PeteP

>And they use mm/HG. Just for the records, and for the RC5 wish list, ouch :DThey do indeed, Mike. However, I think that by the time RC 5 hits the streets, countries like Russia will have "come into line" and will be using ft/FL, knots and so on. Just a feeling, but the more the former Soviet Union countries and China open up to international air transport, the more the pressure that will be applied on them to conform with their ATC systems. We'll see - time will tell. ;-) http://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

Hi Achim,Thanks for the explanation. Perhaps I can help you a little by explaining the systems used in ATC in the real-world and how we've chosen to simulate them in Radar Contact4.In areas controlled by FAA rules - the United States and associated territories, for example - pressure is passed in inches of mercury, visibility is given in statute (not nautical) miles, cloud heights in feet, aircraft altitudes in feet (flight levels above the Transition Altitude) and speed in knots or mach numbers. This is fully and accurately simulated in RC4.Outside of North America, most of the rest of the world (including Europe) complies with ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices which means hectopascals (millibars in the UK) are used for passing pressure, and metres and kilometres are used for visibility. As in the US, cloud heights and aiircraft altitudes are passed in feet (flight levels for aircraft above the TA) and knots or mach numbers for speed. This is also correctly simulated in Radar Contact 4.There are also a few countries - the states of the former Soviet Union and China are examples - that use metres for aircraft altitudes and kilometres for aircraft speeds. This is not simulated in RC4.I hope this makes the real-world situation a little clearer to you. When RC controllers pass the pressure in hectopascals for flights outside North America, they're doing exactly what their real-world counterparts do.All the bestPetehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

>Is there any option in RC4 to change the altimeter pressure readout from hPa to inHG? Hi Achim,If I've understood you correctly, you want the RC "controllers" and the ATIS to pass the pressure setting in in/Hg instead of hectopascals when you're flying outside the USA. If this is correct, could you please explain why you want this done?Best wishesPete

Hi Bud,As John has said, it's correct for RC as it is at the moment but you're right if you're suggesting that's not how it is in the real world. You go from Birmingham tower/approach to Manchester Control until handover to Dublin.It's something John and I are working on at the moment and you can expect to see a number of upgrades to UK airspace realism - including the possible addition of Manchester Control - in the near future.Petehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

Mike, I usually use Active Sky but because I wanted a specific QNH, I just used the built-in user-defined weather for this flight.Petehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

Mike,I've just finished flying your plan but, unfortunately, I couldn't replicate the problem so I'm afraid I don't have an answer - this time. However, please let us know if the problem recurs and we'll try again to trace it.BestPetehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

>>I'm not a real pilot but it does seem strange that you have a descent plan & STAR etc built into the FMC but you cannot routinely fly it!<http://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

Thanks, Mike. I understand the use of ARL - I do exactly the same myself to get a realistic crossing restriction clearance. I'll probably fly it this afternoon and I'll get back to you.BestPetehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

OK, Mike, with a QNH of 1000hPa, FL110 would have been at approximately 10600ft but if you're certain you had 1013 set on your altimeter, that shouldn't be the problem.If you'd like to post your flight plan here, I'll try and fly it later today and see if I get the same problem.BestPetehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

>>after a while I opened advdisp and noticed ARL VOR at the first line with an altitude of 11600. <

>I assume that wouldn't happen in real life, probably some>unlucky sector definitions in the bgl ? I had a look to the>Lat/Lon values in the s4.csv file, these seem to define the>boundaries ? Probably a daunting task to change those.You're correct, Mike, wherever possible, these sort of problems are solved by a process called delegation. This where authority to control parts of the airspace belonging to one centre is delegated to another centre to ease or solve control problems caused by national airspace boundaries.One thing that exacerbates this problem in Radar Contact is that the airspace definitions used by RC are actually those for the FIR/UIR boundaries rather than the centre area of responsibility boundaries. As you say, it would be a daunting task to get those changed but, who knows what the future will bring...:-)Petehttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

>I'm not a controller,< That's OK, I am. :-)>but doesn't ATC also divide the>airspace vertically? < Absolutely correct.>One Bremen controller could be handling flights below FL230 and another those above FL230. If you are climbing and passing FL230 you could be transferred between 2 Bremen centers on different frequencies.Not sure whether (1)this is how it works in real life< Yes it is although not necessarily at the FLs you mention but the principle is correct>and (2) whether it's modeled in RC4.http://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

>I had contact with 2 Copenhagen Centers, 4 Bremen Centers and 2 Frankfurt Centers, all on different frequencies. Is this correct? I would have expected only 1 of each.Each control centre divides the airspace for which it's responsible into sectors. Each sector has its own control team and frequency but uses the same call sign - Bremen, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London etc.Although RC4 does not model the real world sectors for each centre, it does correctly replicate the principle of transferring a flight from sector to sector as it passes through a centre's airspace and that was what was happening to you on this flight.http://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

Ah, so you are still in the land of the living! :-)PPhttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpg

>I have completed 25 hours of the private pilots course in the>UK. I have started the navigation part of the course and>wondered if Radar Contact would be useful to me. Circuit>procedures (so glad to be out the circuit!), zone transits etc>are all things I am just starting to do in the real world ->will RC4 help me practice these?Hi Ray,No, great add-on that it is, Radar Contact most definitely will not help you in the areas you mention and, in fact, it could even hinder and confuse you. The airspace model is entirely American and many of the procedures and some of the RT phraseology also still show their US origins. Things like LARS, zone transits and MATZ penetrations are a total mystery to it! :-)Good luck with your PPL - I finished mine 30 years ago but I can still remember every moment as if it were yesterday. And when you get your licence and feel like coming back to Flight Sim for some airline-style flying, RC will be the perfect program for you.Pete

>Flying from Jersey (egjj)to London Gatwick (egkk) assigned level 19000 feet indicated level at cruise 19000>>altimeter setting of 1033 i Think Cant be 100% sure on that>one using FS9 real world Weather generatorOK, Ian, problem solved - you're flying with the QNH set (1033) instead of the standard setting of 1013. Those 20mb difference will mean you're about 600ft too low.When you started RC with the Jersey-Gatwick plan, RC will have set the correct Transition Altitudes of 3000ft and 6000ft respectively from its database. Do you remember climbing out from Jersey and passing 3000ft your co-pilot said "altimeter check"? This was the signal for you to re-set your altimeter to 1013mb so that your altimeter reads flight levels instead of altitudes. RC would actually have cleared you to FL190, not 19000ft, a difference of about 600ft with that QNH.The same will happen on the descent when you pass the Transition Level - it would have been FL70 in this case - the co-pilot will call "altimeter check again and you should re-set the altimeter to the Gatwick QNH which approach will have passed with your descent clearance. Try the flight again with the same weather and listen carefully to the clearances RC gives and for the nudge from your co-pilot. :>)Pete

>I don't know how the areas in RC or MSFS are coded so please don't take this as unconstructive critism if it is a limitation of either.Steve, You're correct, it is a limitation in the method RC currently uses to define control centres - it defines them geographically but not vertically. So, there will always be a problem in RC where you have different control centres working in the same geographical area but with responsibility split vertically. The two most obvious examples which spring to my mind are Maastricht UAC which sits directly above the airspace controlled by the Area Control Centres at Brussels and Amsterdam (as well as the north-west part of Germany) and Manchester ACC which sits underneath London Control's airspace north of Birmingham. I'm sure there must be others - the new CEATS centre in Vienna, for example, which will control traffic above FL245 over 8 central European countries will give RC even more headaches when it comes on-line.Given these restrictions in RC, the decision to leave out Maastricht was a conscious one, knowing that whatever I recommended, it was going to be wrong in some part. The options were to let Maastricht control below FL245 or let Brussels and Amsterdam control above FL245 - both were wrong but in the end I plumped for the national centres on the ground that they would be recognisable to the majority of RC users, many of whom will probably never have heard of Maastricht. It may be that future versions of RC will be able to deal with these vertical centre splits but that's something you'll have to ask John and/or jd about.Pete

It's a language thing, Mike. As a German, you may not have heard this before but the standing joke about the British and the Americans is that we're two nations divided by a common language! :D :D :D This is a perfect example of it.Pete

Mike,This is a known "problem" which both Ray and I have tried to get changed but with only limited success - so far! As you say, it's not a showstopper but, rest assured, it remains on my list of things to be put right for future versions.Pete

>If i may just jump in here, the thing I find most annoying is in the clearances, as in "You are cleared to "THE" XXX "Airport"" or "You are cleared for approach on "THE" runway >XX".Yep, you and me both, Steve! x(The good news is that in version 4, you will be cleared to London Heathrow airport, for example, and not THE London Heathrow airport. Unfortunately, that aberrant definite article still appears in other places in v4. Try as we might, neither Ray (Proudfoot) nor I could persuade our American colleagues that it was unnecessary - but, rest assured, we'll keep working on them. With luck we may have it sorted by the time we get to version 8! ;-) :) BestTHE Pete

OK, Johan, there's no need to be so rude - people are only trying to help. I suggest you take Bud's advice and visit the FSUIPC form - you'll find it at http://forums.simflight.com/viewforum.php?f=54. Peter Dowson himself will be there to help you solve your problem but, if you'll take some friendly advice, don't shout at him with capital letters and exclamation marks - he's not noted for his tolerance of such things.Pete

Fred,From your description, it sounds like you are using the built-in green "window" to display RC's text in Flight Sim. RC is designed to use ADVdisplay for this purpose which should have been installed to you Flight Simulator 9/modules folder (advdisplay.dll). It can be switched on from the FS 9 'Modules' menu and using it instead of the green window should give you the properly formatted RC text.Pete

>1. Does "international" procedures also include Russian procedures ?No it doesn't, Mike. The only country which has specific, accurate procedures is the United States. Outside the US, there are almost as many different sets of procedures for ATC as there are different countries so it's not been possible to include specific procedures for individual countries.What we have done, though, is to attempt to provide a flavour of international operations by replacing the US RT phraseology for the most commonly used instructions by ICAO standard phraseology and providing a representative system of altimeter setting procedures again based on ICAO standards and recommended practices. I'm no expert on Russian altimetry procedures but, if I understand correctly, you have a system which uses QFE as your pressure datum and your vertical clearances are expressed in metres. Neither of these procedures is supported in this version of RC.>2. Does your list of Airport names also include the main Moscow Airports Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo (payware available at igfly.com)? My virtual home bases :)Sheremetyevo is included by name as are the Russian ACCs although you will probably be very amused at some of our attempts to pronounce them! :>))Pete

>1-it says there (European flight example) to reset FS settings>for correct QNH procedures:and what about flying, say, from>the States to Europe ? Will RC call correct QNH when across>the pond ?Hi Enrico,Some good questions - I'll leave questions 2 and 3 to those on the team who have more knowledge of these areas than me and just answer question 1.Don't misunderstand the reason for changing the settings in Flight Sim for the European tutorial - it's a shortcoming of the default Flight Sim aircraft and not RC. This was done simply to get the default Learjet's altimeter sub-scale to read in millibars/hectopascals instead of inches of mercury. We fly the tutorials in the default aircraft and this was a peculiarity of the default Lear. You won't have to do this for the default B747 as its standby altimeter has dual sub-scales showing both in/Hg and mB/hPa but you'd have to do the same for the default B777 which shows one or the other but not both.Most of the add-on - payware and freeware - long-range aircraft that I've come across seem to have either dual or switchable sub-scales so this shouldn't be a problem if you're flying one of these. If the sub-scale on the aircraft you're flying across the Atlantic is only single-reading, you will need a conversion chart - you can get one from the libraries at both Avsim.com and Flightsim.com (presconv.zip).Radar Contact 4, however, is independent of the settings in Flight Sim as far as altimetry goes. It works out what system it should use by being 'aware' of its location. In FAA-controlled areas, it uses a standard Transition Altitude of 18000ft and passes pressure settings in in/Hg. In all other parts of the world, RC uses the correct airport Transition Level - either drawn from its database or from user input - calculates the appropriate Transition Level by applying the local QNH and passes the pressure setting in millibars/hectopascals.If you loaded a flight plan from, say KJFK to LIMF, into RC and went to the Controller Info page, you'd see that there was no TA entry for KJFK as the standard US 18000ft is used but under LIMF you'd see the correct TA of 6000ft has been entered from RC's database. On departure from JFK, you'd be given altitudes up to 17000ft and then flight levels above that with the pressure being passed in in/Hg. When you begin your final descent into LIMF, you'll be given flight levels down to the calculated Transition Level - which is likely to be FL70 or FL80 - and then altitudes from 6000ft downwards. The QNH will be passed in hectopascals when you get your first clearance to an altitude.If you like this sort of localised realism, you'll love RC4.Pete

>1. Does RC4 know something about European Airspace and Phraeseology ?