PF3 ATC - anybody else struggle this much? [VIDEO]

[vololiberista 205]

2 hours ago, JKawai said:

Yes... I just retried my flight from EGNX-EGAA and it was quite a laugh I must say:

****************

[Already been cleared to FL90 after departure, cruise altitude is FL240. Filed Plan: TNT Q4 WAL L10 IOM DCT NELBO P6 IPSET. SID end marked as 'TNT', SIDs Active in SID/STARS menu, but no other SID information entered as manual says they will leave me alone until TNT; however I was cleared on a hdg here and never taken off it, so SID was irrelevant].

4:24 – Ready to request IFR clearance from EGNX-EGAA. Frequencies available at EGNX are ATIS, Ground, Tower, Departure and FSS. All others are '000.00'. No frequency allows option for clearance except FSS, so FSS is tuned and clearance sought from there.

23:28 – Speedbird 145 Winds 250 at 21 runway 27 cleared for takeoff fly heading 285
Roger cleared for takeoff, fly heading 285, speedbird 145

24:20 - Speedbird 145 contact departure 132.6
24:30 – Roger speedbird 145

[Now on heading 285]
[Tuned departure]

25:18 Speedbird 145 no speed restriction
[Had no chance to check-in yet, gave 'Roger' command:]
25:23 132.6 Speedbird 145

EH?? Already readback at 24:30, and what about acknowledging no speed? So I sent the readback command again:

25:46 132.6 Speedbird 145 good day

Guess there's no 'no speed' readback then.

This all led me into the state of mind that I was 'checked in' with departure, but then realised I still wasn't. So I checked in:

27:50 Departure speedbird 145 with you level flight level 85
[I wasn't 'level', I was climbing to FL90 as initially cleared when I got IFR clearance]
 27:55 Speedbird 145 squawk 3635
[Readback]
[Tuned squawk, didn't Ident or anything]

Now holding at FL90

28:29 Speedbird 145 contact London control 124.55
28:34 124.55 Speedbird 145
[Tuned control]

28:42 Speedbird 145 climb and maintain FL190
[Again, not even checked in and Control have already given me an instruction]
28:50 Out of flight level 90 for FL190 no speed restriction speedbird 145

Now I'm repeatedly hitting '0' desperately trying to check in whilst control are giving me traffic advisories and other aircraft are checking in. Eventually I get through:

29:54 London Control speedbird 145 out of flight level 120 for FL90. [Yes, NINE ZERO]

HUH?! At 28:50 I was going to ONE NINE ZERO!

30:01 Roger Speedbird 145

[Don't know where this came from, must have been a lagged readback from earlier, no idea]

Then I got another traffic advisory and eventually came to hold at FL190, waiting for clearance to cruise altitude, FL240.

Holding at FL190 for about 4 minutes and I decided to 'check in' again (0)

34:39 London Control speedbird 145 is with you, out of flight level 190 for flight level 90
[1. I'm not 'out of', I'm level at! 2. How can I be climbing to a lower altitude?]
34:45 Speedbird 145 Roger

At this point I quit P3D.

What you have written here misses out everything that you may not have done that you should so recreate the flight exactly and post the logs in the PF3 forum. Only then can we determine what has gone wrong whether it is user error or a bug.

PF3 is an extensive programme with a high learning curve especially if you are not familiar with ATC. Real ATC is even harder as the RT exam here requires a 100% pass otherwise your pilot training is terminated. That would not be a good day. Avsim should not be used for PF3 queries.

[JKawai 7]

1 hour ago, J van E said:

+1

Just had a look at those PF3 video and BOY am I happy I went for ProATC! Setting up a flight is done in no time (for a basic flight: set departure, set destination, click a button and you're done) and I also love how it assigns SID and STAR (and transitions), depending on the current weather in the sim (even for saved plans!), at the appropriate time, and how you can enter them in the FMS realistically. It seems in PF3 you have to setup the SID and STAR yourself...? In all ATC programs I have seen it seems you have to set up almost everything, sometimes up to the smallest detail. Yes, I am very happy with ProATC. 

Yeah I'm a bit annoyed to be honest. When I was doing my research into this I couldn't see much through Googling apart from the same three threads from 2012 how nobody had a clear opinion on which was best, and ProATC had its faults too (can't remember what they were, probably realism? No idea). Anyway, if I had my money back from PF3 I'd probably go for ProATC but then no doubt I'd get irritated by that somehow. Also why are all these programs so laggy? Can't even move the window once connected to FS without a few seconds lag (same with Plan G and other such apps, not complaining about Plan G though because it's free and fantastic). The lag in PF3 is horrendous, constantly having to slam the keys over and over to get it to to acknowledge my input. I really should have tried the demo more before being so trusting...

In the Sim community it seems if a product is not fit for purpose it's exempt from trading standards i.e. works perfectly or your money back. Maybe I should become a developer and charge people for things that don't work and pass it off as a 'casual indie project' that I just happen to charge a full rate for. /soapbox

[Dirk98 354]

1 hour ago, J van E said:

+1

Just had a look at those PF3 video and BOY am I happy I went for ProATC! Setting up a flight is done in no time (for a basic flight: set departure, set destination, click a button and you're done) and I also love how it assigns SID and STAR (and transitions), depending on the current weather in the sim (even for saved plans!), at the appropriate time, and how you can enter them in the FMS realistically. It seems in PF3 you have to setup the SID and STAR yourself...? In all ATC programs I have seen it seems you have to set up almost everything, sometimes up to the smallest detail. Yes, I am very happy with ProATC. 

I like ProATC, but PF3 makes you closely go through departure and approach/landing charts before each flight, like real pilots do. You don't need to change much in PF3 after you filled out certain PF3 boxes for an airport, unless something has been changed in a newer AIRAC.

 

[JKawai 7]

1 hour ago, vololiberista said:

What you have written here misses out everything that you may not have done that you should so recreate the flight exactly and post the logs in the PF3 forum. Only then can we determine what has gone wrong whether it is user error or a bug.

PF3 is an extensive programme with a high learning curve especially if you are not familiar with ATC. Real ATC is even harder as the RT exam here requires a 100% pass otherwise your pilot training is terminated. That would not be a good day. Avsim should not be used for PF3 queries.

Everything that I may not have done? Such as what? Give an example of something I may not have done? When handed off, I readback, tuned, and attempted to contact. The software prevented me from doing that half the time then forgot the instructions it had given me. How is "Climbing through FL120 for FL90" perfectly acceptable and something I've done wrong? I have read the entire PF3 manual and your software is not that complicated to use (and nor should it be, it's a consumer Sim product). With any other piece of ATC software, this is never a problem, so why would yours be so roundabout? I know the back-and-forth of instruction and readback. It isn't difficult. That isn't 'understanding ATC', that's understanding that you can't climb through FL120 to FL90 and understanding the order antecedent and consequent go in. I've read the PF3 manual. I used to VATSIM. This is nothing to do with not understanding ATC and if it was, then PF3 has a very bizarre concept of ATC chatter. 

So in real life, you get handed off, tune a new frequency, the frequency miraculously knows you've tuned and then gives you an instruction, THEN you make initial contact? That's how it works in real life, like it did here in PF3? What are you suggesting exactly - I got given a heading, I followed it and then got chastised for not being on the airway - the options given by the software are nothing but 'check-in' - what do you suggest exactly? If you're going to point the finger at the person paying you (I presume you work for PF3), you had better be able to back it up, no?

I posted it here as a resource for other people to see to aid in their decision making when looking for ATC software. When doing my research I read through forums like this to determine where my money was best spent. Unfortunately I have been misguided, and further insult to injury is the culture in the sim community of a total lack of customer service - "it's the customer's fault, not ours". OCS may be a small outfit like most sim developers, but the bottom line is, if you are charging for a product, like with any other industry, your product should work. In this situation, it clearly doesn't work, because if it were user error, it would mean the means of using your software is absurdly convoluted. Also, 'climbing through FL120 for FL90' is clearly not right no matter which way you look at it. If even then you are still going to point the finger at the customer, you should do it professionally and back it up with reasoning - not start saying "ooh if this were real life you'd be ****ed" because that's tangential and irrelevant. This is a sim, not real life, and it also has no bearing on anything I have reported so far.

I tried joining your forum last night to no avail and have now asked three times through various means to be approved as a member so I can do exactly what you are requesting. I have emailed Dave March the logs. So far I have still not received a reply via despite you all having the time to post on here telling me not to post on here. 

I stand by my decision to post this here because if I had had my information as a resource before purchasing, I would have swerved the purchase. 

 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

I like ProATC, but PF3 makes you closely go through departure and approach/landing charts before each flight, like real pilots do. You don't need to change much in PF3 after you filled out certain PF3 boxes for an airport, unless something has been changed in a newer AIRAC.

 

Well... I am fine with checking charts but not in order to get good ATC during my flight. And the approach/landing charts I’d rather check as soon as ATC has assigned me the proper approach/chart, which is somewhere using cruise usually. I don’t want to do all that before I can even start the sim! Do you have to figure ou the SID and STAR and transitions yourself in PF3?

And filling out certain boxes for an airport... for EVERY airport...? And again when something has changed in a newer AIRAC? That’s what I mean with having to do too much: in ProATC I don’t have to do anything at all for any airport.

[Bobsk8 12,492]

3 minutes ago, J van E said:

Well... I am fine with checking charts but not in order to get good ATC during my flight. And the approach/landing charts I’d rather check as soon as ATC has assigned me the proper approach/chart, which is somewhere using cruise usually. I don’t want to do all that before I can even start the sim! Do you have to figure ou the SID and STAR and transitions yourself in PF3?

And filling out certain boxes for an airport... for EVERY airport...? And again when something has changed in a newer AIRAC? That’s what I mean with having to do too much: in ProATC I don’t have to do anything at all for any airport.

I totally agree with you. Trying to program all this into PF3 I found to be a gigantic PIA. It is fine for GA aircraft, going from airport to airport, but flying airliners for a VA, Pro ATC makes it much simpler and frankly way more realistic. If the weather changes during a 3 hour flight, you get a different approach with PATC, not one you set up even before you took off. 

[JKawai 7]

2 minutes ago, J van E said:

Well... I am fine with checking charts but not in order to get good ATC during my flight. And the approach/landing charts I’d rather check as soon as ATC has assigned me the proper approach/chart, which is somewhere using cruise usually. I don’t want to do all that before I can even start the sim! Do you have to figure ou the SID and STAR and transitions yourself in PF3?

And filling out certain boxes for an airport... for EVERY airport...? And again when something has changed in a newer AIRAC? That’s what I mean with having to do too much: in ProATC I don’t have to do anything at all for any airport.

Yeah, exactly. It's almost like programming a robot to provide X/Y/Z axis ATC. I might as well just use the FMC. The whole point of me buying ATC software was to have third-party unpredictability, not plan it to death beforehand. I don't mind giving a piece of software a 'nudge' to more suitably accommodate, say, the idiosyncracies of my aircraft (e.g. PMDG 738 never slowing down on descent unless you descend at 1 foot per minute), but this argument that "oh it's your fault because you didn't program enough lines of code beforehand" is ridiculous. You don't have to do that in ProATC, RC or even FS's built-in ATC and you didn't even have to do it on VATSIM which is as real as it gets. 

E.g. if you flew to Innsbruck and ATC flew you into a mountain, you'd wonder why they didn't know there was a mountain there? But here, the pilot is at fault for not telling Innsbruck that they are surrounded by mountains. Even FSCaptain knows the TAs and specifics of every airport. 

[JKawai 7]

2 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I totally agree with you. Trying to program all this into PF3 I found to be a gigantic PIA. It is fine for GA aircraft, going from airport to airport, but flying airliners for a VA, Pro ATC makes it much simpler and frankly way more realistic. If the weather changes during a 3 hour flight, you get a different approach with PATC, not one you set up even before you took off. 

This is making me want to just take the hit and migrate to ProATC. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, vololiberista said:

PF3 is an extensive programme with a high learning curve especially if you are not familiar with ATC.

Another reason to like ProATC LOL Why does PF3 have a high learning curve? Probably because you have to figure everything out yourself? A good ATC addon does all that for you.  

But seriously, ATC software can be a bit daunting at first. I doubt if every ProATC user had a completely succesful first flight. I sure didn’t. And the ProATC forum also has posts about lost contact and so on. It is complicated stuff. But that is why I like ProATC so much: it does whatever it can to prevent you from doing too much which would only increase the user error factor. It is the closest thing you can get to real ATC because it uses hardly ANY input for a flight. As I said, after the initial setup of the program you only have to set departure, set destination, click a button and off you go. (You CAN do a lot more though but it’s not mandatory.)

[JKawai 7]

1 minute ago, J van E said:

Another reason to like ProATC LOL Why does PF3 have a high learning curve? Probably because you have to figure everything out yourself? A good ATC addon does all that for you.  

But seriously, ATC software can be a bit daunting at first. I doubt if every ProATC user had a completely succesful first flight. I sure didn’t. And the ProATC forum also has posts about lost contact and so on. It is complicated stuff. But that is why I like ProATC so much: it does whatever it can to prevent you from doing too much which would only increase the user error factor. It is the closest thing you can get to real ATC because it uses hardly ANY input for a flight. As I said, after the initial setup of the program you only have to set departure, set destination, click a button and off you go. (You CAN do a lot more though but it’s not mandatory.)

That does sound really good. Two questions for you - 1) Have you ever flown it into or out of a place like Innsbruck where there's lots of high surrounding terrain and 2) If you're in the PMDG and your T/C is hurtling towards you, is there a way of requesting descent? In the PMDG this'll be important for me so I'm not blazing into the localizer at 260 knots with spoilers up

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, JKawai said:

That does sound really good. Two questions for you - 1) Have you ever flown it into or out of a place like Innsbruck where there's lots of high surrounding terrain and 2) If you're in the PMDG and your T/C is hurtling towards you, is there a way of requesting descent? In the PMDG this'll be important for me so I'm not blazing into the localizer at 260 knots with spoilers up

First of all: as I said even ProATC has a learning curve but once learned it’s very easy and that is the main difference with for instance PF3 that keeps on needing a lot of input and work. But also take note that even ProATC is still a work in progress. For instance, every now and then constraints aren’t handled correctly in specific situations, but hey, you are the pilot so if something seems to go wrong you simply have to take action. No ATC addon is perfect. But imho ProATC Is very good.

If you get it and if you need help, just post it here. We don’t mind queries about ProATC here.

Well, concerning Innsbruck: I fly in Norway all the time and as long as I keep the constraints of the SID and STAR all is fine. As I just said around a certain airport ProATC seems to skip a constraint which might let me touch a mountain side but I am the pilot and it’s my job to note the constraints. But usually ProATC does a fine job. After all it does nothing else than checking if you are flying the right assigned SID, programmed route and right assigned STAR. 

And yes, of course you can initiate a descent yourself. You can also ask for other altitudes and so on. If I want to descend at my calculated TOD (I fly the Majestic Q400) and ATC says nothing I will ask for a descend clearance. BTW You can also check the ProATC map to see where ATC has planned its TOD. Quite often, so I have found, the ProATC TOD is better than my calculated one.

Again, don’t expect perfect ATC but ProATC simply is the ATC addon that, once learned, just does it job by itself. If you buy it I could post my own ‘install.txt’ here because you have to install a few extra freeware addons for it like Makerwys and Lorbi’s manager. That might help making the first steps easier.

[fltent1184 4]

I am a bit surprised that there have been challenges in getting support in PFE forums. I am guessing this is probably one odd man out case as response there has been very quick by the developer. I would still give benefit of doubt and try getting access to forums and post your issues there as they would be in best position to analyse your logs which capture more data than just ATC communication transcript.

Also did you try the demo version of PF3 before purchase? I remember they had a very generous trial version where you could experience all aspects of flight using PF3 which should have helped you in making your choice. There are also threads here which talk about comparisons between PF3 and other products which should have helped in providing more details on what the product is capable of.

There is no one ATC product today that does everything perfectly. Some excel in certain departments more than others. PF3 is no exception to this but it is backed by an active developer who has been quick to provide updates and fixes. 

I understand your frustration but it would be worthwhile to wait and get a resolution from their official support before completely writing off.

[JKawai 7]

1 minute ago, J van E said:

First of all: as I said even ProATC has a learning curve but once learned it’s very easy and that is the main difference with for instance PF3 that keeps on needing a lot of input and work. But also take note that even ProATC is still a work in progress. For instance, every now and then constraints aren’t handled correctly in specific situations, but hey, you are the pilot so if something seems to go wrong you simply have to take action. No ATC addon is perfect. But imho ProATC Is very good.

If you get it and if you need help, just post it here. We don’t mind queries about ProATC here.

Well, concerning Innsbruck: I fly in Norway all the time and as long as I keep the constraints of the SID and STAR all is fine. As I just said around a certain airport ProATC seems to skip a constraint which might let me touch a mountain side but I am the pilot and it’s my job to note the constraints. But usually ProATC does a fine job. After all it does nothing else than checking if you are flying the right assigned SID, programmed route and right assigned STAR. 

And yes, of course you can initiate a descent yourself. You can also ask for other altitudes and so on. If I want to descend at my calculated TOD (I fly the Majestic Q400) and ATC says nothing I will ask for a descend clearance. BTW You can also check the ProATC map to see where ATC has planned its TOD. Quite often, so I have found, the ProATC TOD is better than my calculated one.

That all sounds perfect. Very tempted. I just spent £2200 upgrading my sim... ugh, more expenditure

[Dave March 0]

49 minutes ago, JKawai said:

I have emailed Dave March the logs. So far I have still not received a reply via despite you all having the time to post on here telling me not to post on here. 

Did you send them to dmarch@oncourse-software.co.uk because I haven't received anything at all? Also you need to let me have your user name via email so I can check/activate your forum account. Obviously this will only be necessary if you require our help with the issues you are experiencing, but that can only be done via our support forum.

[Dirk98 354]

21 minutes ago, J van E said:

Well... I am fine with checking charts but not in order to get good ATC during my flight. And the approach/landing charts I’d rather check as soon as ATC has assigned me the proper approach/chart, which is somewhere using cruise usually. I don’t want to do all that before I can even start the sim! Do you have to figure ou the SID and STAR and transitions yourself in PF3?

And filling out certain boxes for an airport... for EVERY airport...? And again when something has changed in a newer AIRAC? That’s what I mean with having to do too much: in ProATC I don’t have to do anything at all for any airport.

You're simming, so that's what it takes to prepare yourself for a flight before the flight like real pilots do. Once you understand PF3 it becomes rather pleasant routine updating yourself on the procedures, that you are going to fly (like real pilots do!). C'mon doesn't take more than 5min - 10min max after 10-15 flights.

Cheers!