Air Traffic Flow Management (usually seen abbreviated as ATFM) is the regulation of air traffic in order to avoid exceeding airport or air traffic control capacity in handling traffic, and to ensure that available capacity is used efficiently.
Because only one aircraft can land or depart from a runway at the same time, and because aircraft must be separated by a certain time to avoid collisions, every airport has a finite capacity; it can only safely handle so many aircraft per hour. This capacity depends on many factors, such as the number of runways available, layout of taxi tracks, availability of air traffic control, but also on current or anticipated weather. Especially the weather can cause large variations in capacity because strong winds may limit the number of runways available, and poor visibility may necessitate increases in separation between aircraft. Air traffic control can also be limiting, there are only so many aircraft an air traffic control unit can safely handle. Staff shortages, radar maintenance or equipment faults can lower the capacity of a unit. This can affect both airport air traffic control as well as en-route air traffic control centers.
When an air traffic control unit that will control a flight reaches capacity, arriving aircraft are directed towards holding patterns where they circle until it is their turn to land. Because aircraft flying in circles is an inefficient and costly way of delaying aircraft, it is preferable to keep them on the ground at their place of departure, called a ground delay program. This way, the delay can be waited out on the ground with engines off, saving considerable amounts of fuel (a large jet aircraft can use dozens of gallons of fuel per minute in the air). Obviously, careful calculation of en route time for each flight (and the effect of current wind upon it) and traffic flow as a whole is needed, which is highly dependent on computers.
Air Management '96 is a air traffic flow management simulation game that allows the player to choose at the beginning of the game in which time period he wants to play, the game features 2 different ones:
- 1963-1995
- 1983-2015
The game features 5 difficulty levels (beginner, easy, normal, hard & pro), and let's the player choose in which country of the world he wants the game to take place. The player company will have to compete againts another 3 companies (that can be computer controlled or by another human players).
Manufacturer's description:
Became president of the airline simulation game will be tied to business objectives in the route 22 cities around the world. Beautiful 3D realistic graphics in cities around the world. Travel boom and the Olympics, the game goes right to the various events. Enjoy traveling the world, trying to enjoy the excitement of cities around the world are tied.
Features:
- First person perspective.
- 2D graphics
- Cartoon graphics
- Air Traffic Management theme.
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