Richard, get rid of the DP you have assigned to your last waypoint.  You are telling PF3 you are flying a SID until that waypoint, so you will not be vectored.

Interested in a video here too, specially to hear the ATC. When it comes to audio so far no ATC addon even comes close to default ATC. ATC fills the top 10 for me and ProATC maybe comes in at 11. After listening to PFE video's I doubt if it comes in the top 25 at all so I am curious how PF3 sounds with the 'correct settings'. Bit odd btw that you need 'correct settings': why the heck doesn't it sound good by default?

Richard, get rid of the DP you have assigned to your last waypoint.  You are telling PF3 you are flying a SID until that waypoint, so you will not be vectored.

 

Thanks Dan - give that a try

 

 

When it comes to audio so far no ATC addon even comes close to default ATC.

 

That's been my take so far, which is why I've wound up drifting back to it after trying other programs.  As for its inaccuracies - I fly almost entirely in the northeast and mid-atlantic US, where weird vectoring is a way of life, so it doesn't seem that far off-base, all things being equal.  But I'd love to be able to improve on it.  I agree with you about the PFE voices and hope the PF3 ones sound better, or that the wide selection provides some good options.  As for settings - IIRC, RC4 sounded a lot better when you sped up the delivery beyond the default settings, so that level of tweaking may just be par for the course.  

 

I'm leaning strongly toward trying PF3 but for me at least, hearing will be believing.

Rich, I'd also suggest you register at the PF3 Support Forum:

 

http://www.ocs-support.co.uk/forums/viewforum.php?f=8

 

:smile:

Interested in a video here too, specially to hear the ATC. When it comes to audio so far no ATC addon even comes close to default ATC. ATC fills the top 10 for me and ProATC maybe comes in at 11. After listening to PFE video's I doubt if it comes in the top 25 at all so I am curious how PF3 sounds with the 'correct settings'. Bit odd btw that you need 'correct settings': why the heck doesn't it sound good by default?

By "correct" settings PF3 will deliver the RT at normal ATC speed complete with vhf interference and indistinct voices. The latter is new to PF3 and makes RT incredibly realistic.

So, you're new to the whole game and have never heard ATC RT then PF3 will "dumb" it down so to speak. Giving you hifi clarity without interference etc if you wish. So once you're used to it you can add everything back in.

Richard, get rid of the DP you have assigned to your last waypoint.  You are telling PF3 you are flying a SID until that waypoint, so you will not be vectored.

Good spot. A VFR plan with an IFR element.

By "correct" settings PF3 will deliver the RT at normal ATC speed complete with vhf interference and indistinct voices. The latter is new to PF3 and makes RT incredibly realistic.

So, you're new to the whole game and have never heard ATC RT then PF3 will "dumb" it down so to speak. Giving you hifi clarity without interference etc if you wish. So once you're used to it you can add everything back in.

Ah, ok, thanks for the clarification. Hopefully someone will create a video soon.

Bear in mind that ProATC is not ICAO compliant. Voice sets must have rigorous control. For example alpha charaters are never spoken on RT.

 

Not again with this... This is user configurable (like you already know as it's been pointed out multiple times).

While I am at it: I had a look at the manual and er... it seems to me that you sort of have to do ATC's job before you can actually start a flight and that PF3 sort of 'plays' the scenario you have created yourself...? You have to come up with the SID and STAR, the FAF (distance, altitude), all kinds of altitudes, solutions for difficult approaches (to prevent you from getting into trouble) and you have to do all that before you even started the sim. I was expecting being able to file a basic flight plan and that ATC would tell me what SID and STAR to use, to take care of the right altitudes and so on. In short: to do the job of ATC. Instead you have to tell ATC what to do in great detail before you fire up the sim. Is that correct or am I mistaken? Seems to me you have to do a lot of work in order to get a nice experience which you created yourself. I must be missing something here.

 

EDIT

Take a look at page 132, the ZJSY to VHHX flight where you have to set the weather (!) and certain altitudes or the approach will go wrong...? How the heck are you supposed to know what to do in a situation like that? And that is a 'easy flight plan'? Again, I think I must be missing something obvious here because I can't imagine you buy an ATC addon so you can do the job of ATC yourself before the flight actually started.

Well got a little better had 3 heading changes then contacted atc and it said 7 miles off of airway and never heard another thing - I was using default maul hoping I would get heading all the way to destination runway guess not - oh well

While I am at it: I had a look at the manual and er... it seems to me that you sort of have to do ATC's job before you can actually start a flight and that PF3 sort of 'plays' the scenario you have created yourself...? You have to come up with the SID and STAR, the FAF (distance, altitude), all kinds of altitudes, solutions for difficult approaches (to prevent you from getting into trouble) and you have to do all that before you even started the sim. I was expecting being able to file a basic flight plan and that ATC would tell me what SID and STAR to use, to take care of the right altitudes and so on. In short: to do the job of ATC. Instead you have to tell ATC what to do in great detail before you fire up the sim. Is that correct or am I mistaken? Seems to me you have to do a lot of work in order to get a nice experience which you created yourself. I must be missing something here.

 

EDIT

Take a look at page 132, the ZJSY to VHHX flight where you have to set the weather (!) and certain altitudes or the approach will go wrong...? How the heck are you supposed to know what to do in a situation like that? And that is a 'easy flight plan'? Again, I think I must be missing something obvious here because I can't imagine you buy an ATC addon so you can do the job of ATC yourself before the flight actually started.

 

Well, Think about what happens in the real world. You are a pilot and you arrive at the airport and get given a fpl. Who created that fpl? Not ATC. Dispatch created it at least. They choose a routing that is acceptable to the various authorities and file it with ATC. ATC approve it. The route is to the South so I have an option of at least two SIDs due to rwy direction. So in PF3 I enter all those options. So if the wind changes PF3 will give me the correct SID for my route. You can choose to include a specific sid on your waypoint adjustment page or not. PF3 will in effect let you fly any SID that it calls up to the point where you have entered DP.

Your other point How the heck are you supposed to know what to do in a situation like that? You forget that all the information for the approach to VHHX is in the charts. Altitudes and speeds etc. As a Captain it is my responsibilty to know that. PF3 and any other ATC programme would have to have an enormous database of every altitude constraint at every waypoint on the planet. Speed restrictions and so on. A mamoth task and not credible. Many simmers seem to think that "ah ok I want to fly from a to b". Stick it into an ATC programme like PF3, RC4 etc and somehow by magic get a perfect result.

 

Pilots are trained to file fpls so they know how to do them. All a simmer has do is copy that information into PF3. I don't personally think that's difficult to do. And in the process you learn something!

 

Again with regard to How the heck are you supposed to know what to do in a situation like that? at VHHX it's simple. Look at the fpl, the end of STAR is CH Cheung Chau. So then what to do if there's a runway change? Easy, fly from CH on a heading of 082deg to TH Tathong Point, execute a procedural turn and land on the ILS for rwy 31. Having been told to do so by ATC.

 

You are asking for an ATC programme that has access to every bit of information on the planet needed to make an automatic fpl from a to b. Not even Eurcontrol can do that!!!!

The best thing that the developer has done is to offer a demo. This should give everyone who tries PF3 an opportunity to see if it works for them.

 

I tried PFE many times before I got it to work.

 

The way I plan a quick flight is:

 

1) I start ASN.

2) Start FSX and create a FP using high altitude airways.

3) I use ASN to check the weather.

4) I open PFE and I convert flight plan to PF2000.

5) I open PF2000 and file my FP and note CL frequency.

6) I then load the adventure with PFE and check altitudes.

7) I load FSX, set up aircraft, and when I'm ready to taxi, connect to PFE.

8) Listen to ATIS, load CL frequency, then press 0 to request clearance.

 

VCP handles the radio. This is a quick process with practice. I'm sure that with PF3 it should be even faster.

 

Jose

Well got a little better had 3 heading changes then contacted atc and it said 7 miles off of airway and never heard another thing - I was using default maul hoping I would get heading all the way to destination runway guess not - oh well

You can change the traffic advisories. Mine is set to 4nm. Set yours to higher than 7 and ATC will go and make another cup of cocoa instead of reminding you!

ATC programme would have to have an enormous database of every altitude constraint at every waypoint on the planet. Speed restrictions and so on. ... You are asking for an ATC programme that has access to every bit of information on the planet needed to make an automatic fpl from a to b. Not even Eurcontrol can do that!!!!

 

VoxATC and ProATC already have this (altitude restrictions and all), so it can be done, and has been done for quite some time.

 

I wanted to do the same with PFE. Read the data from the updated AIRAC and setup my PFE flights automatically. Unfortunately I found out that the PFE file format was proprietary (as I contacted the developer), so at that time it wasn't doable with PFE.

 

Maybe PF3 allows these values to be imported from an external program?

Edited February 7, 201610 yr by Jarkko

The best thing that the developer has done is to offer a demo. This should give everyone who tries PF3 an opportunity to see if it works for them.

 

I tried PFE many times before I got it to work.

 

The way I plan a quick flight is:

 

1) I start ASN.

2) Start FSX and create a FP using high altitude airways.

3) I use ASN to check the weather.

4) I open PFE and I convert flight plan to PF2000.

5) I open PF2000 and file my FP and note CL frequency.

6) I then load the adventure with PFE and check altitudes.

7) I load FSX, set up aircraft, and when I'm ready to taxi, connect to PFE.

8) Listen to ATIS, load CL frequency, then press 0 to request clearance.

 

VCP handles the radio. This is a quick process with practice. I'm sure that with PF3 it should be even faster.

 

Jose

Ok That's the right approach to set up the weather first. That's what you should do in real life, check the weather first before filing a fpl.

 

Of course with PF3 you don't need to create an adv. So there are fewer steps. Pages 126-134 of the manuel will assist you. Generating the fpl in PF3 is the final step except for checking the waypoints and adjusting them if need be.