What a snitch!!

[Guest Panman]

It seems that Paris control decided to cover up his mistake by reporting me to the UK CAA.Just completed LFML (Sim-Wings) - EGKK (Gatwick Pro) in the PMDG 737. Controller gave me the instruction to descend to FL270 from FL360) which I followed religiously. Upon crossing FL320 (or thereabouts) I receive a TCAS TA and notice a formation of two at FL310 that would be crossing my path in VERY short space of time. Sure enough shortly after I get a RA Climb from the TCAS which I obey, I am now climbing at 3000fpm. Paris control gets the hump. I level off at FL320 until both aircraft have passed and I get the aural OK from the TCAS. By then Paris control has bawled me out twice for bursting my assigned FL.Get into Gatwick and JD chews my behind out for "several altitude busts" to which I calmly reply, "would you prefer altitude busts or explaining to the families of the 151 people who were onboard at the time, why the aircraft crashed?". To top it off I get a visit on the flightdeck from some guy from the civil aviation authority (okay he was actually from the FAA but since they have no jurisdiction in UK airspace....).

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

Hi Panman,<>The last bit of that was your mistake. RC4 will vector other aircraft out of your way quite successfully so you should not have climbed. You need to have Debug switched on to hear the audible 'beep' as confirmation that RC4 has detected a conflict and is adjusting the heading of the Ai aircraft but rest assured that mid-air collisions are extremely rare. Out of interest what was the altitude difference between your aircraft and the conflicting Ai?Good point about the critiques being all FAA-based. Something to consider for future versions perhaps.

[Guest 102301636]

Hey folks,You know this interests me because while RC should vector AI out of the way in this case it did not do so in time, so maybe that is an issue which can be looked at so that AI can be moved out of the way prior to any TCAS warning.I hate to stir but IRL, if a TCAS warning sounds it is the pilots responsibility to follow it's instructions over ATC. In fact ATC are trained not to interfere at all...stalemate :)

[jd 57]

i have found that the tcas alert is not perfect, either. the criteria i follow before i move an ai, may be more forgiving than what a gauge says.at least that is what some people have told mejd

[Guest 102301636]

thats a fair point, especially when you are trying to integrate multiple add-ons to one program there are bound to be inconsistencies...all in all though I think you guys do a superb job

[Guest tmanaon]

Ray,I am not sure how RC4 "vectors other traffic out of your way" but on Friday i actually had a midair collision at EGLL.I was doing a FACT (Cape Town) to EGLL flight in real time on PMDG 747-400. After sitting through 10 hours of flight, RC4 starts my approach vectoring for runway 09R. Approach gives me clearance to turn right to final and intercept the ILS (about 15 miles out i believe). As i start my turn, the PMDG TCAS comes alive with yellow warning of conflicting traffic. I ignored the warning because i wanted to see whether RC4 will jump in and do something. Within 5 seconds the warning turned red with the order to pull up. Again i ignored it and continued the RC4 commanded turn to ILS. BOOOOOOM....Aircraft crash.That was the first time i had ever had a mid air crash on FS2004 on a planned flight (that is when, i was not kidding around). RC4 did not say a word to either myself or the conflicting traffic at any time prior to the crash. From now on when my TCAS says climb, i'll climb.BTW, we were at about 3000 at the time of the crash.Anthony

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

Anthony,I've had one mid-air collision in hundreds of hours of flying with RC4 so that isn't a bad record. None would be ideal of course but the most difficult part of a flight to keep aircraft apart is the approach. What RC4 tries to do is to speed up aircraft ahead of you and slow down aircraft behind you. Most of the time it works okay.If you don't use an Ai traffic smoother program I can recommend one. This works further out than RC4 and should minimise the chance of problems when on finals. Search the Forum library for AiSmooth which is the one I use.Cheers,