fsx-ms ATC addons

[Pete Dowson 558]

...enter altitude/speed constraints in the plan to meet STAR/DP crossing restrictions. 

 

This information is in the AIRAC. The SID/STAR information in those packages may not be perfect, but they do contain the correct waypoints and restrictions. This is why they work so well for FMS's. ProATC uses the Airac information.

 

.  Also, allow the pilot to descend to whatever altitude they want when requested to meet performance characteristics of particular planes.

 

 

That should be known to the ATC program in any case if your aircraft data is entered correctly. Requests for different altitudes are allowed in most if not all the ATC programs I've tried. Whether the change is allowed or not, and how immediate, will vary, as in reality.

 

Allow an IAP to be entered, perhaps more than one for a menu option to fly one as you see fit.

 

Again, provided in the AIRAC. Allowing the pilot to request a change to a different one than that assigned by ATC is good, and either is or will soon be done in ProATC.

 

 Allow better weather deviations and diversions.  Allow a flight plan change (e.g., Wx, emergency)

 

I think all the ATC programs have these provisions.

 

Better voices.  Default ACT when sped up with EVP is great.  Others are too robotic.

 

 

"Robotic" implies computer-generated, and the only ones like that used in an ATC program are those in VoxATC I think. They are less "robotic" sounding if you pay a lot for each such voice. The default ones are terrible.

 

The other ATC programs use real recordings from humans, not robots.

 

I think what you probably mean by "robotic" is "disjointed", and that results from putting together sentences from fragments, because it is impossible to have all possible needed numerics, names, call signs, etc, included in complete individually recorded messages for every occasion. The only way other than the expensive synthesised true "robotic" voices, is to put together the sentences with separate recordings for numbers, phonetics, callsigns and so on. That's what is being done. There are ways to make it sound better and these are being pursued for the ProATC ones, but it will never be perfect.

 

Pete

[vololiberista 205]

 

2) PF3

 

1. Copy the route string

2. Paste the route string into simbrief/vroute/PFPX/FSC

3. Convert the route string to one of the fpl formats that PF3 supports

4. Save the flight plan to your computer.

5. Open new flight plan by browsing your computer for the exported flight plan you created in the previous step

6. Enter flight level

7. Set transition altitudes for your origin and destination airports

8. Find SID plates for your origin and enter in (or verify) the SIDs available for each runway (and altitude restrictions)

9. Find STAR plates for your destination and enter in (or verify) the STARs available for each runway (and altitude restrictions)

10. Find approach plates for your destination airport and come up with a Minimum FAF altitude for your destination airport

11. Enter alternate airport

Um no!

1.Generate a fpl into the sim format.

2. Save in the usual sim directory.

3. Open PF3

4. load it into PF3

5. PF3 generates an ATC profile

6. Go

 

I can if I wish make adjustments to flight levels SIDs STARs etc. But actually PF3 performs pretty well out of the box.

 

And in any case some of the other points such as 9 and 10 are legal requirements in ICAO. You must by law carry the latest charts. So whether you use an FMC or not you must have access to paper charts for each flight.

Yes I can also choose an alternate if I wish. Choosing an alternate in PF3 is a bit like  the analogy "Why do you climb mountains?" "Because they're there". Because PF3 will vector you perfectly. For example try this fpl LIMZ-->TOP-->LIMF-->[ALT]-->VHHX. I do that because PF3 can do it!. As long as I have enough fuel PF3 wil vector me all the way from my original destination Torino in Italy to my alternate in Hong Kong.

.

[Pat Mussotte 92]

Thank you Neal for opening this very interesting thread as I'm in the same expectations as you!

I fly The fantastic Citation X, almost exclusively for the time being, and I'm interested in Pro ATC X but I suspect they don't support Eaglesoft Citation X flightplan format! Creating a flightplan is not a problem, I use Simbrief with last Navigraph update, and to copy it in Pro ATC X, the export to the right format is a question as Pro ATC seems focus on airliners mainly(PMDG, Quality Wings...). May be someone flying the Citation X with Pro ATC X can answer this question :wink: .

 

Best regards

 

Pat

[Jarkko 59]

 

 

I'm interested in Pro ATC X but I suspect they don't support Eaglesoft Citation X flightplan format! Creating a flightplan is not a problem, I use Simbrief with last Navigraph update, and to copy it in Pro ATC X, the export to the right format is a question

 

Sorry for a late reply, I've been busy testing out AirHauler 2

 

I noticed that Navigraph has AIRAC data for Eaglesoft so this means that you could have matching data in both the aircraft and ATC.

 

Couple of options come to mind. The key is that you do not need to export a flight plan out of ProATC to the aircraft. Here are the options:

 

1. Fully manual: copy/paste the route from SimBrief to ProATC and enter the route manually into to FMS

 

2. Fully automatic: Export fsx or squwkbox format out of SimBrief and import it to ProATC, The SimBrief supports exporting in Citation format, then you could also use it.

 

Those are the main ways to get a flight plan sorted. The third option for some selected aircrafts would be to create a flight plan in ProATC and have ProATC export the flight plan to the aircraft, but I rarely use this option as I prefer to enter the routes manually, because at the same time I make sure that a correct route gets generated.

[Pat Mussotte 92]

Thank you very much for your answer Jarkko. I could use option 1 Fully manual, I prefer to enter my route manually in the FMS :wink:. Finally for receiving correct ATC clearances, my FMS flightplan must be the same with the Pro ATC X flightplan and that's all! 

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

I was watching videos of ProATC-X.  Does it still change you to departure while you're on the runway??

[Jarkko 59]

I was watching videos of ProATC-X. Does it still change you to departure while you're on the runway??

I don't think it has ever done that. The wording in takeoff clearance is: "... When airborne, contact departure ..."

 

So while you are on the runway, you should stay with the tower frequency.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,963]

I don't think it has ever done that. The wording in takeoff clearance is: "... When airborne, contact departure ..."

I was at Manchester yesterday listening to ATC. Tower will explicitly instruct an aircraft once airborne to contact Departure. The pilot will acknowledge that and then contact Dep. The instruction is not given before take-off.

[Jarkko 59]

I was at Manchester yesterday listening to ATC. Tower will explicitly instruct an aircraft once airborne to contact Departure. The pilot will acknowledge that and then contact Dep. The instruction is not given before take-off.

Just to repeat, ProATC isn't instructing you to change frequency, it is just a reminder what the departure frequency is. The clearance says that you should contact departure only after you are airborne.

 

EDIT:

 

At 43min 40s you will hear the clearance. Please also note when the co-pilot contacts departure.

 

https://youtu.be/wWsiSXpF-es

[tf51d 284]

I was at Manchester yesterday listening to ATC. Tower will explicitly instruct an aircraft once airborne to contact Departure. The pilot will acknowledge that and then contact Dep. The instruction is not given before take-off.

I was listening to EHAM tower recordings today on liveatc, and the only instructions I heard was takeoff and landing clearances, no hand offs to departure, so I can only assume the pilots initiates contact to departure after takeoff This is essentially how PROATC/X is modeled.

[vololiberista 205]

Just to repeat, ProATC isn't instructing you to change frequency, it is just a reminder what the departure frequency is. The clearance says that you should contact departure only after you are airborne.

 

EDIT:

 

At 43min 40s you will hear the clearance. Please also note when the co-pilot contacts departure.

 

Yes but! That's completely the wrong procedure. Whilst on the ground you are only given the departure clearance as part of your clearance delivery. Say what you like it is completely wrong and not done in the real world. Aside from clearance delivery you will only be given the departure frequency once airborne. That is the established procedure. Another point about proatc is giving aircraft registrations as alpha-numeric instead of phonetic. That is not done at all. Period!

I was listening to EHAM tower recordings today on liveatc, and the only instructions I heard was takeoff and landing clearances, no hand offs to departure, so I can only assume the pilots initiates contact to departure after takeoff This is essentially how PROATC/X is modeled.

You do not  tune to departure yourself. I repeat "do not!" Also you were listening to second hand ATC. You only tune to a frequency (any frequency, except one) "on the instructions of ATC" unless you are taking-off from an uncontrolled airstrip. The exception is 121.5! EHAM has very complex SID and STAR procedures and is a very busy airport so you probably missed the calls.

Part of RT procedure is to maintain a listening watch. That means not missing anything! The UK CAA RT exam has a 100% pass threshold. You are not allowed even to say "Say again" in the exam.

So Proatc is doing it wrongly.

 

On the PF3 forum we get a few quiries saying PF3 didn't do this or didn't do that. When we check the logs quite often we find the instructions were given and just missed by the user.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,963]

Just to repeat, ProATC isn't instructing you to change frequency, it is just a reminder what the departure frequency is. The clearance says that you should contact departure only after you are airborne.

But it should be if it's going to emulate real world ops. ATC is there to control you. They give you explicit instructions at the appropriate time. They don't do reminders, they issue instructions.

[Jarkko 59]

Say what you like it is completely wrong and not done in the real world.

Listen, you can come and visit me anytime. We can go to my local international airport and see if it never happens

 

EDIT: Look up SID charts for EHAM. What do they say? "Passing 2000, contact Schiphol DEP".

Edited June 4, 2016 by Jarkko

[fnav77 56]

In Amsterdam, I believe it is an automatic hand off, you contact departure passing 2000 feet. Tower won't hand you off, it is part of the SID instructions and ATC assumes you change frequency yourself.

A few other places worldwide are using this same principle.

 

At some airports, tower will instruct you to contact departure as part of the take off clearance.

 

Finally, in most places, tower will clear you for takeoff and at an appropriate time once you are airborne, will instruct you to contact departure.

 

So, as you can see, there are 3 possible scenarios.

[Pete Dowson 558]

Another point about proatc is giving aircraft registrations as alpha-numeric instead of phonetic. That is not done at all. Period!

 

That's a user option, maybe selected by those who don't understand the phonetic alphabet. And, yes, I know it shouldn't be there, but so shouldn't many user friendly additions added to most of the ATC programs.

 

As for the other points, there's actually a lot of variability throughout the world. Some things may even be set in concrete, like "all ATC in English", but try telling the French that! ;-)

 

Anyway, though there may not be as many user releases of ProATC as for others, at least it is still being developed, which, sadly, didn't happen for RCV4 which is why I switched. Currently, the ability of ProATC/X to use AIRAC data and provide proper SID and STAR operations makes it well worth while for me to stick with it, and help it to continue to improve -- and, yes, become more accurate in its way of issuing instructions.

 

Constructive criticism is quite welcome, but it would be much better coming from those who are actually trying it and testing it.

 

Pete