Hi, just a quick question.At the moment, im flying the new Concorde-X plane with RC.With the concorde, when it gets to around FL450 - FL550, the procedure is to enter what i called Max Cruise mode. Basically, the plane targets FL600 as efficiently as it can. Due to the nature of the plane at Mach 2.02, the climb can be very slow, sometimes taking around 10 mins to climb 1000ft. Yes, this mean that the plane is in a contant climb until it either hits FL600, or it reaches top of descent.As you can imagine, the poor ATC person in RC is getting stressed that im not climbing quick enough!How can i get round this in RC? So far, i have tried increasing asking for clearance to higher FL's as i go, but like i say sometimes the climb is slow. The last thing i tried was to set the altitude deviation to 2000 feet to reduce the 'sensitivity'. The only problem with this, was that come descent time, RC understandably didnt know my altitude accurately enough to tell me it was ok to intercept the localizer. It thought i was at 3000ft when infact i was just above 5000.What would be ideal would be that RC knows my alitiude, but above a certain level, wouldnt worry whether i was on target or not. Asking for higher levels wouldnt be a problem so it know when to start descent, but getting told off isnt nice! :-)I read that in real life, RC has been known to be more lenient for the Concorde while at higher alts.

Hi, just a quick question.At the moment, im flying the new Concorde-X plane with RC.With the concorde, when it gets to around FL450 - FL550, the procedure is to enter what i called Max Cruise mode. Basically, the plane targets FL600 as efficiently as it can. Due to the nature of the plane at Mach 2.02, the climb can be very slow, sometimes taking around 10 mins to climb 1000ft. Yes, this mean that the plane is in a contant climb until it either hits FL600, or it reaches top of descent.As you can imagine, the poor ATC person in RC is getting stressed that im not climbing quick enough!How can i get round this in RC? So far, i have tried increasing asking for clearance to higher FL's as i go, but like i say sometimes the climb is slow. The last thing i tried was to set the altitude deviation to 2000 feet to reduce the 'sensitivity'. The only problem with this, was that come descent time, RC understandably didnt know my altitude accurately enough to tell me it was ok to intercept the localizer. It thought i was at 3000ft when infact i was just above 5000.What would be ideal would be that RC knows my alitiude, but above a certain level, wouldnt worry whether i was on target or not. Asking for higher levels wouldnt be a problem so it know when to start descent, but getting told off isnt nice! :-)I read that in real life, RC has been known to be more lenient for the Concorde while at higher alts.

ray is our concorde expert, i'm sure he can climb in here :-)jd

:-)I was also wondering how RC could help me with finding the top od descent, and how it calculates it for 'regular' planes.

Ask for deviations for turbulence. That will free you from any noise about your altitude.

While I'm waiting for a replacement HDD to install FSX on and try out Concorde-X....In supersonic operations, Concorde didn't necessarily "target" FL600. She would be flown at cruise thrust, varying altiude to maintain Mach 2.02. Concorde is the only a/c I can't fly IFR with RC4 (FS9 & SSTSIM), because RC4 wasn't designed for that type of cruise flight. Not a problem, just a "that's life" issue.If I may make a recommendation for RC5 (may already be in the works, haven't been keeping track), to accomodate Concorde's profile a solution would be to implement block altitudes in the flight planning section and/or the options menu. Granted block altitudes are not solely the purview of Concorde, implementing it this way would solve the problem, and lay the framework for further expansion of RC to accomodate sub-sonic block altitude IFR flight for other aircraft.Algorithim would go something like this:- Fill out your block cruise altitude in your IFR flight plan (ex: for Concorde FL500 BLOCK FL600)- Option in ATC menu when talking to Center would be to request all the way up to your block. (Given Concorde's Profile, would account for the departure -> cruise climb transition)- When in your block, an option to tell center you're vacating your current cruise. This would be done at the completion of your deceleration and you start your descent.- Based on your current altitude, RC does a normal calcuation and gives a crossing restriction / or hard altitude to descend to. From there on out, ops normal.Upon further thought, this method would only work for profiles with no sub-sonic segments. Perhaps a "Concorde" option in RC5, where in addition to the block altitudes of the flight plan, you can specify 2 waypoints with hard altitude crossing restrictions. For example:- EGLL-KJFK, you'd specify UPGAS at FL280 in RC5 flight planning.- RC5 would clear you up to FL280 until that point.- Crossing RC5, you'd select the option to climb to your block altitude.- Follow rest of steps above.On the way back.- KJFK-EGLL, you'd specify (I forget the fix name, crossing into Europe) at FL270 in RC5 flight planning.- Following above algorithim, you're at FL586, decelerate, and request "Beginning Descent" or whatever option in RC5.- RC5 issues you the FL270 crossing restriction at XXXX fix.- After that, you're a normal subsonic flight.Either way, to accomodate the Concorde, I don't think RC5 should be calculating your TOD. Because then it would have to do the calculations for your decel as well, and that seems more the purview of the PIC, than an ATC.I can write a more mathematical approach for coding to illustrate what I'm trying to describe if needed. The only real problem I see is I don't know how RC deals with MS, and if trying to implement a block altitude system would cause things to break. Then again, might be too much work to accomodate a single aircraft type.Fly Safe,-Dan

Got bored in a meeting, figured I

Adrian,Have you flown Concorde in FS9 with RC? If so, how did you manage to keep RC happy? Although JD refers to me as our expert I'm nothing of the sort really. But I'm probably the only one on the beta team who fly her so I get to answer all the Concorde-related questions? :( I fly the PSS Concorde in FS9. To get around the problem of variable climb rates dependent on outside temperature and engine performance I 'cheat' and engage V/S mode once Mach 2 is reached. I then engage Mach Hold and adjust the V/S rate to around 50-100fpm and this approximates the Cruise/Climb mode albeit in a less sophisticated way. With a gentle climb RC won't complain. If the tMO was close then you would need to 'slow down or go down' according to the captain on the ITVV Concorde DVD. You could request a lower flight level and when conditions allowed request higher again. Providing you climb (or descend) at 50fpm or more RC won't complain.It is true that in real life Concorde had some flexibility in its flight levels and was given a block altitude in which it had relative freedom to climb and descend as required. RC won't currently allow that of course.Regarding the ToD point RC will use its standard calculation and to be honest I can't recall how close this is to the actual ToD point. I do know that in the real world it's 215 miles from KJFK on the EGLL-KJFK route and I have that as a waypoint in my plan. The situation flying east to EGLL is different as Concorde has to be subsonic 35 miles before landfall over Devon. Currently there's no way of telling RC this. All you can do is request lower at the appropriate point but calculating it is not easy. However, v5 will include a STAR option and it should be possible to add the required waypoint west of Devon with an altitude restriction of FL350 which allows for sub-sonic flight. RC will start you down so you reach that point where you should be sub-sonic. Thereafter RC will keep you at that altitude until you need to descend further to meet the crossing restriction and thereafter you will be treated as any other aircraft.Regarding the excellent suggestions by Dan that would require a lot of code changes for a single aircraft. Whether JD would be prepared to undertake that only he could say.

Thank you all for your valuable help.In FS9, i didnt really use RC - i was pretty new to Flight Sim and didnt really know about it! I can calculate the descent point ok, but what would be REALLY useful would be to start RC just to vector me to finals. No idea how to do that 'manually'. Or have RC ignore alts above 50k.Ill give the VS idea a try tho - just have to keep an eye on the speed throughout the flight.I realise it may have been asked already, but is there any very rough idea when v5 will be out?

... but what would be REALLY useful would be to start RC just to vector me to finals. No idea how to do that 'manually'. Or have RC ignore alts above 50k.

It's not possible to start RC in the middle of a flight, sorry. And there's no way around RC checking your filed altitude other than the 'deviate for turbulence' option.

I realise it may have been asked already, but is there any very rough idea when v5 will be out?

That's one for JD.

Do what would the best strategy for Deviate for Turbulance be? Iv never had to use it! :-)

Do what would the best strategy for Deviate for Turbulance be? Iv never had to use it! :-)

I haven't either Adrian. But my guess is that you just request it and once the controller acks your message the watchdog is turned off. It's only turned back on when you advise the controller turbulence is no longer a problem (menu option). But try v/s first. That's always worked for me.

Sounds like a good plan t' me!Thanks for your help, ill report back once iv tried both ways.:-)

Hi Adrian,I know this post is a couple of weeks old, but I thought you might be interested in how I put FISDO out of business, with 'Ole Pointy'.The flight plan from EGLL to KJFK is filed initially at FL280, this takes care of the subsonic cruise out to UPGAS. Once I'm passed UPGAS I then ask for FL590 (the maximum allowed by RC) and start my trans-sonic climb in Max Climb mode. When I kill the Re-Heats I know that my climb rate is going to start fluctuating, so at this point I ask for 'Deviations for Turbulence', RC now ignores my Altitude and Alpha Charlie can climb or descend to her hearts content in Cruise Climb mode.I have found that RC calls me down, to somewhere around FL350, within a few miles of my calculated deceleration/descent point, so I proceed with the deceleration, and once I'm actually descending, inform ATC that I'm past the turbulence, RC is now once again keeping an eye on my altitude.From now on I'm just like any other airliner, respecting Altitudes, speed restrictions, crossing restrictions, etc. ATC vectors me in over New York to land on 13L.Once I've taxied in and parked, JD informs me that there may be redundancies at FISDO and RC hasn't griped once about my altitude.I hope JD puts something in RC5 for Concorde, it needn't be anything fancy, the same mechanism as the Turbulence deviation, but with additional phraseology for cruise climbing.Regards,...........Adrian W.