Sneak Peek Video of Version 2.0

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

Hi Bill. Thanks for your interest.

Let me take your questions in order:

1) Yes you can get a descent anytime.  P2A will try to keep you out of the weeds by checking your request vs a safe AGL altitude, but generally yes.  Also, P2A calculates a TOD point based on Plan Altitude, GS and Descent rate.  You can vary these to get it to match the FMS TOD and all will be happy together. 

2)P2A gets its Weather data from NOAA...real weather.  Most used are winds and altimeter.  Getting weather from the SIM is a possible future, but having tried it in the past, it is not totally straight forward nor easy to do with both X-Plane and FSX/P3D.  It's a shame P3D chose not to allow real weather, but if Active Sky can get weather from the real world, you could easily be in sync that way.

3) If you can send me a complete flight plan with SID, Route, STAR and Approach, I can have a look and see if we can support it.  We have an import feature that is meant for just this purpose and supports importing FPs from multiple web sites at this point.

4)P2A monitors and gives instructions to the pilot to keep them on course and following an IFR flight plan.  Altitude and course are currently monitored.  Speeds have been added to the flight plan and will be enforced when flying in a terminal area in a future update.  I may let the user decide if they want to be monitored for speed en-route.

 

We are excited about V2.0.  The new architecture and UI mean a lot of room for growth and new functions along the way. 

 

Send me that flight plan at admin at pilot2atc.com or PM me here.

 

Thanks,

Dave 

[sbclark 55]

Dave,

 

I'm not sure where Active Sky Next (ASN) gets its weather, but they do inject weather directly into P3D. ASN, as I understand it, is one of the more popular weather systems on the market. Another ATC package I have, ProATC, will take weather from a number of sources, including ASN.....you just configure it for what you want, if they support it. The advantage, is that the ATC planning software, AKA P2A, can use the same weather engine that the plane will experience in flight......i.e., P3D and  ATC are in sync with the same weather source. However, maybe this is really not an issue, I just don't know.

 

Possibly, someone else could comment on ASN's weather source?

 

I will have to post on the ASN website to see if their source is the same as yours.............even if it is, there could be delays between what P2A sees versus what ASN experiences?

 

I'll provide you a flight plan later.

 

Bill

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

How well does this work with a pmdg product such as 737 - 777 thank you

 

Actually watching a 737 video using pilot2atc - is this only activated by voice control - is there button commands to progress ? thanks

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

I'll let others comment on how well it works with various third party aircraft, but in general it works with any aircraft that you want to use in one of the supported SIMs.  By using FSUIPC or XPUIPC, Pilot2ATC can exchange data with the SIM, regardless of the plane being flown.  The only exception is when a third party aircraft provider chooses to implement a feature using "non-standard" methods.  So, if they were to create a Radio system that totally bypassed the SIM radio settings, then Pilot2ATC would likely not reflect radio frequency changes or be able to change frequencies.

The only anomalies in this area that have been reported is that in some planes, P2A does not pick up changes in the Transponder Mode and the user has to set it in Pilot2ATC as well as in the aircraft.  Some Auto Pilot functions also may not synchronize, but most of them do just fine.

 

Version 2 will have a feature we call "SayIt" that will allow the pilot to interact with the ATC controller by selecting a phrase and pressing a button.  For readbacks, it's even simpler as in most cases, the pilot just pushes the button to speak a pre-selected phrase in response to a clearance, for example.  This eliminates the most common problems associated with speech recognition.

Bill, thanks for following up.

I am aware that it is possible to get weather from various sources including the SIM and that some other programs do this.  It is just not currently supported in Pilot2ATC.  Rather it is on the long list of possible enhancements for the future.  In the mean time, all we have is the Real Weather.

 

I look forward to the sample flight plan.  In fact, we may already support it if they output to X-Plane or P3D/FSX formats as we can currently import flight plans from .fms or .pln flight plan files.

 

Thanks,

Dave

[Manny 1,293]

I use the old trusted FSBuild flight planner... which I can load into the PMDG aircrafts etc

 

Can I import those flight plans into this P2ATC?

 

Everyone has their own flight planner.. The Sim, the ATC, the Weather... Not sure which is the most universal Flight planer that can be used to plan once and then publish to all the subscribers.

[sbclark 55]

Hi Dave,

 

I posted on the HiFi forum a question as to their source of their weather a few moments ago........will have to wait an answer.

 

A good flight plan to exercise your P2A software is a flight I flew a while back from Las Vegas to Phoenix. Below is the flight plan:

 

KLAS 25L.COWBY6.COWBY NAVHO.MAIER.26 CERUN ILS OR LOC RWY 26 KPHX

 

The MAIER Arrival has a number of altitude restrictions that have a "do not exceed above restriction" and a "do not exceed below restriction for a number of waypoints. My real question is, does P2A provide a certain latitude with either altitude, speed, or distance from a waypoint that will result in a warning from ATC that you have blown an altitude, speed restriction, or missed a waypoint?

 

Bill Clark

[sbclark 55]

Dave,

 

I notice that your primary flight system for your testing is X-Plane, possibly X-Plane 10, at least base on the number of videos I have viewed so far.

 

It is my understanding, that the combination of FSX-Classic, FSX-SE, and P3D are the bulk of the general/commercial market for simulation. I would hope that your Alpha/Beta test teams have a substantial number of testers who have these more popular simulators. This is not to say that X-Plane 10 is not a success and growing, it is just my understanding that the Microsoft based market is larger.

 

Many of us really don't fly the default aircraft anymore, but rather payware aircraft brands such as A2A, PMDG, iFly and others just to name a few. Many of these planes have their own built in autopilot and FMC's that use Navigraph or NavDataPro.....so your built-in autopilot may not be required. Another popular add-on is the Flight1, GTN 750 GPS system for GA aircraft. So I hope you are testing P2A version  2.0 with these planes to see how well they perform with your software. It would be worth your while to test these A/C and GPS systems to see if youP2A radio tuning scheme works with these advanced A/C systems. I will verify if my ProATC software works with these add-ons as well, which will confirm that it is possible to program the com and nav frequencies in payware A/C.

 

Your software sure looks attractive and I hope you can make P2A work well with all these Microsoft based sim platforms?

 

Bill Clark

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

Thanks Bill for all your good information.

Alpha testers have FSX, P3D and X-Plane.  I just personally prefer X-Plane and the fact that it almost never crashes ....for me at least.

 

The rollout plan has a Beta program for all our existing users so most of the add-on aircraft and other goodies will be tested in that diverse environment. In fact, V1 has been out there over a year and  the basic interface to the SIM has not changed, so I'm not that concerned about it.

 

No software will ever be totally compatible with all the add-ons out there.  P2A will be no exception to that.  It will be compatible with the SIMs and all the many add-ons that interact with those SIMs in a standard manner.    But as problems arise with individual add-ons, we'll work as hard as we can to resolve  them or determine there is no resolution.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your interest.

Dave

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

Manny,

If FSBuild's output is a .pln file then it should import to Pilot2ATC.  We also export our flight plans to .pln or .fms (X-Plane) files.

 

Dave

[sbclark 55]

Hi Dave,

 

I have some answers for you (I tested this morning):

 

1) Here is a response from HiFi Simulation Technologies - developer of ASN:

 

NOAA among several others.

 

2) ProATC will change the com frequencies in both the PMDG 737 NGX and the Flight1 GTN 750. I knew it worked with PMDG but wasn't sure it did with the GTN 750. Conclusion, P2A should then work ok.

 

Bill Clark

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

Thanks Bill. Appreciate the info and your efforts.

[Arwen 289]

Hi Dave, After using the trial version for about a week, and seeing your v.2.0 sneak peek, I decided to purchase Pilot2ATC.  I fly GA only and his is the best ATC add-on that I have used yet . . . by far!  I'm really looking forward to v.2.0. Thank you for making such a needed add-on for Prepar3D (still on v.2.5) and for X Plane 10!

[sbclark 55]

Hi Dave,

 

I just downloaded your documentation to get a feel for how to setup and use version 1.4.3.0 of Pilot2ATC......you did an impressive job of describing how to use....it appears to be very well documented in a lot of detail for the previous version of P2A.

 

So do you plan on updating the documentation at the time of version 2.0's release?

 

My other question, are you based in the UK?

 

The reason I ask is that the SID's and STARS implementation appear to be different than in the USA. So have you taken these differences into account in V2.0's design?
 

Bill

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

Hi Bill.

Yes, documentation has been created for V2.  It will mature with time, but should be enough to get folks going with it.

SIDs and STARs in V1 was really just giving the pilot the ability to fly SIDs and STARs from charts or their FMS without getting nagged that they were off course.  You cannot actually put a SID or STAR into V1 without manually entering all the Waypoints.

 

In V2, SIDs and STARs, as well as Approaches, Airways, etc. will be taken from AIRAC data, so however they are described in the data is how  they will be displayed and enforced in V2.

 

Hope this helps.

Dave

[GodAtum 69]

Hi Bill.

Yes, documentation has been created for V2.  It will mature with time, but should be enough to get folks going with it.

SIDs and STARs in V1 was really just giving the pilot the ability to fly SIDs and STARs from charts or their FMS without getting nagged that they were off course.  You cannot actually put a SID or STAR into V1 without manually entering all the Waypoints.

 

In V2, SIDs and STARs, as well as Approaches, Airways, etc. will be taken from AIRAC data, so however they are described in the data is how  they will be displayed and enforced in V2.

 

Hope this helps.

Dave

 

Wow, this looks amazing! Do the SIDS/STARS come from a Navigraph database? With the recommended SID/STAR, do you have to select that in the software before you get clearance or will ATc do it automatically? With the flightplan importer, can you import PFPX plans? I cant wait to try it out in my full-size flightdeck sim.