I don’t see why MSFS would sell 85% in the USA. USA population is less than half Europe’s, with an equivalent standard of living. And you can add a lot of sales in all other industrialized countries, which undoubtfully don’t use imperial system.
Anyway, I agree that “altimeter two nine decimal nine two” is a bit ridiculous. The phraseology should be “QNH one zero one tree”.
More seriously : localisation of the ATC would be complex. Units are different (Russia uses the metric system for altitudes, should the sim change altimeters layouts when you fly your C152 in Russia ?). Transition altitudes are also different, parity of routes (N-S in France, E-W in the majority of the countries), etc…
My solution is simple : I don’t use the ATC (I delegate it to my co-pilot, just to hear the runways in use and other information). It’s so lame that I don’t feel it helps for realism.
ATC should, indeed, be localized imo. It should also be taken one step further: USAF controllers use slightly different/additional phraseology, such as providing the wind in takeoff clearances and “check wheels down” in landing clearances, just to name a couple. It’d be really nice to see (and hear, for that matter), an ATC system that takes into account not just the region of the pilot’s location, but also what type of airfield he/she is at, and tailor the phraseology to what would be expected in the real world.
I’m in the U.S., have only ever flown in the U.S. but I my company is global and I work with people from many countries using many languages.
“Point” is not concise, sorry. People who speak English as a second language have a lot of issues with English words that mean more than one thing. It makes context difficult, for instance “point” also so means to gesture in the direction of something “He pointed at the building”, it also means the sharp end of an object, such as the point of a pencil
‘Decimal’ is specific to numbers. It really is the superior way of saying it.
However, I agree, in busy U.S. airspace, its much quicker to use ‘point’, and I am used to hearing it as ‘point’ also. I think it would be nice if the sim allowed for regional variety, but it doesn’t.
Decimal doesn’t mess me up, I’m used to hearing it. Just the same as “#” is called ‘pound sign’ in U.S. and in the rest of the world its ‘hash’.
Anyhow, pointy, versus decimal point, vs pointing at a building may be totally clear to a native English speaker, it can get confusing in other languages where they have three different words to handle the three different contexts.
Get my point? Whoops, yet another meaning of the word…
There’s far bigger issues in the ATC to fix than saying decimal vs point or leaving it out entirely etc. Nice to have fixed, but not important or a major issue.
“At controlled airports, ground frequencies are likely 121.3, 121.5, 121.7, and 121.9. Note that all begin with 121 and end in an odd tenth. Tower controllers take advantage of this by using a clipped communication, “Cirrus Fife-Hotel-Juliet, contact ground on point seven clearing the runway.” They expect you to know they mean 121.7.”
“Are likely” is the key phrase there. Not “Are always”.
Therefore, in a sim as this one, where all the worlds airports and freqs are represented, it doesn’t make sense to write a rule that says always just say ‘Ground point x’, because there are plenty of places where that would be incorrect.
The game ATC doesn’t have the luxury of always controlling a 121.x field.
I was too annoyed by the ATC and did a bit of digging, managed to change things, yes i know it’s not 100% legit but I grew up on FSX so come at me! I dont know how to make it into a community mod but I have created a reddit explaining what to do!
The ATC phraseology is too US centric, phrases such as ‘Make right hand traffic’ (join downwind right hand), seem very out of place at non-US locations.
Who decided that “decimal” would be the only trace of any metric system in MSFS? Sometimes the design decisions that have been chosen in this sim are quite astonishing.
I think system of use of ‘point’ isn’t correct. You differ numbers of freq here, not letters and sentence. If your number is ‘we can see REAL’ format freq then logically we say decimal to differ numbers. This long time problem still differ world from US and non US systems, only my opinion.
I understand what you’re saying, but your points (!) while perfectly relevant to working with people from around the world are irrelevant to ATC in the U.S. Whether foreigners have a hard time with the word “point” or not is simply not something ATC in the U.S. takes into consideration. They use “point” in all their communications with aircraft.
NO ATC in the U.S. says “decimal”, and that is the point. If we want “flying as real as it gets” then ATC must be as real as it gets too. And using some bizarre terminology that is simply never used in the real world - isn’t giving us “real” ATC.
