Reggie I'm going to try and read all this after lunch if possible... :-lol

Second thoughts...

One thing which it appears is not coming through the discussion is how FS ATC works.It is several different parts of the program.Approaches and how the aircraft is assigned and told to fly toward the landing runway is extensively influenced by the Scenery system in FS.The default world grids and boundaries displayed on the GPS have a large impact upon the ATC commands given to aircraft enroute. Things like flying along hard ATC boundaries - where a 50ft variation in elevation will put you into a different ATC controller zone. (Try to never fly at 10,000 ft - set your AP 100 or 200 feet higher or lower. 10,000 ft is very often a boundary).The Flight Planner has a strong impact upon the commands and aircraft will receive. While very capable, the Flight Planner needs some serious redesign to make it a workable tool with the capability to manually enter waypoints from the keyboard - in my opinion.The aircraft flight dynamics and the way the program flies AI aircraft are a significant impediment to the smooth flow of AI aircraft. Furthermore many AI aircraft flight dynamics are not capable of performing basic AI functions in FS. Our insistence on different performance settings for an A320, an A321 and a B737-800 greatly increases the complexity of the approach, and the likelyhood of overruns and separation failure.The VoicePack needs extensive work with thousands of new .WAV files. We also need to be able to identify the necessary control trigger events to issue some vital, missing commands. These control trigger events may not exist at this time. We cannot get the VoicePack to say a key phrase unless we can identify the code to create the behavior.The flight of AI aircraft can easily be identified as being two, possibley three different phases. The interface between the phases needs to be improved at the program level. The testing strongly suggests the user aircraft observes the same phases of the flight cycle.ATC isn't a standalone part of Flight Simulator. Practically every phase of FS operation has some impact upon the ATC and what we hear.Why the heck will parking codes not work for the user aircraft? (It is a scenery issue, not an ATC issue.)Please, ACES/MS - I really, really hope you fixed that one.

From that perspective (depending of course on scrying into the depth of the SDK to be released), what may work best is a sort of liason program.It makes me wonder how much you could divorce the AI aircraft from the other sections, or how much of that work an external program could do instead.I'm not a big ATC guy, and I really don't know as much as most about the procedures, but I'm really curious and will probably take a shot at writing some sort of external interface to ferry that information about in a more manageable context.

I want to be cautious about interrupting here. Just a couple of comments.1. This has to be one of the more deeply informative discussions I've seen on this topic. Clearly, Reggie Fields and Jim Vile have come to grips with powerful ways to use the FS9 AI/ATC/Scenery system. This understanding seems much richer than we casual users have long supposed possible.2. The fact that this potential in the FS9 system is only now being realized (three years after release) suggests that either the Aces Team did not fully realize the possibilities for their system or they did not fully lay out those possibilities in ways that the user community could take advantage. I wonder if the Aces members (for whom we are all cheering) might think a bit about the implications.It is clear that (a) the FS9 system is powerful and (:( the community has the skills and imagination to expand on its currently used capabilities. It would be great if the Aces Team were keen on opening the architecture and actively encouraging others to develop a more advanced AI/ATC/Scenery system3. There is something imminent here. Given the strong desire of many people to have off-line AI/ATC and the current reluctance of the Aces Team to put further resources into the system, there may be an opportunity for some cooperation and progress.Well done, all.Best,Mike

I need to backup and ask a question since admittedly I seldom fly the PMDG FMS and don't own Level-D.What is the current flight planning process for each?The impression I have from the various threads is that the FS9 flight planner is not used. Fine I use FSBuild or FSNav for flight planning quite often.Do the PMDG and Level-D systems export their flight plan into a format which the FS default flight planner can open and read?If not, how do those aircraft tell the ATC system what route the aircraft is scheduled to fly and what is the next waypoint?

I have both the PMDG 744 and the Level-D 767.With any high end add-on in which the simmer would like a SID/STAR applied to their flight plan finds themselves all alone concerning default ATC controlled flight. You basically have to cancel IFR on approach in order to take advantage of a procedural approach. This is the problem with the default system. If things were more customizable you could add approaches built in FSBuild or FSNav right into the default flight plan and have ATC clear you to the SID/STAR during takeoff or approach phases of the flight. All flight plans in both the PMDG offering and Level-D 767 are plugged in by hand. In the real world the FMC is patch to a global database in which all the pilot has to do is punch in the 'CO ROUTE' and the appropriate plan comes up. They rarely manually punch the plan. Add-on

This is soooo fun! We are like a pack of starving dogs that are going to be soooo happy when we finally get to chomp on the bone. Tis more speculation and drama than a 24-hour cable news channel! Hehe

Dillon I thought I told you to leave it alone... :-lolAces is not going to change anything and many here in this forum seem to love the default ATC system as is... Can you say, FOUR MORE YEARS, FOUR MORE YEARS!!!The Aces guys know about these issues, they also know how to fix it and/or provide the tools to help the community address the problems. They have no intention on doing either as this topic would have been addressed and discussed along time ago.Once you get FSX just enjoy the birds and the ever approaching terrain on your way into KLAX. Don't forget your X-Ray vision goggles to see through the fuselage when ATC calls on you to check your six o'clock for aircraft and keep the menu options up there until you lie and tell them you've made visual contact.Gotta love that FSX graphics department... :-hah

>Dillon I thought I told you to leave it alone... :-lol>>Aces is not going to change anything and many here in this>forum seem to love the default ATC system as is... Can you>say, FOUR MORE YEARS, FOUR MORE YEARS!!!>>The Aces guys know about these issues, they also know how to>fix it and/or provide the tools to help the community address>the problems. They have no intention on doing either as this>topic would have been addressed and discussed along time ago.>>Once you get FSX just enjoy the birds and the ever approaching>terrain on your way into KLAX. Don't forget your X-Ray vision>goggles to see through the fuselage when ATC calls on you to>check your six o'clock for aircraft and keep the menu options>up there until you lie and tell them you've made visual>contact.>>Gotta love that FSX graphics department... :-hah>Did your Daddy not hug you enough or something? Because I refuse to believe that this much anger and spite directed at a simple game can actually be generated because they didn't update the ATC to your standards.Go get yourself a woman or a shrink or something, because I'm seriously worried about you. :(

:-smooch :-hah It's all in fun... Considering the many more depressing things to talk about that

>:-smooch :-hah Finally! My sarcasm gets correctly read in here.

You basically have to cancel IFR on approach in order to take advantage of a procedural approach. This is the part I don't understand.If I am flying into KBOS from the south or west and have the NORWICH THREE STAR in the flight plan (ORW.OPRW3) to the INNDY intersection - then from there to the WINNI intersection - the IAF for ILS 4R Approach - the default GPS flies it perfectly by the plates.I must decline the novice ILS vectors to final approach when offered and request the ILS Rwy 4 approach with INNDY transition.That's it.The ATC will let me know if I wander off course by more than 3 miles like it always does, and it will let me know if I am not following the published descent profile.Now as far as the altitude issue.That is a real one which the ACES/MS team needs to work upon.For landing on KLAS Rwy 25L/25R - the descent to final approach altitude when handed off is dumb. I suspect you are flying with AI traffic and are the third or fourth aircraft in the approach line-up it puts you that far out.Which approach are you flying - and which transition?Using transitions you can control your descent to final approach altitude without having to cancel IFR.For the 1 and 19 runways to be used - you need Jim's updated approach file with his crossing runways technique to make all the runways active. klas_ils_jv.zip in the Avsim library.Runway 7 at KLAS is an example of the real limitation of the FS2004 parallel only runway situation. And the prime reason to use crossing runway technique to open up non-parallel runways.The 7 runways do not have published approach procedures because of the terrain issues you described.Jim's file has added a non-published approach to make AI aircraft avoid the terrain and land on 7R. This approach can be flown by the user aircraft.If you look at the KLAS VFR Terminal Area Chart or the Las Vegas Sectional - you will see that the MSA is 12,300 feet to the west and north west, and 8,900 feet to the southwest.Flight Sim follows the MSA on the world wide grid.What it does not do well - and this needs to be fixed - is the transition from enroute to approach phases of flight.Terrain is recognized and avoided in the enroute phase - and totally ignored in the approach phase of flight.ACES/MS also need to find some way of recognizing terrain while in the approach/departure flight mode.

"The ATC will let me know if I wander off course by more than 3 miles like it always does, and it will let me know if I am not following the published descent profile."O.k. you got me on this one... I'll have to try this when I get home. The only problem with this is I take it your programming the default GPS. That's not going to work with add-ons like the PMDG 744.

The FS Approach system is written for the default GPS.FS needs a flight plan which follows the approaches it has in it's database.You can add waypoints to any FS flight plan from an external source, including a text editor. FSBuild and FSNav both can do that.If your PMDG 744 can export it's flight plan to a FS2004 flight plan file - then you load that flight plan file.You will have ATC from the FS2004 flight plan and aircraft flight control from the PMDG FMS.