently in its standard view. To change the view, use the controls on the upper right of the Flight list.
Click the Maximize button.
In this example, you can view the flight ID, flight origin and destination, aircraft type, registration number, and other details.
Configuring the fields that display in the extended view is up to you. Use the Flight list option in the User Settings menu. For more detailed information, consult the Configure Flight list content topic.
Flights display and update in real time. While this image of the Flight list displays only active tracked flights, you can scroll through the list to see all sections.
If you want the Flight list to display a different time zone, use the Time Zone option in the User Settings menu.
Each of the sections that you saw in the standard view of the Flight list appear in the "extended" view.
Use the vertical scrollbar on the right to scroll down and display the OTHERS section.
The OTHERS section displays at the bottom of the table. It does not list flight information for those flights.
When you finish your review, you can scroll back to the top of the list to view tracked flights again.
You can use the Flight list in extended view in the same way as you do the standard view.
Click SCX252.
Flight details for flight SCX252 display and you can work with the information and Flight Plan slider in the Flight Details pane as you already learned.
Click anywhere on the map.
The last "view" for the Flight list is its minimized view. Try that now.
Click the Minimize button.
When minimized, the Flight list displays only the time (in UTC). The list also displays a count of any flights with a warning status (none in this example).
The minimized view makes the most screen space available to flights and map content.
If this view doesn't serve a purpose for you, restore the standard view.
Click the Restore button.
Zoom out to see more of the map.
Click the Zoom out (-) button.
For customers using desk assignment, users can further narrow the contents of the Flight list to only those flights they are managing at their desk.
Click the All Flights dropdown button.
In this example, 43 flights are monitored amongst 4 desks: MSPA, MSPB, MSPC, and MSPD.
Click the Desk MSPD list item.
Desk D is responsible for one enroute flight and seven planned flights, all of which you can access from the Flight list.
Review the fights and then display the complete list of flights again.
Click the MSPD dropdown button.
Click the All Flights list item.
SUCCESS
Congratulations! You have completed your review of how to use the Flight list to track aircraft, view important flight details, and change the Flight list view.