Strange descent clearance

[chrispeel 0]

Flying along at FL390 I receive the first descent instruction.To FL 370.I ask for a PD which I am given.Very soon after I am asked "when ready"to descend to FL350.I ack that.But stay where I am.I'm well short of my computed TOD as it's likely to be a "wrong way" landingThen I receive a telling off for not descending.A new experience for me.I was flying in Norway as it happens.Very little traffic showing up in "Traffic Look"

[jd 57]

Flying along at FL390 I receive the first descent instruction.To FL 370.I ask for a PD which I am given.Very soon after I am asked "when ready"to descend to FL350.I ack that.But stay where I am.I'm well short of my computed TOD as it's likely to be a "wrong way" landingThen I receive a telling off for not descending.A new experience for me.I was flying in Norway as it happens.Very little traffic showing up in "Traffic Look"

that sounds odd.did happen to loose about 300ft of altitude between the pd, and the "when ready"?is the last checkpoint in your plan, a vor, within 5 miles of the destination airport?if you can duplicate, make a log, instructions pinned to the top of the forum. make sure you click debug before loading the .plnjd

[chrispeel 0]

Odd inded but a quick reply JD.Thanks for thatPretty sure I didn't drop 300 feet and there is a VOR at the arrival airport so that's the last item in the planI'll do it again just to make sure I'm doing nothing stupid.It's only happened in Norwegian Airspace I'm pretty sure.

[chrispeel 0]

Just done a flight from Oslo (ENGM) to Bardufoss(ENDU at FL390.Same thing happened but with repeated tellings off.RC4 seems to have got stuck at "4 times now" telling off.I'm letting the FMC do the descent when it's ready and I'm ignoring the "busted altitude" calls and references to FISDO etc.Once at TOD all becomes normal.This never happens in UK,USA,Spain,Italy.Japan,Hong Kong,Australia.New Zealand or anywhere else I flyTell me how to Zip up a file and I'll do it.

[ronzie 21]

Instructions for submitting a log are at the forum top. I don't think Win has a built in .zip facility, just an unzip. There are several freeware ones available.

[chrispeel 0]

Windows XP Pro has a facility to create a compressed file.It does not have a Zip facility as such.It seems to work the same way though.According to the notesWill this do for JD do you think?As a matter of interest I have carried out several further flights at FL390 in the PMDG 737 range and in Norway I always get this problem with a PD.Nowhere else.It doesn't happen if the PD is refused even in Norway.I'm not at all perturbed by any of this by the way.I just ignore it and continue on my merry way.I just thought it should be passed on to someone in the team.Perhaps someone could try a similar flight?It needs to be at a quiet time I guess so you have more chance of a PD approval.A quiet area too I suppose.

[ronzie 21]

Try the zip built into Win. You can also look at this free one http://download.cnet.com/7-Zip/3000-2250_4-10045185.html#editorsreview .I have the PMDG 737NGs. In the FMC there are two sections where the transition altitudes are entered, one each for departure and one for destination. I think for destination its a sub page in progress under forecast. For departure its under take-off or route - don't recall. This might help in calculating your TOD and also altitude control. It's not a solution for RC but may give you a better TOD point.Check the MSA altitudes for your departure and destination airports in Norway in the RC controller page. Because these are in mountainous territories (some) they might be too high because of RC's averaged database, that is not direction sensitive. The RC MSA database is fixed based on about 2002 topographical data. That and runway/airport elevation is all in RC that is scenery dependent. The latter is derived from your installed scenery.RC uses the three in one rule to calculate your TOD based on an 11,000 or 12,000 mandatory crossing restriction about 40 nm out from destination for jet aircraft, lower for turboprops and props. Your FMC assumes TOD based on constant descent to destination altitude. You can try putting in a hard waypoint altitude on your LEGS page at about 40 nm out using an existing waypoint or creating a fix. (Create a range ring of 40 nm out on your PMDG FMC for the ND by entering a fix of the destination ICAO and of PBR of /40 on the FIX page. Then you can look at waypoint in the plan mode of the FMC. I always do this to modify descent to meet the crossing restriction. Again this is just a workaround.PDs are discussed more fully starting on page 47 of the RC 43 manual. I note that it may only apply, no matter what the manual states, to your first descent and perhaps there is a bug. It should continue until at the lower enroute strata Center controller where the hard crossing restriction is issued.

[chrispeel 0]

I regret I never replied to your last post Ronzie for which i apologise, I noted all you said there back in 2011 and that's pretty much what I do when flying the sim.The transition altitude is set exactly as you said in the those pages of the FMC and I always amend them to the correct figures.

 

The reason I raise this again is that it does happen in other places not just Norway.I just had it going into Nice(LFMN)This is another airport which has high ground nearby but the TA is 5000 feet I believe.

 

I did find a sort of workround.Ack the descent clearance as before and request a PD.When scolded for not descending just request the original flight level and eventually it seems to sort itself out.

 

Not a pretty way of doing things I appreciate but it stops ATC from becoming too irritated

 

The main point I was making is that once given a PD clearance  you sometimes then get the hair dryer treatment.That still applies unless you go for the climb request via keystroke 4.Or ignore it,Or declare an emergency of course.Or cancel IFR.

 

It doesn't spoil things for me.Just curious about it.