wombat457: Dial your COM1 to Clearance (or if the airport does not have that: Ground or Tower), the frequency should be listed on your kneeboard (assuming FS9 has one), or you can look at your FS9 directory, which now should contain a subdirectory "PF3_display" containing the file "PF3_freqs.dat". This file is used by the PF3_Displayer utility, too.

Then press "0" for check-in and everything else should be handled by your virtual co-pilot (unless you disable him/her).

John: PF3 does not know about terrain, but I think the default ATC doesn't either. With PF3 you can manually define FAF altitudes for airports (default is airport elevation + 3000 feet, rounded down) and waypoint altitudes for your flight plan (which in PF3 are now saved per flight plan, so you don't have to set them again when loading the same flight plan) to solve this.

31 minutes ago, John Hinson said:

I too have downmloaded the demo it but haven't had time to try it yet.

If PF3 works similarly to PFE it will not present options in the way FS's system does - you will need to make contact using the Hotkeys listed towards the end of the manual (page 99 onwards).

The manual is very detailed (which I like) but perhaps a bit too comprehensive when you just want to try it out. Another useful section which I have printed out for reference is pages 124 and 125.

I am afraid reading the manual reminded me of one feature I neglected to mention in my "wrong" review and that is that PF3 does not detect terrain in the way FS's system does when approaching airports, so go carefully in mountainous areas . . .

John

The only ATC that know the local terrain is the real stuff. Even so, you should properly navigate so that you don't scratch the paint.  Any airfield chart that has a an NDB approach or ILS will be easy to follow and set-up in PF3 as you wish.

Thank you gents - seems as though I actually have things working now!

From what I have seen (before I crashed :( ) it looks good.  The Taxi manager is great and was accurate, at least for the default KROC taxi ways, I will try an add on scenery later.

I especially like how the co pilot controls the coms, everything automated - that makes life much easier.

From what I have gleaned thus far, all I need to do is press the "0" key to get things started and each time I want to contact ATC, the co pilot does everything else - what a great guy he is :)

As said, I will do a full flight later so I can see how things work in the air and on approaches but so far so good!   

Have just completed a full flight and I HAVE to admit that OnCourse has gotten this one right - it is GOOD!

The only issue I saw was as has been mentioned, flying in hilly terrain.  On my approach into KELM I was directed to reduce speed to 60 knots (carenado seneca) and that was not fast enough to keep me in the air for the distance I had to travel.  Solution ... ignore ATC and keep the plane on the flight path for the landing.

All in all this IS a good product and am looking forward to fly the full version in a jet.

I should add here one more thing, all I did was open PF3 and load a flight plan then flew.  I did nothing more so the out of the box setup is pretty good and will be (obviously) better if fine tuned.  Very impressed.

1 hour ago, ThomasAH said:

John: PF3 does not know about terrain, but I think the default ATC doesn't either.

A lot of people have said that, but it certainly does (for me). The only time default ATC will fly me into mountains is on departure (because, I guess, it doesn't know one's climb rate ability. Sometimes when given an approach and descent it will give me a climb again to clear some mountains, and on accasions give landing clearance from a ridiculous height for the same reason. Likewise, if I plan a flight plan too low default ATC will instruct to climb and subsequently descend when necessary. It even seems to take add-on terrain into account when it is much different from the default.

I acknowledge all the points about planning your route but I visit a lot of airports that most probably haven't heard of and really don't wish to spend all my "playing time" planning for a one-off visit.. I guess we each have different ways of using FS and hence different needs and priorities.

Nevertheless, I am going to give this new one a whirl and see how we go. And not land in mountainous areas in bad weather . . .

Best regards,

John

1 hour ago, wombat457 said:

Have just completed a full flight and I HAVE to admit that OnCourse has gotten this one right - it is GOOD!

The only issue I saw was as has been mentioned, flying in hilly terrain.  On my approach into KELM I was directed to reduce speed to 60 knots (carenado seneca)

All in all this IS a good product and am looking forward to fly the full version in a jet.

I should add here one more thing, all I did was open PF3 and load a flight plan then flew.  I did nothing more so the out of the box setup is pretty good and will be (obviously) better if fine tuned.  Very impressed.

Yes 60 knots is too slow. But you can change that in the aircraft preset profile on the same page as where your fpls are listed. The approach speed should be your last but one speed. That is the one before your Vat speed.

2 hours ago, wombat457 said:

Have just completed a full flight and I HAVE to admit that OnCourse has gotten this one right - it is GOOD!

Wait till you hear the full range off accents with the full version, then - they (in my opinion) are the key thing in favour of this product.

A successful test flight at my end too, a Fokker F27 at 15000 LFPO to EGJJ. The only thing that I felt let it down was that immediately after leaving the runway and being given a gate the Taxi Guidance System called "Steady, Steady, You've arrived at the gate" when I was nowhere near it!

As long as such foibles don't occur every time I can live with that and I think I shall use it regularly (but not always) - it seems far more solid a product than the old one I reviewed.

John

1 hour ago, John Hinson said:

Wait till you hear the full range off accents with the full version, then - they (in my opinion) are the key thing in favour of this product.

A successful test flight at my end too, a Fokker F27 at 15000 LFPO to EGJJ. The only thing that I felt let it down was that immediately after leaving the runway and being given a gate the Taxi Guidance System called "Steady, Steady, You've arrived at the gate" when I was nowhere near it!

As long as such foibles don't occur every time I can live with that and I think I shall use it regularly (but not always) - it seems far more solid a product than the old one I reviewed.

John

That is almost certainly down to an anomaly with your afcad. Some afcads look great but contain a legion of errors. You can change the range of the taxi guidance system as well.

1 hour ago, John Hinson said:

Wait till you hear the full range off accents with the full version, then - they (in my opinion) are the key thing in favour of this product.

A successful test flight at my end too, a Fokker F27 at 15000 LFPO to EGJJ. The only thing that I felt let it down was that immediately after leaving the runway and being given a gate the Taxi Guidance System called "Steady, Steady, You've arrived at the gate" when I was nowhere near it!

As long as such foibles don't occur every time I can live with that and I think I shall use it regularly (but not always) - it seems far more solid a product than the old one I reviewed.

John

The accents are one thing I am looking forward to as well, I hope they have included some Aussie accents though.

I am still waiting to download the full version being that it is almost 2.5GB and that's huge for my limited download quota.  

I am certain that, as with any add on, some one will always find an issue or problem but I think that is the nature of the beast so long as they are not major issues.  As you said or inferred John, small issues can be lived with and/or over come.

 

37 minutes ago, vololiberista said:

That is almost certainly down to an anomaly with your afcad. Some afcads look great but contain a legion of errors. You can change the range of the taxi guidance system as well.

Not so sure I agree - it shows no errors and looks just fine to me. What sort of error are you suggesting?

John

55 minutes ago, John Hinson said:

Not so sure I agree - it shows no errors and looks just fine to me. What sort of error are you suggesting?

John

Broken links, blank taxiways, closed taxiways etc. Also some payware afcads I have seen have duplicated paths. We have had one or two users "complain" about PF3 taxi guidance and when they submitted their afcads for examination they were a mess. Payware too.

27 minutes ago, vololiberista said:

Broken links, blank taxiways, closed taxiways etc. Also some payware afcads I have seen have duplicated paths. We have had one or two users "complain" about PF3 taxi guidance and when they submitted their afcads for examination they were a mess. Payware too.

None of those. I'll take it up through the support forum if it happens again.

John

Okay, have installed the full version and surprise surprise the issues become apparent.

While PF3 installed and setup well and works it now takes over my keyboard commands, deactivating some of the things that worked with the demo version.

I have Rob (some one or others) Pushback program installed and am now unable to activate it with FP3 running.  If I start the Pushback function prior to starting PF3 I cannot close it after starting it.

Secondly, my Shift2 function of shift any other key functions no longer work.

Neither of these issues were present in the demo version so, obviously, there is something in the full that effects these functions.

1 hour ago, wombat457 said:

Okay, have installed the full version and surprise surprise the issues become apparent.

While PF3 installed and setup well and works it now takes over my keyboard commands, deactivating some of the things that worked with the demo version.

I have Rob (some one or others) Pushback program installed and am now unable to activate it with FP3 running.  If I start the Pushback function prior to starting PF3 I cannot close it after starting it.

Secondly, my Shift2 function of shift any other key functions no longer work.

Neither of these issues were present in the demo version so, obviously, there is something in the full that effects these functions.

 

It sounds like a hotkey allocation problem. You need to check all the hotkeys with your other add-ons to see that there is no conflict. In any case you should report problems on the PF3 forum not in avsim.

Thanks but the software that now doesn't work has nothing to do with hotkeys meaning a hotkey is not used to open and close it and the hotkeys that don't work now are the default FS9 keys not add ons.

I will "try" the PF3 forum but the only place I seem to get responses is here.