Flight Order Generator Instructions
Overview
The purpose of this program
is to help establish a flight order that will allow a contest to run as
smoothly as possible. The contest director can choose to have the program
divide the contestants into six flight groups, or establish an exact flight
order for call-up style contests. Provisions are also made for man-on-man style
contests, which utilizes new random flight groups for each round. Pilots on the
same channel will be evenly spaced throughout the flight order. The program can
accommodate a maximum of three pilots per channel. With smaller contests, it is
best to limit the entries to two per channel.
An unusual feature of the
program is the ability to designate a timer for each pilot. The designated
timer will be treated as if they were on the same channel as the pilot, and
spaced accordingly in the flight order.
Installation
The only file you need for
this program is named fltorder.exe. It is a dos-based program, but is well-behaved
in the windows environment. To install the program, create a new folder
(directory) on your computer and copy the fltorder.exe program into it. The
first time you run the program, it will automatically create a sub-directory
named "Saturday" directly
below the directory containing the program. The database and index files will
also be created for you. When using the program, if a different day of the week
is chosen, a new sub-directory will be created as needed. If you practice using
the program before a contest and want to start over, it is safe to simply
delete the entire directory named after the day of the week you were using.
Alternatively, there is an option within the program to delete all contestants.
Getting Started
When the program starts, it
defaults to Saturday for the contest day. A status screen is displayed showing
how many contestants are entered, along with several other pieces of
information. The easiest way to navigate through the program is with a mouse.
Just click on one of the menu options on the top of the screen and a drop-down
menu will appear with more choices. Using the keyboard, press the Alt key to
activate the menu, then use the arrow keys to make a menu choice. Shortcut keys
are shown highlighted on the menus. To use the shortcuts, press Alt first, then
the highlighted key.
Entries
The first main menu choice
is entries. From here you can select to enter new contestants. This choice
provides a browse window where you can enter the contestant's name, class, and
channel. When you press enter on the last field, a new blank line is added.
When exiting this screen any blank lines will be deleted. The contestant's name
is automatically entered in upper case. For the sake of simplicity, there is
only one space for the name, rather than seperate first and last name fields.
You may find it easier to use the program if names are entered as last, first.
This way the list of contestants will sort alphabetically by last name instead
of first name. The class field is not used for any purpose in the program, but
will print on most reports. The final column is channel. This must be filled in
before generating and printing the flight order. If the field is left blank for
several contestants, you will receive a warning that there are more than 3
pilots on the same channel. This can be ignored until you are ready to generate
the flight order. The channel field holds a three digit number. If you have
entries on the Ham Band, they can be assigned numbers 101 to 106, or any other
method you choose. To close the entries window, click on the box in the upper
left corner, or press Ctr-W.
After adding new entries,
you also have the option of editing the contestant list. This is the same
screen as described above, but without the blank line at the end of the list.
There are several ways to delete a contestant. When
you open a window to add or edit contestants/timers, "Browse" is
added to the main menu at the top of the screen. One of the choices is toggle
delete. A shortcut to delete is to click with the mouse 1 space to
the left of the pilot's name, or press CTRL-T. A bullet will appear indicating
the record is deleted. It will not show up the next time the window is opened.
Scrolling the deleted record off the screen also removes it. Another method to delete
a contestant is to simply erase the name and the line will be deleted when you
close the edit contestant screen.
Once most or all of the
contestants are entered, you are ready for the third menu choice listed under
Entries. This is Enter Timers. On this screen, you are presented with a list of
contestants and a space to enter who their timer will be. You do not need to
enter a timer for each contestant. However, this feature gives you the option
of handling special requests from pilots with very little effort on your part.
As a benefit, the contest may run smoother if contestants are assured of having
their desired timer available when they are called to fly. This is most
beneficial with the random style contests. Although not required, it is best if
two pilots team up to time for each other.
To enter a timer, move the
highlighted bar to the pilot's name. Enter the timer's name and press enter. If
the name you entered matches the valid choices, the highlighted bar will move
on to the next row. If a match is not found, a pop-up window will appear
listing the names. Move to the name you want and press enter or click the mouse
to accept the name. Press escape to cancel. The pop-up window can also be used
by typing the first couple letters of the name and pressing enter. This will
give a list of names starting with the letters entered. Pressing enter on a
blank field will show the pop-window with all names listed. To move from one
row to another on the enter timer screen without entering a name, use the arrow
keys instead of enter. Close the window by clicking the arrow in the upper left
corner, or pressing Ctrl-W.
Sort
The Sort menu allows you to
specify how the Entry screens previously described will be sorted. The choices are
by Name, Channel, Class, and Timer. The currently selected choice will have a
bullet in front of it. Sorting by channel is a handy way to look at frequency
conflicts. The sort field can be changed before or after opening an entry
screen.
Generate
The Generate menu will
provide a choice of five methods of creating a flight order. The final choice
on this menu will show a brief description of each method. The same information is included below. Once
you have chosen a method for the contest, a bullet will appear next to the menu
choice. This acts as a reminder of which method to use if you change the list
of contestants or timers and must generate the flight order again. If you use
either the "flight groups" or "man on man groups" methods,
you will have to select how many groups. The range is from two to eight groups.
The default is six.
Flight Order
Descriptions
1 Flight Groups - Pilots
are sorted into 6 groups. With a maximum of
2 pilots per channel, channel conflicts are 3 groups apart.
With
3 pilots per channel, conflicts are 2 groups apart. If
possible,
the selected timer for each pilot will be
grouped accordingly. User
selectable for 1 to 6 groups
2 Semi-Random 1 - Pilots
are grouped as above. For each round,
the groups are rotated, and the order in each group is rotated.
For each round, the pilots are sorted by this order and a
number
assigned. New rounds can be started without any conflicts with
previous rounds.
3 Semi-Random 2 - Same as
above, except that a new random order is
established within each group for each round.
4 Random - Same as Flight
Groups, except the process is repeated
for each round. Although this is the most random, it does not
guarantee that one round can flow into the next smoothly.
5 Man on Man Groups - Same
as random, but assigns groups instead
of a flight order number. User selectable for 1 to 8 groups.
Print
Before printing any
reports, you must generate the flight order. A reminder to this effect is included
on the statistics screen. Different reports will be available to you, based on
the method used to generate the flight order. Valid reports will appear normal
on the menu, all others will be dim. Once you have selected a report, a dialog
box will appear. Here you can select to print 1 copy, multiple copies, print to
file, or preview on screen. To select, click with the mouse or use tab to cycle
through the choices and press the space bar to select. Press ok or cancel to continue.
The best way to become
familiar with the reports is to preview them on the screen. Report 4 deserves
special mention because it is the only report that requires condensed print
mode. The program issues a command to the printer to switch to 17 cpi before
printing, but not all printers recognize it. You may need to make this change
manually. Reports 5 and 8 are Pilot's Sheets. These reports use only 2 inches
of paper per pilot. Therefore, it can be printed out quickly right before the
start of the contest. The Flight Groups
by Rounds report is handy for the flight line coordinator to call contestants
and cross off those that have flown.
Utilities
The first item on the
utilities menu is configuration. The screen that appears gives you a space to
enter a contest name. This will appear at the top of reports, along with the
contest day. You can leave it blank if you want to. You can also use this
screen to direct printer output. The default PRN should work in most cases.
Other valid choices are LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, COM1, COM2, etc. A file name can also
be used, but it is better to use the print to file option mentioned earlier.
Other choices on the
utilities menu are Delete all contestants and reindex. Delete all contestants
does what the name implies. A warning box will appear, answer yes to remove all
records and start over with an empty database. Reindex may be used if the index
becomes corrupted. This is most likely to happen if the computer is turned off
without exiting from the program first.
Day
The Day menu allows you to
select a day of the week to work with. You can also copy the current day to any
other day of the week. In most cases, you will want to enter all the
information for Saturday first. Once everything is finalized, select Day - Copy
to - Sunday to make a copy of the
information. Sunday will now be the active day, and changes that need to be
made can be handled with the Entries menu choice. When first starting the
program on Sunday, remember to first select Day - Select - Sunday before
proceeding.
Exit
A pop-up window asks if you
want to exit the program. Select yes to exit, or no if you selected Exit by
mistake.