Bad controllers

[Guest chinookfe]

First of all the program is fairly good over level ground. Flying for a VA I get climb and descent altitude call outs such as climb to 200 feet from 18000 or descend to 100 feet from 12000. Flying a flight from SBKP to SCEL will result in a descent into the mountains approx 60 miles from SCEL. This has occured in five straight flights. I can assume climb and descent call outs were meant to be 20000 feet and 10000 feet but guiding airplanes into mountains in IFR conditions ain't very cool.

[jd 57]

sounds like you haven't set the standard pressure or local pressure. flying from sbkp to scel the transition level is not going to be FL180departure and/or arrival into mountainous areas, you probably want to enable notams on departure and/or arrival so you're not descended into a mountainjd

[Guest chinookfe]

All pressures are set correctly. Used my co-pilot for three of the flights and he also hit the mountains. The only way to save the approach is to ignore the approach controllers, fly the approach visual (If you can see) and then accept the "Need to follow procedures" memo from the critque after the flight. I think the program is great and this is the only problem I have found with it so far and I attempt to use it every flight.

[jd 57]

choose arrival/departure notams when you are flying into or out of mountainous airports.of choose an iap approach for arrival, and fly the approach per the approach plate.jd

[Guest chinookfe]

I will try the notams. I use the approach plates from Simplates 2004. This could be a scenery error from FS9 for the SCEL area and not a RC4 problem. The mountains are awfully high surrounding the airport. Have no first hand knowledge of the area. I started sim flying with the original and am a licensed pilot so the mechanics of flying are familiar. Thanks for the assistance. If nothing else works I will just take the error message and get the whale on the ground in one piece.

[ronzie 21]

I looked at the Simplates 2004 two approaches. The MSA is 19000 at 25 radiused from the OM. You do not get down to a transition of 5000 until with ten nm of the OM or whatever on the other plate. Over the OM you do a descending holding pattern to get down to 3000 for an ILS or VOR approach. Simplates does not show all plates available. There may be transition routes or a STAR getting you from farther out to 5,000.A mesh error might cause mountain obstructions. There is a freeware recently released scenery for this airport and I think mesh for Chile as well.I'll look for additional paper info I might have. I did not find anything on VATSIM.It looks like 5000 is your transition altitude to change your altimeter reference.If you installed any mesh do a database rebuild.

[ronzie 21]

I have an instrument terminal area chart for Santiago. SCEL is bordered by higher terrain to the east and lower to the west. If you look at the obstacles on the plates from SimPlates you will notice the difference.If you used approach vectors then RC might have taken you to ILS 17 if winds allowed. If so if you were coming from the south and/or east it might have placed you on the east hemisphere of 17 downwind, where obstacles are higher and facing east there is a steep slope upward.Right on the approach from the north is TBN VOR which I would have included in the plan and selected an IAP. The MSA for the airway between TBN and AMB is 7000. It is about 30 miles from the airport and would offer a decent descent.If you were vectored to the west side for downwind then it looks like 10,000 would be appropriate until within 10 nm.SW of the airport it looks like much higher MSA, again until you get closer.60 miles east and the MSA is about 23,000.As far as seeing 100 if you are using the display controller text option, it is because on a long line in the green window the last few characters may have been dropped.The quad MSAs around the airport are 26200 NE., 24300 E., 10000 W., 11600 NW. These quadrant MSAs are what RC samples. I can look at a larger area if you are interested just for discussion.

[Guest chinookfe]

Thanks alot for the info. The references for 100 feet, 200 feet, 400 feet are AUDIO instructions from the comtroller. One example: While at 38,000 feet in cruise I requested flight level 40,000 and the controller cleared me to 400 feet. Just a minor error and I assumed I was cleared to 40,000. My SCEL flight plan from SBKP: SBKP,MONG,SIAN,VISO,GERAL,FLORI,DARCI,MADRI,SERGI,VERBO,TORVA,PERNA,NOBEL,RIVAL,BGE,TULIO,OPSOS,GUA,ROS,MJZ,TEREX,LDR,KALEN,SOLER,SALBO,DOZ,UMKAL,SCEL. The controller wants me down 11000 feet before UMKAL I belive which puts a big rock in my way. (Around 60 miles out). You may be able to see something on your charts. Thanks again.

[ronzie 21]

Depending on the transition altitude for the area, the first level above is the transition level. From this altitude up controllers should be saying flight level nnn. In a flight level the last two 00s are dropped from the altitude thus FL 100 is 10,000 feet, 200 is 20,000 feet, and so on. Below this level and controllers wil speak in feet (but not saying the word feet).So to convert FL to feet, just add two 0s.The other important thing to note is that when a controller speaks in flight levels meaning you are above the transition altitude, insure your altimeter is set for standard pressure which is 29.92 inHg or 1013 millibars.Passing below the transition altitude you would set it to the current surface value stated by the controller.

[Guest chinookfe]

Gotcha. The program does not do it. It states feet instead of Flight Level. Millibar settings are correct. Again I am a licensed pilot and to get instructions to climb from FL380 to 400 feet is not correct nor is giving instructions to descend into a rock wall. Could be a scenery file in FS9 or a glitch in RC4. Either way I can work around it but the post was for informational purposes and not meant to degrade the product. This has been the only flight wherein the controller put me or the RC4 co-pilot into the ground. The problem with the altitude I can deal with. TOD on this flight is S3250.1/W6850.9 and from there it goes "Oh, look a mountain,let's hit it".

[PeteP 2]

>Gotcha. The program does not do it. It states feet instead of>Flight Level. Millibar settings are correct. Again I am a>licensed pilot and to get instructions to climb from FL380 to>400 feet is not correct nor is giving instructions to descend>into a rock wall. The root cause of this seems to be that you're getting confused between altitudes and flight levels. Are you a licenced pilot in the US? If so, that may be adding to the problem - for flights outside the USA, Radar Contact uses a system based on ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices which are different from those of the FAA which you may be used to.You're absolutely right, of course, when you say, "to get instructions to climb from FL380 to 400 feet is not correct" but it is very unlikely that that's the clearance you were given. Almost certainly, you were cleared to FL400 (spoken as "flight level four hundred") and on hearing "four hundred" you assumed it meant 400 feet. I think you made the same mistake when RC climbed you to FL200 ("flight level two hundred") and descended you to FL100 ("flight level one hundred") by assuming RC had said 200ft and 100ft.You might like to try the flight again, listening very carefully to whether the clearance is to an altitude or a flight level. Make sure you have the comms so that you can ask for a repeat if you're not sure or you might like to switch on the text display so that you can double check what's been said. Outside the US, the word "feet" will always be used with an altitude clearance and the format is "descend/climb to altitude x,xxx feet" and the format for a flight level is always "climb/descend flight level xxx" so they're quite easy to tell apart.All the bestPetehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

[ronzie 21]

UMKAL:The airway MEA at and east and west of UMKAL is FL260 or 26,000 feet. I do not know why ATC cleared you down to 11,000 feet since all surrounding quadrants I believe at up around 26,000. MSAs as state are at 19,000 within 25nm of the approach and around 7,000 within 10 nm.

[Guest chinookfe]

I am getting ready to fly flight number nine and will log all references to check my hearing. Licensed in the US. Started flying in 1960. I will get the exact area where the instructions descend me into terra firma. Seems they were having me "descend to 11,000 feet within 30 miles" prior to UMKAL. I will double check everything I am doing and this time log it to see exactly where I go boom. Thanks for the aid.

[jd 57]

click debug, as soon as you launch. then load your .plnwhen you're done, and if there was a problem, zip up the .log and send it and a description to jd@jdtllc.comjd

[Guest chinookfe]

Will Do.