Hi, Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this scenario? I filed a IFR flight plan from O52 (Sutter County) to KCIC (Chico) airport and loaded it into RCV3. Because I added a tower to O52 with AFCAD (to accomdate AI traffic) I ask for a Tower and AWOS from RC. All went according to plan until I got in the air, contacted Sacramento Center, and tried to turn my plane over to the co-pilot. I had my autopilot on and it was flying the assigned runway heading. The co-pilot responded with 'my plane' but nothing happened. The plane still continued to fly runway heading and continued veering off course to the starboard. I let it go to see what whould happen and nothing happened. When I was about twenty-five miles off-course center gave me a choice of approach procedures. I chose IAP with the ILS option. It was acknowledged and I was told to stand by for a full ILS clearance to RW 13L. Fine. I continued flying off course (still no co-pilot interaction) until I was about thirly miles east of the ILS localizer for RW 13L of KCIC and parallel of the start of the localizer. Now no further response from center or the co-pilot the same options are still on the menu. IAP, Visual, etc. I then take over the plane which I seemed to have had all along, no co-pilot takeover at anytime, and make a 90 degree turn west across the north end of the localizer path and position myself for a ILS approach. Still nothing from the center. I then start to make a 45 degree approach to the localizer and center then tells me to contact KCIC tower with the same options still staying in the menu. After contacting the tower I again choose IAP, ILS and receive the same response from the tower of stand by until cleared for the ILS approach. Mind you I am considerably beyond the localizer and flying a 45 into it. I receive no vectoring or anything at anytime from center or the tower. I fly the approach, lock on to the localizer, and finally tower clears me for landing. I land, am told to taxi to a non-existant parking space (21) and recieve an excellent critique. :-eek I am flying a Navion made by a graphics design company for FS2002. I did not like the old Honeywell Autopilot that came with the FS98 Navion panel so I replaced it with the Bendix AP from the default FS2002 Mooney panel. The AP seems to work fine. I am running RCV3 at abovenormal priority and using FS Flight Assistant for verbal command input. I also tried manual key input to get the co-pilot to take over as well as to try for vectors to the ILS from the center or the tower. No dice. Can anyone give me any pointers to what I was doing wrong in the above flight.I know the above description is long but I wanted to paint a full picture.Gary

Hi Gary,To clarify a couple of points: I understand from the above that the autopilot continued to fly the plane on the runway heading, and the RC autopilot (Otto) didn't change the heading at any point.It would sound as if, for some reason, the autopilot on your plane is not programmed as the standard FS2002 autopilot (though why this should be is a mystery to me if you are using the Mooney autopilot).Under these circumstances Otto would not be able to change the heading but centre wouldn't complain because they never tell Otto off.All the best,John

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Gary,Here's what probably happened. This is only a 40-mile plan, so when you handed the plane over to Otto, she handed it straight back. Somewhere along the line you should have heard "Yours". When you declared IAP, you're on your own after Center/APC gives you your instructions to fly the full ILS approach, and Otto hands you the plane anyway.Two things to do. 1) Add the CIC VOR to the plan (always have at least one waypoint), and 2) Pay really close attention to Otto saying "Yours".However, as I say, with this short a plan, it's possible that Otto didn't take the plane anyway.Here's a couple things I'm confused about. Is there Dep at O52? If there's APC at KCIC there should have been. Even if not, you should have never heard from Center. You're too low and too close to KCIC. This is a term-enroute plan.Add the waypoint, and try it again, with and without handing to Otto.

Well spotted Scott,I hadn't noticed it was such a short flight ;-)Your explanation seems more plausible than mine.All the best,John

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John,That's why I like Nav so much. I toss in the airports, and waypoints if listed, and see what's in the plan and extrapolate from there. ;-)

Hi Scott, True, this is only a 40 mile flight. O52 only has tower and ground because I added it with AFCAD to get AI traffic at my home airport. KMYV is the nearest large field about 10 miles distant, except for BEAL (KBAB AFB). No departure at O52. My assigned flight level was 6000 feet. I can see the error on my part now. KCIC also only has tower and ground. NO APC. I misread that. Otto did take the plane after I was told to contact Oakland center but she did not hand it back to me or there is a speech defect in my system. She did not fly the plane so I just ignored the 'my plane' response. I think part of my problem was when I flew using FSATC. KCIC uses Sacramento approach and departure in real life. In FSATC I was turned over to Sacramento Approach and vectored to the ILS, KCIC 13L KSMF would then turn me over to KCIC tower for final contact and permission to land. I was thinking FSATC while using RCV3. I understand now. I will have to futher check out Otto's handing the plane back to me on various flights. I need to get FSATC procedures out of my head and get back to RC thinking. I have not used RC since FS2002 came out. I am glad to get back to reality. ;) Sacramento approach and departure handles all of that type traffic for KCIC and south to KSMF in FSATC and in actual flying.Cheers,Gary

Hi Scott and All, I thought I would just let you know the final resolution to my co-pilot problem etc. As you well know sound cards and sound software and mice driver problems can destroy the best of systems when they are out of kilter with MS WindowsXP or any MS based operating system. I have been having mouse problems with certain Ifeel control center drivers and also with Creative drivers every since WindowsXP Pro service release came out. I thought this might be interfering with FS2002 and add-on software so after I sent my post I went to the Logitech site and sure enough they had a new mouseware update. :-) I also did some tweaking (8-| to the Creative drivers and started the whole flight again. Everything went perfectly. Jamie or Otto or whoever she is, all Ok as long as it

Great news, Gary. :-) Rob