PMDG 747 and Radar Contact on Windows7 (FSX)

[royski 0]

Hi everyone,I'm new to this forum and I'm purchasing PMDG 747-400 in the next few days. I'm currently running FSX on Windows 7 with good framerates on a laptop computer.I have some questions in mind:1) Will PMDG 747 run with Radar Contact V4?2) If I enter my FP legs through the FMC, how do I do such with RC? (currently RC retrieves its plans from *.pln file from MSFS)?3) Or would you recommend a flight planner software (either payware or freeware) to create FPs, compute fuel and export theplan to RC altogether?Thanks... :(

[hodge001 15]

Hi RoyI see no reason why Radar Contact should not work with the PMDG 747, as all the interfacing is done by the FSUIPC window and not by adding any other windows or pop up gauges.I did have Radar Contact, but I have now changed over to ProFilght Emulator, the only reason in my case was I could never get rid of the lag between the ATC call and my reply being accepted or vice versa, also I find that the voice packs are a little more human sounding, do not get me wrong I did get used to the ones that shipped with Radar Contact, and the rework done by Meatwater was nothing short of brilliant, but in the end the lag time got to me.As for filing a flight plan with Radar Contact that is the same as the one as you have in the FMC, I believe you can use the built in flight planner of FSX to generate a flight plan which you could then add or delete waypoints by hand to match your FMC plan, I have never used this approach and it sounds a little bit like to much hard work if you can indeed do it, so if you do not want to splash out on any flight planning software just now you could use simroutes or a similar website for your flight planning, I know that simroutes allows you to download your flight plan in both PMDG.rte format and the.pln format of the flight sim, but having your own flight planning software is really a great help as some sites tend to have US flight plans as the primary source with a token coverage for the rest of the world, which is OK if you mainly fly US routes anyway.Which flight planning software is an area that you will get widely different opinions about, and at the end of the day you will have to settle on the one that delivers the closest to what you want in terms of usability and attention to flight details, my own personal set up is using FSBuild and FSCommander which I have on a spare low end PC and use as a moving map, both of the above export to both version of flight sim and to all the PMDG products and almost all of the other formats.I can not really comment on the usability of any freeware flight panning software as I have never used any of them, but I imagine that somewhere possibly here on the AVSIM site will be a freeware flight planner that will export .rte and .pln formats, it may be worth a trawl through the utilities section to see what is on offer.I hope it helps.Jim Hodkinson

[royski 0]

Thank you very much for the detailed response. I have already purchased a download version of the product and I just simply love it.The attention to detail is very much obvious in this plane - both internal and external. The PMDG 747-400 is a addon for serious simmer who want a higher level of realism to their FSX experience - not a plane where you can just get in and fly!

[jd 57]

Hi RoyI see no reason why Radar Contact should not work with the PMDG 747, as all the interfacing is done by the FSUIPC window and not by adding any other windows or pop up gauges.I did have Radar Contact, but I have now changed over to ProFilght Emulator, the only reason in my case was I could never get rid of the lag between the ATC call and my reply being accepted or vice versa, also I find that the voice packs are a little more human sounding, do not get me wrong I did get used to the ones that shipped with Radar Contact, and the rework done by Meatwater was nothing short of brilliant, but in the end the lag time got to me.As for filing a flight plan with Radar Contact that is the same as the one as you have in the FMC, I believe you can use the built in flight planner of FSX to generate a flight plan which you could then add or delete waypoints by hand to match your FMC plan, I have never used this approach and it sounds a little bit like to much hard work if you can indeed do it, so if you do not want to splash out on any flight planning software just now you could use simroutes or a similar website for your flight planning, I know that simroutes allows you to download your flight plan in both PMDG.rte format and the.pln format of the flight sim, but having your own flight planning software is really a great help as some sites tend to have US flight plans as the primary source with a token coverage for the rest of the world, which is OK if you mainly fly US routes anyway.Which flight planning software is an area that you will get widely different opinions about, and at the end of the day you will have to settle on the one that delivers the closest to what you want in terms of usability and attention to flight details, my own personal set up is using FSBuild and FSCommander which I have on a spare low end PC and use as a moving map, both of the above export to both version of flight sim and to all the PMDG products and almost all of the other formats.I can not really comment on the usability of any freeware flight panning software as I have never used any of them, but I imagine that somewhere possibly here on the AVSIM site will be a freeware flight planner that will export .rte and .pln formats, it may be worth a trawl through the utilities section to see what is on offer.I hope it helps.Jim Hodkinson

i was curious if you ever wrote to me about the delay, which i'm pretty certain is a config issue (you probably had "display text" checked). but i couldn't find any emails from you. i couldn't find any contact information for you either. email me if you are interested in fixing the lag.

[Turbine777 13]

Sry to interupt this thread, but JD, is that Marty Feldman you have there as your avatar? Haha, he's awesome, especially in Young Frankenstein. Can't miss those big bulging eyes of his.

[royski 0]

Thank you all for the suggestions. The "display text" option was the culprit for the LAG. Now RC runs smoothly with FSX. :(