3 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

What it really requires is taking a good look at your flight plan and understanding of how you're going to fligh it before flying. Like real pilots do. Nothing much than that.

Had my pilots license since  1978 with over 600 hours of PIC time. I have never decided how to fly an exact approach to an airport, before I even took off. 

7 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

Nope, did you see that SAVE button, hmm?

The Save button, explain what that does to avoid the problem I described?

 

Just now, Bobsk8 said:

Had my pilots license since  1978 with over 600 hours of PIC time. I have never decided how to fly an exact approach to an airport, before I even took off. 

Neither do you need in PF3. Request vectors or or expect multiple STARS. Just make sure to go through the procedures into an airport just once and make necessary saves in PF3. Takes not more than 5 minutes. It took me more in real life btw.

 

1 minute ago, Dirk98 said:

Neither do you need in PF3. Request vectors or or expect multiple STARS. Just make sure to go through the procedures into an airport just once and make necessary saves in PF3. Takes not more than 5 minutes. It took me more in real life btw.

 

I fly in and out of different airports every day for my VA. Almost never the same airports twice, for weeks or months. What you are saying I should do, is done automatically with ProATC X. 

4 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

The Save button, explain what that does to avoid the problem I described?

 

If you saved an approach procedure to a runway once, you don't need to set it up each time you fly there. Helpful?

Dirk.

 

10 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I fly in and out of different airports every day for my VA. Almost never the same airports twice, for weeks or months. What you are saying I should do, is done automatically with ProATC X. 

True, but that's exactly what I like in PF3 in particular: I spend around 10 minutes studying the departure / arrival procedures before a flight. And I can have no idea of which ones I'll be given, which is great. You can always override though.

True, in  ProATC it's easier but from my experience is less versatile. Besides, it is not structured appropriately to use with a voice command program like MCE. This is big to me. 

PorATCX is very good, but as I mentioned, for me personally PF3 is more versatile. Otherwise if I wanted voice interaction challenge - VoxATC

Edited April 24, 20188 yr by Dirk98

I tried the PF3 demo and gave up on it after about an hour when I discovered how much work is involved in setting everything up before a flight.  One should not have to precisely set up an approach hours before one will arrive at the destination which is just not realistic.  I'm not a real pilot so I don't know exactly how an approach is selected, but I'm guessing it's done shortly before arrival when the weather conditions and which runways are available are known.  Moreover, the regional accents are nice but the PF3 voices are too robotic and unrealistic. 

What is really needed is just some updating of the FSX ATC system which is pretty darn good, actually.  Fixing the vectoring which is unrealistic and adding the ability to update the navaids, waypoints, and approaches it uses would be enough for me.  One could choose which approach to use after being assigned a landing runway.  This approach selection feature actually already exists for some airports but needs to be expanded and updated along with better vectoring.  The ATC voices are also really good compared to 3rd party ATC offerings.

From what I've read, ProATCX seems to provide what I'm looking for, but I'm not yet ready to spend $60 for it.  The developer should provide a demo so one can try it first.  On a positive note, the developer is finally updating it more frequently which he was not doing in the past.

Dave

 

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 20188 yr by dave2013
Changed a few words.

6 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

 

What is really needed is just some updating of the FSX ATC system which is pretty darn good, actually.  Fixing the vectoring which is unrealistic and adding the ability to update the navaids, waypoints, and approaches it uses would be enough for me.  One could choose which approach to use after being assigned a landing runway.  This approach selection feature actually already exists for some airports but needs to be expanded and updated along with better vectoring.  The ATC voices are also really good compared to 3rd party ATC offerings.

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

You can do that right now. You just need to buy this https://www.fsaerodata.com/ and update the database.

Questions to users of Pro ATC - what are the main advantages over radar contact?

I find radar contact really solid meaning approach vectoring is always spot on. How is Pro ATC vectoring and are VFR approaches supported (another thing missing in Radar contact)?

46 minutes ago, nam1394 said:

You can do that right now. You just need to buy this https://www.fsaerodata.com/ and update the database.

Thanks!  I didn't know about this.

My only question regards the SID and STAR approaches.  I believe this is done in the airport AFCADS.  If one uses custom AFCADS then this might not work for those airports.  Same would apply for the ILS and runway designation updates.  Does this sound right?

Thanks.

Dave

 

I tried them all but none are really worth the drama of using them IMHO. Radar Contact is probably the most reliable and easy to use but lacks STAR and SID functionality which makes it a little unrealistic for most modern airports now. 

PF3 I tried and liked the different accents and general immersion but it became a chore to set up. 

Pro Atc was a mess when I last used it, albeit a long time ago. It tried to send me to all kinds of random waypoints that ATC would not do in real life and then forgot about me altogether. It had potential but was a long way off the mark. Maybe it’s time to reinstall. 

5 minutes ago, Airline2Sim said:

I tried them all but none are really worth the drama of using them IMHO. Radar Contact is probably the most reliable and easy to use but lacks STAR and SID functionality which makes it a little unrealistic for most modern airports now. 

PF3 I tried and liked the different accents and general immersion but it became a chore to set up. 

Pro Atc was a mess when I last used it, albeit a long time ago. It tried to send me to all kinds of random waypoints that ATC would not do in real life and then forgot about me altogether. It had potential but was a long way off the mark. Maybe it’s time to reinstall. 

You need to download the latest version of PATC along with the new audio files on the forum. It isn't the same program that you have now, leaps and bounds better. 

3 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

You need to download the latest version of PATC along with the new audio files on the forum. It isn't the same program that you have now, leaps and bounds better. 

Thanks Bob. I’ll give it a go. I remember voice sets were a problem in that there weren’t really any. Hope this is better now. One good thing about PF3 was at least it made an attempt a regionalising accents across the planet. 

Edited April 24, 20188 yr by Airline2Sim

1 minute ago, Airline2Sim said:

Thanks Bob. I’ll give it a go. I remember voice sets were a problem in that there weren’t really any. Hope this is better now. One good thing about PF3 was at least it made an attempt a regionalising accents across the planet. 

There are also some new ATC chatter files that are available, if you down have the earlier set, since that vendor passed away last year. The new files are great, and I posted on the forum and easy way to install them. http://www.pointsoftware.de/proatcxforum/forum/index.php/topic,2991.0.html

1 hour ago, Shomron said:

Questions to users of Pro ATC - what are the main advantages over radar contact?

I find radar contact really solid meaning approach vectoring is always spot on. How is Pro ATC vectoring and are VFR approaches supported (another thing missing in Radar contact)?

Pro ATC-X will give you SID/STAR assignments based on runway in use.  Then it wrecks the immersion by spelling them out phonetically.  So, if your idea of realism is being cleared for the "BRAVO X-RAY KILO FOUR DEPARTURE" when leaving KPHX, well then, OK. 

Pro-ATC-X also calls every frappin' altitude change on a procedure track or procedure turn approach.  And then it goes into constant nag mode when you don't fly the approach per their instructions every step of the way, as ATC tries to direct your every turn and altitude change while flying a published approach that has many ways of legally flying it, none of which are directed turn-by-turn by ATC in the real world.  So, from a perspective of realism, any approach other than vectors to an ILS is unrealistically micromanaged by PATC's obnoxious nanny-controller (hey, approach, if you want the aircraft, then come up here and shake the stick...)

Every time I try to venture out to something new, I seem to end up back at Radar Contact, which is still, IMHO, the most procedurally correct of the lot, and as you observed, gives very good consistent radar vectors.

Regards