Difference between active runway and approach given

[Fiorentoni 4,114]

Hi Dave,

flying to ENVA I was given the ILS approach to runway 09 on TOD. However, P2ATC itself has runway 27 set as the active runway (checked via "say active runway" and the info button also). The metar points to runway 27, too. ENVA has no preferred runway set for light winds on my side, "force pilot runway" is unchecked, also the weather was all day long set for runway 27 so it's not a sudden weather change. How and why did P2ATC give runway 09 for the approach?

I have it set to read the sim runway assignment, but 1) I'm quite sure this doesn't work in MSFS (or at least never did in the previous versions...) and 2) MSFS also had runway 27 set.

EDIT: When I verbally asked for an approach change to runway 27, it told me active runway is 09... with runway 27 still set as the active runway on the info page.

EDIT2: Found out something - simbrief had runway 09 set originally. This was imported into P2ATC and - apparently - never changed, even though active runway was 27. Is this WAD? I'd rather have this not imported and instead set by P2ATC in conjunction with the active runway.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Fiorentoni

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

The SimBrief import does include the recommended Approach, which drives the runway selection.  You can uncheck the option to "Import Procs" and P2A will ignore SimBrief procedures.

You can press the "Auto Plan" button after the import and it should then use P2A's settings to pick the runways and procedures.

Dave

Edited May 10, 2023 by Dave-Pilot2ATC

[Fiorentoni 4,114]

20 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

The SimBrief import does include the recommended Approach, which drives the runway selection.  You can uncheck the option to "Import Procs" and P2A will ignore SimBrief procedures.

You can press the "Auto Plan" button after the import and it should then use P2A's settings to pick the runways and procedures.

Dave

Hi Dave, that's exactly what I'm doing. It seems, however, that while SIDs and STARs are not imported from Simbrief (with "import procs" unchecked), the runway is imported. You can easily test it - when you quick-import from Simbrief, it will always show the Simbrief-chosen runway afterwards under "approach" on the main view, without any procedure imported (and before validating -> auto-load). Also when clicking the "approach" button, it will always recommend the simbrief-chosen runway no matter what. So it does import the simbrief runway and somehow "hard-code" it into the system.

Maybe change "import procs", so it will ignore the runway too from Simbrief (if unchecked)?

EDIT: Just to be clear - the result is the same whether I use auto-load or auto-plan. E.g. simbrief just chose 22 at KLGA, I imported via simbrief with "Import procs" unchecked, used auto-plan and it plans for 22, even though info page says active runway is 31.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Fiorentoni

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

I just did a test with "Force Pilot Runway Selection" turned off.

Created SIMBrief plan from KDFW to KJAX with DFW 17R and JAX 08 being chosen by SimBrief.

Imported the SIMBrief plan without the Procedures.

Pressed the "Auto Plan" button and P2A changed the runways and added SID, STAR and Approach, using the SIMBrief route.  This resulted in the plan using DFW 13R and JAX RW32 selected by P2A.

Yes, Auto Plan is the button to press to get P2A to add its runway and procedure selections to the plan.

Dave

[Fiorentoni 4,114]

8 minutes ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

I just did a test with "Force Pilot Runway Selection" turned off.

Created SIMBrief plan from KDFW to KJAX with DFW 17R and JAX 08 being chosen by SimBrief.

Imported the SIMBrief plan without the Procedures.

Pressed the "Auto Plan" button and P2A changed the runways and added SID, STAR and Approach, using the SIMBrief route.  This resulted in the plan using DFW 13R and JAX RW32 selected by P2A.

Yes, Auto Plan is the button to press to get P2A to add its runway and procedure selections to the plan.

Dave

Did you manually copy/paste the simbrief flight plan or did you use the quick-import button below (to the left of the "import procs" button)?
Not sure what's wrong on my side...

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

I used the "Import SimBrief" button to the left of the "Import" button so the import came directly from the SIMBrief site.

Dave

[Fiorentoni 4,114]

1 minute ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

I used the "Import SimBrief" button to the left of the "Import" button so the import came directly from the SIMBrief site.

Dave

It does not work for me while using the "import simbrief" button, only when manually importing the route without any runway mentioned...

Alright I assume it's because P2ATC thinks that runway 22 in my example is still "alright" (having a small headwind), while in your example it's probably too much of a difference. Would you mind trying my example? Plan any route from TXKF to KLGA, choosing runway 22 on simbrief, and then try to import. On my side, as said, P2ATC still has 22 after auto-planning instead of the active runway 31.

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

I tried it using both RW22 and RW13 as the arrival runway in SIMBrief.

When I pressed AutoPlan, it was changed to RW31, which aligns best with the winds.  

Make sure you press the New button so the Flight plan is blank before you do the import.

Dave

[Fiorentoni 4,114]

8 minutes ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

I tried it using both RW22 and RW13 as the arrival runway in SIMBrief.

When I pressed AutoPlan, it was changed to RW31, which aligns best with the winds.  

Make sure you press the New button so the Flight plan is blank before you do the import.

Dave

No joy, BUT I found out what's going on: On the taxi mnt page I have set the crosswind margin to 15 kts. This seemingly gets used while choosing the runway on auto-plan, even if no pref light wind runway is set. When I reset it to 0 kts, runway 31 gets chosen correctly. Is this WAD? The way I understood was that those values only are used when determining if a (checked) pref light wind runway is used or not.

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

 I think I found a bug that was stopping the active runway from being recalculated if windspeed was below the max Preferred RW Crosswind or Tailwind.

This will be fixed in the next Beta.

In the meantime, if you leave your Pref Crosswind set low, it should solve the issue.

Dave

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

Update:  In working on the possible bug, I found the real issue.

If you want the AutoPlan to be able to select the runway, you need to uncheck the "ForceArrRwy" option on the STAR or Approach selection window.  That will then allow the AutoPlan to select the active runway.

Dave

Edit:  The latest Beta 5X8 does remove the Preferred Wind Speeds from deciding active runways when no preferred runways are specified.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Dave-Pilot2ATC

[Fiorentoni 4,114]

On 5/11/2023 at 10:47 PM, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

Update:  In working on the possible bug, I found the real issue.

If you want the AutoPlan to be able to select the runway, you need to uncheck the "ForceArrRwy" option on the STAR or Approach selection window.  That will then allow the AutoPlan to select the active runway.

Dave

Edit:  The latest Beta 5X8 does remove the Preferred Wind Speeds from deciding active runways when no preferred runways are specified.

Works perfectly now, thank you!