PF3 ATC - Is it worth it?

[sascha 314]

I only installed RC4 after it became freeware and so far have been very impressed! Adds a whole layer of immersion to flights. Thank you for making this freeware, indeed!

[psolk 3,057]

On 1/12/2019 at 9:38 AM, Camsdad13 said:

I have both PF3 and radar contact. I use Radar Contact much more with the Meatwater pack. Both have Pro's and cons.

The taxi function in PF3 is great. The options and customizations are great. The amount of voice accents for global regions is nice. The cons with PF3 are the voice sets are robotic sounding with incorrect pronunciations from different voice sets. For instance Allegiant is pronounced Ally Giant. PF3 requires more interaction and flight preparation. So unless you have a copilot, be prepared for more workload.

Radar Contact is now free. I wish more vendors that discontinue FS9 products offered this. Thank you John and Doug for doing that. Everything is much easier with RC. set your options and go. You can hit Control k and the co pilot handles everything while you just fly. The Meatwater pack provides realistic voice sets. you still have occasional mis pronunciations like in PF3. An example is Chautauqua. It pronounced in some voice sets as Shiteekkwa.

Both provide AI interaction. PF3 will only interact with AI aircraft where RC will interact with AI and provide ATC fill to provide a higher level of immersion. Both do not have updated callsigns. RC does have a number of callsigns where PF3 tends to give more phonetic alphabet for a number of airline callsigns.

 

Bottom line is both work great. it depends on what pros and cons you are looking for and can deal with.

 

Hmmm...

PF3 has virtual Co-Pilot as well.  In fact there are multiple levels, Frequency changes, All Comms, Comms plus flies, I don't see how PF3 increases workload at all.

PF3 has an option to disable the robotic voices and choose which voicepacks you use.  Regional accents too

PF3 has ATC "fill" as well.  

 

Personally PF3 when used right doesn't have a match in the ATC space, especially not in FS9.  Plus Dave still supports it and updates it.  Couldn't imagine flying without it.

 

[sascha 314]

1 hour ago, psolk said:

Personally PF3 when used right doesn't have a match in the ATC space, especially not in FS9.  Plus Dave still supports it and updates it.  Couldn't imagine flying without it.

 

I found it impressive, I tried the demo, but getting it setup and using it right seemed beyond me, so I dropped it in frustration because I don't have a lot fo time to fly. That is why RC4 is right for me - I disabled FS9 ATC, installed Meatwaters sound packs and off I went!

 

One thing I really liked about PF3 was the bird strikes which happened occasionally!

[Camsdad13 65]

1 hour ago, psolk said:

Hmmm...

PF3 has virtual Co-Pilot as well.  In fact there are multiple levels, Frequency changes, All Comms, Comms plus flies, I don't see how PF3 increases workload at all.

PF3 has an option to disable the robotic voices and choose which voicepacks you use.  Regional accents too

PF3 has ATC "fill" as well.  

 

Personally PF3 when used right doesn't have a match in the ATC space, especially not in FS9.  Plus Dave still supports it and updates it.  Couldn't imagine flying without it.

 

Still find voices very robotic. RC, hit control K and all coms handled without having to dial in initial freq like in PF.  I’ve been using it since fs2000 when Aeti made it, then went to Proflight Emulator, then went to PF3. Found it too finicky where keystrokes stopped working. Hold short and never receive TO clearance. Keystrokes won’t even respond to request clearance while holding short. Handed off to departure to to fly heading. Then told I’m x miles off airway. It offers more than RC but also has more problems. 

Its personal preference like I said both have pros and cons

[diego1958 0]

where can I download Meatwaters sounds guys ? 

many tks

[sascha 314]

Here in the library: https://library.avsim.net/search.php?CatID=root&SearchTerm=meatwater&Sort=Added&ScanMode=1&Go=Change+View

Cheers,

Sascha

[anden145 2,299]

On 1/15/2019 at 4:02 PM, Camsdad13 said:

Still find voices very robotic. RC, hit control K and all coms handled without having to dial in initial freq like in PF.  I’ve been using it since fs2000 when Aeti made it, then went to Proflight Emulator, then went to PF3. Found it too finicky where keystrokes stopped working. Hold short and never receive TO clearance. Keystrokes won’t even respond to request clearance while holding short. Handed off to departure to to fly heading. Then told I’m x miles off airway. It offers more than RC but also has more problems. 

Its personal preference like I said both have pros and cons

Have to agree with you there. PF3 is a nice ATC addon. It's updated and developed and Dave is an amazing and extremely helpful developer! For that reason alone, he should be supported. 🙂 

Whenever I fly with ATC (and it isn't on VATSIM), I use Radar Contact 4. It's just simpler - you load a flightplan, setup callsign and click Connect. In the sim, you then click CTRL+K - end of worries. 

However, I always end up skipping or giving up on it, because of a couple of annoyances:

1. It simply takes too long (for me - personal preference) to setup a flight. There's a huge amount of options and it seems daunting sometimes. Also found weird issues with cruising altitudes and I found it difficult to change altitude in a flightplan, since you have to change it individually for each waypoint (for some reason...?)
2. Found sometimes unresponsive behavior. Callbacks not registered or ATC never replies back to a handoff or similar. I have ended up flying for miles and suddenly realizing, that I have not gotten a proper clearance or haven't heard anything from ATC for a while. Sometimes this ends up with you have completely ruined your flight...
3. Difficult to figure out where you are in the flightplan. Especially if something goes wrong and you are told "You are XX miles off your assigned route...". 
   Radar Contact has a nice small window, where you constantly can see where you are in the flightplan and it's extremely easy to skip ahead in the flightplan and request a direct-to-waypoint. 
4. The voices are an amazing feat of PF3. You gotta give it that. To be able to have different accents (some a little bit exaggerated, though 😄) is really a nice touch! It a huge boost to the authenticity and realism to be able to hear a french controller, communicating with a landing Japan Air 777 with a Asian pilot, when flying in France for instance. It just gives a special kind of realism an immersion, IMO.  In my own personal opinion, though, many of the voices are a little to robotic.

What you should buy is a personal preference.

I haven't used ProATCX (even though I own it) that much. My drawback with that is that I haven't found voice-packs in that ATC addon, which pronounce callsigns even remotely correct. I cannot live with Scandinavian is being pronounced S-A-S. It's been awhile since I have tried it out, so I cannot give a complete picture. Someone can probably chime in regarding the voice pack correctness and authenticity.