Pro Flight Emulator thoughts

[psolk 3,037]

There is AI interaction... You will get traffic advisories and also hear the other AC getting a traffic advisory on you. You will also hear them being instructed to climb, descend, change heading etc... There are some stipulations as to where, when you hear the AI interaction but for the most part it is very immersive to hear a German controller speak to a French pilot with a German accent and hear the French pilot respond with a French accent. Just makes FS feel more "real" Can't speak to time acceleration, don't use it...-P

[nam1394 10]

Is there any background chatter, or PFE interaction with AI?How well do all the wavs fit in with 16× acceleration? Cheers,D

No. Because once you hit 8x AI planes disappear. But, ATC will talk to you when there is a frequency change, I hit pause and go back to 1x and acknowledge. I have flown 6 flights so for and I haven't had any problems. I have been having a blast, however, I have two small issues. 1. Tower doesn't seem to talk to AI planes much, at least on my last flight. I was landing at KSFO 28R and I contacted tower 11 miles out. I flew the final without hearing it talking to other planes even though, there was a long line of them at 28L. 2. Vectoring to final is not that good. It would vector me to close to intercept the ILS, especially if I was flying downwind. Other than those two issues, it is a great program especially after installing Xpack2(to those who don't know what it is, it makes ATC and AI pilots sound like they are talking through radio).

[psolk 3,037]

Hey Nam,You are right on the vectoring, typically I set my last waypoint about 15-20 miles out of my destination and have a STAR for the two most likely rwy's ready to go. Once I get the continue xxx to rwy xxx I hit my STAR and fly it for my final approach. I think you are right on the Tower to AI intercation... I don't remember other AI being cleared to land (or at least hearing them being cleared to land) I will check with Dave if that was by design... He might have wanted to last bit of communication to be between you and tower only as it is such a critical time of communication. Also, make sure you are taking advantage of the ability to choose preferential rwy's for takeoff and landing and assigned parking :) You can define SID's/STARS for specific airports, choose which rwy to use for takeoff and landing, (for example at KEWR PFE only uses 4L/22R for takeoff and 4R/22L for landing as that is how I defined it in PFE and you can even assign yourself a specific parking space after you land :) So when I leave KEWR I will usually get assigned to PORTT2 SID off 22R and when landing I will get a specific approach and be asked to taxi to C133 every time :) Great stuff I like to take advantage of within PFE...-P

[nam1394 10]

Psolk, First, thank you for the reply and for recommending it, by the way, I think my wife has put a bounty on your head because I have been glued to my PC ever since I bought it . Second, the vectoring thing is not a big deal to me since I always ask for pilot's discretion for landing. I am making a video on one of my flights using PFE. I will post a link once I uploaded it for those of you who haven't bought it yet(maybe tomorrow or the day after). Cheers

[John Hinson 22]

I think you are right on the Tower to AI intercation... I don't remember other AI being cleared to land (or at least hearing them being cleared to land) I will check with Dave if that was by design... He might have wanted to last bit of communication to be between you and tower only as it is such a critical time of communication.

You can hear AI making contact on their approach but overall in PFE (and RC) there are limitations on the communication with AI traffic by virtue of the fact that the interface with FS is through FSUIPC and if FSUIPC doesn't, by design, deliver the required information there is nothing the respective developers can do about it. For instance, I don't think you will ever hear AI aircraft in the air handed off to another controller in either of these products. I've never heard other traffic on the ground when taxying in, either. It is unfortunate that paid-for products like these are dependent on third-party software that doesn't really do the job properly but I guess the development costs of building a custom interface to eliminate FSUIPC and PF2000 would make the product too expensive to market viably. John

[vololiberista 205]

At a busy airport PFE can seem slow and unresposive. However, at least in Win XP the trick is to open Task Manager./ processes / Set Priority / Above Normal. You will find it works much more smoothly.vololiberista

[BenW 0]

I too have been spending a lot of time getting my head around this thing. Last night I tried a Geneva - Paris CDG and although all went well out of Geneva (was great to be in an Air France plane with a French pilot) I ran into some issues during the flight. PFE erased my waypoint near CDG, so the only waypoint I had after leaving GVA was at Dijon. I got vectors all the way from Dijon into CDG - hardly realistic. Also the automated ATIS gave me a runway in use that the AI was using, but I was vectored onto the opposite one and ended up face to face with a 777 using my arrival runway as a taxiway!I did forget to refresh the ai in ASE so that might be the problem. Anyone know how can I force back into the flightplan the waypoints that PFE has deleted?

[vololiberista 205]

The rwy issue is a problem but not PFE's fault. It depends on the wind direction and strength. If it is a croswind of a certain velocity then the sim uses the default rwy. It will land planes in both directions as well.There is a way of getting a wypt reasonably close but it rarely works. But, if you deviate from your route e.g. to take up the hold at BIG PFE is quite clever in allowing you to fly your own approach. However on some flightplans it refuses. For example the correct approach to my local is via TOP but PFE refuses to add that into the flightplan although it is light years away. But, it does allow a wypt that is really close. Don't ask me why. It must be something inherent in PF2000. PFE would really benefit from being released from the constraints of PF2000.vololiberista

[psolk 3,037]

At a busy airport PFE can seem slow and unresposive. However, at least in Win XP the trick is to open Task Manager./ processes / Set Priority / Above Normal. You will find it works much more smoothly.vololiberista

I run over widefs on a cheap 10 year old laptop... That machine runs PFE, FDC and FSFK :) problem solved LOL-P

[nam1394 10]

I don't think you will ever hear AI aircraft in the air handed off to another controller in either of these products. I've never heard other traffic on the ground when taxying in, either.

Actually, this is not true. In both products I have heard ATC instruct ai planes to contact other controllers, as matter of fact, last night I did a flight from eddf to egbb and there was an air India b777 which took off behind me and I heard act handing them off to more than 3 controllers before losing it on the channel. On the ground as well, I have heard ground sending planes to the terminal.[

[MeneMene 1]

I bought it as well and so far the voices and number of callsigns seem much better than RC- it also seems as if PFE can "do more" than RC can- specify a certain SID/STAR, specify where that SID/STAR ends or begins rather than a set nm distance, making the ATC aware of your altitude constraints. However, I am having some trouble. I've been trying to run the PFE_Displayer to show exactly what channel I'm on and what comm options I have, but the program will not start on my setup, which uses Windows 7 64 bit. It is set to "run as administrator". Is there a special way to get this to work? When should I be trying to start it? I also posted this over at the PFE forums and haven't gotten a response yet.

[nam1394 10]

Do you have multi monitor system? If not, then it won'work on a single display.

[MeneMene 1]

I can't even just open it in the background and alt-tab to it?

[nam1394 10]

I read in the manual that the minimum requirement is to have multi display.

[Benjamin J 751]

This thread ended up being eternally useful for me. I have bought PFE already quite some time ago, but never got the courage to actually use it, despite it being installed and ready to use. This thread might have tipped me over to actually start using it, since default ATC had been doing some pretty stupid stuff again lately. I was wondering about one thing though: is it possible to use this over a network using FSUIPC and WideFS?