Randh

Ah, whoops. Sorry about that, my bad. I misread the name of this forum. Nevermind.

I've had the Wilco Airbus for a few years now, and something has bothered me about its TCAS system, but I'm not sure if it reflects the real thing or not. If I'm correct, if the pilots and ATC are following the correct procedures with adequate traffic advisories, the audible "TRAFFIC! TRAFFIC!" alerts should really never happen in flight. They should be for threats that require immediate attention, which should never even happen anyway because you should have already done whatever needed to be done well ahead of time. On the Wilco Airbus, I'm often getting these audible alerts when both me and the other aircraft are in level flight, with a vertical separation of, say, 5K feet, but with a lateral separation of under 5 miles. I feel as though these alerts are unnecessary and would only serve to be like the boy who cried wolf in the sense that a pilot would just become accustomed to the sound. Is this normal? When I'm in especially congested areas on approach in, say, the NYC area, I'm often getting alerts for aircraft at 8,000 feet when I'm at 4,000 feet, and not at all in a collision course.

Hmm... well, I did do a quick scan, which prompted a reboot (although all it found were some questionable cookies which I highly doubt would cause a DLL to get corrupted) and after rebooting the PMDG started working again... so perhaps there was some weirdness going on with whatever validates DLLs that was fixed by resetting everything. In any case, thanks for the help. At least I can run my 747 again.

Sorry, it looks like I can't edit the OP with my name, but it is Randall Huck (I could have registered it with my nickname, Rand Huck though). KingOfLienster, I haven't ever run FSX with admin privileges and I've been using the same user since I got this computer. Nevertheless, I tried running as admin, but I got the same problem. One thing that might have also changed things is I believe my computer performed updates on Windows 7 in the last week. I suppose it's possible one of those updates changed the way DLLs load?

Hi, all, I have been flying the PMDG 747-400 for quite a while, and the last time I had flown it fine was just 2-3 days ago. When I chose the PMDG 747 to fly today, I got the following error: ================================================================================ Windows has found a problem with this file: PMDG_747400_Main.DLL Publisher: Unknown Publisher This file was blocked because it does not have a valid digital signature that verifies its publisher. ================================================================================ The only addons I have installed recently was KEWR scenery from Drzewiecki Design and the E190 engines from Turbine Sound Solutions. The file itself doesn't show a recent modified date. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm a bit perplexed at how something that worked just two days ago suddenly got this error. Thanks in advance to anyone who figures this one out. -Rand Huck

Hi, all, I have been flying the PMDG 747-400 for quite a while, and the last time I had flown it fine was just 2-3 days ago. When I chose the PMDG 747 to fly today, I got the following error: ================================================================================ Windows has found a problem with this file: PMDG_747400_Main.DLL Publisher: Unknown Publisher This file was blocked because it does not have a valid digital signature that verifies its publisher. ================================================================================ The only addons I have installed recently was KEWR scenery from Drzewiecki Design and the E190 engines from Turbine Sound Solutions. The file itself doesn't show a recent modified date. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm a bit perplexed at how something that worked just two days ago suddenly got this error. Thanks in advance to anyone who figures this one out.

I had very similar problem during my approach to Washington-National into RW1. Just before base leg, the jet banked to the left, and my speed increased rapidly (with engines idle) to 280 IAS. Strangely enough even on final, I felt like I had tail winds of about 40kts, which made my landing quite challenging. It should be noted that RW1 was, in fact, the active runway which makes this whole thing a bit confusing.Before installing AS2012 I had some issues with extremely rough headwinds on approach that almost looked like the exact opposite of what I observed here. I've never had a this exact "tailwind" behavior before I installed AS2012. I did, however, also install the new FSUIPC version (in an attempt to fix the crazy headwinds) so I can't be positive that it's actually AS2012's problem yet.

So, I take it this will fix the problems I've been having where I'm on approach and I'm getting headwinds of 116kts effectively making my airplane hover in midair? ;)

I think I found the problem. It turned out to be TrafficX after all. When I looked in the TrafficX directory, I saw a number of airports had two versions: an AFX_[id] version and an AF2 version. After doing some googling I saw that, in fact, the AF2 versions should only be used with FS9. I'm not sure what they were doing there, but after I removed them, all the airports which previously looked odd are now fixed.Now, I think what RC might have been confused about was, while the correct version of KPHL was being displayed, RC must have had the old AF2 version in its database, which as you said could be off by even a few hundred feet. I haven't tested KPHL in RC yet, but I think I won't have this issue repeated again.Thanks for the help!

Nope. When I look at KPHL and KCLT using AFX, I see two airports, the "Modified" version and the "Stock" version which I assume is the original. When I look at the modified version, it looks very much like the ones I'm seeing in FSX right now, while the stock version looks more "accurate" in terms of gate locations and such. I know for a fact KCLT looked much better, just after I installed TrafficX, so there must have been some other addon which overwrote TrafficX's... I don't have any Charlotte-specific scenery packs and the only global scenery enhancements I have are UTX and GEX, and while I can't know for sure, I can't imagine they would overwrite existing airports. Is there any surefire way to know who created what airport file? Yeah, I noticed. ;) I have 8Gb of RAM, which I'm sure FSX doesn't even use being 32-bit. I'm not sure how low computer performance would actually overwrite a scenery file in such a bizarre way, anyways. 'Yes, and it has worked pretty well. As mentioned just now, though, I don't think it's actually TrafficX that's the culprit. I think something is overwriting some of TrafficX's airports, and I just don't have a clue what that could be. Yeah, I use flightaware quite religiously to see what kinds of STARs and DPs the airlines use. Especially for the busy northeastern airspace.In any case, I think what I'm seeing here is probably not actually related to RC, but like you said is something else. It's a very odd problem because besides the issues I'm reporting, the airport itself works fine with AI. The AI know where the runways are, there are takeoffs and landings, but it seems FSX is telling RC I'm on top of the runway regardless. Very odd... but your brainstorming at least steered me towards where the problem lies.Thanks again.

Thanks for your replies. I confirmed that I was using "Jet" as my aircraft definition. As for the afd, I'm using a sort of "modified" version of the default airport created by Traffic X by Just Flight. As far as I know, TrafficX only adds information mapping each carrier to its assigned gate such that, in the case of KPHL, US Airways have their dedicated terminals (C-F, I believe) while the rest of the carriers have gates in the others. Now, I've had some very odd issues in the past where for some unexplainable reason all of the airports start out OK, but after a certain period of time some airports randomly change. This actually happened to me recently for Charlotte-Douglas, where the entire ramp/apron configuration changes, jetways are missing from the entire airport, and airplanes aren't even parking at the terminal gates, much less at the right terminal gates. I fixed this about a year ago by reinstalling Traffic X, but it very recently started on me again. I really have no idea what's going on, as I haven't installed any addons in many months. Although TrafficX is commercial and proprietary, I doubt they'd come after me if I gave you that one airport scenery file for debugging purposes. Let me know if you agree and if so, the best way to send it to you. Yeah, the runway is 5,000 feet, so it's capable of handling at least regional jets. I was flying a 737 with minimal fuel (a hop to Hartford) so I guess it could theoretically take off from 26. I'm not sure how much FSX takes into consideration my aircraft's actual net weight when determining which runway is best for me, though. Yep, that's what I figured, looking at the maps.Thanks.

Hey, guys,I was doing a routine flight from Philly to Bradley, and as soon as I got taxi instructions to RW 26, I was asked to monitor tower. This confused me, as I hadn't even started leaving the ramp yet, and I was actually a little miffed because I wanted to request a longer runway, which you can only do while you're with ground. As soon as I contacted tower, I yelled at for being on the runway. I was clearly still on the apron.However, I was definitely on the line of path of 26. If you look at a map, you'll see that 26 is actually directly to the east of the terminals. I'm not sure how much real-life use this very short runway gets, as it's not very easily accessible from the ramp, it's short, and it doesn't look safe being aligned in such a way that it's lined up towards the terminal and control tower. It almost looks like it's supposed to be a GA runway or a runway at least for very small turboprops.In any case, my questions are as follows:1.) The other active runways were 27R and 27L, so I guess it makes sense that FSX considers 26 to be a valid active runway as well, since it's parallel. What I don't understand is the runway threshold was the farthest from my position compared to the other valid thresholds (27R/L), and by far more suitable. I haven't had this problem before at other airports with similar configurations where there's one very long runway paralleled by a much shorter runway.2.) While I was in a position where I was lined up to the runway, I was about 3000 feet from the runway's end. Does RC only take in consideration how my airplane is positioned in relation to the alignment of the runway instead of the bounds of the runway?My mkrunways.exe is all up to date, I've flown out of Philly before and haven't had this problem; every time I had to take off towards the west, it always assigned me either 27R or 27L and never gave me any grief over my ground movements.Has anyone had this problem before in KPHL and other similar airports?Thanks

Add one more for the team.I have a very interesting background to this whole thing, though...I've had my computer for about 2.5 years now with little more than adding memory for upgrades. It's got a nVidia GTX 280, Intel Q6700, Vista 64, and 8Gb RAM. FSX had been running reasonably well for me up until recently. I had the occasional BSOD (attributed to overheating issues due to a dusty intake which I had fixed), and on occasion a hiccup here and there.Now, a few weeks ago, while I thought I was updating my Vista this whole time, I discovered that somehow, despite me updating Vista regularly (by shutting down a few times a month with the big "update" icon in the start menu) I learned that there were tons of updates that hadn't been installed yet, some years old. I spent a whole day updating Vista to the latest and greatest, full knowing I was taking a risk by updating straight from an old version to a new version. I really have no idea how so many critical updates went AWOL, but shortly after that I noticed the freezing. The freezing seem to be all similar to everybody else's: random, but at high altitudes, some flights are fine, others freeze, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with CPU load or graphic settings.So, what really irks me is I'm pretty sure something in this OS update made things go awry, but obviously I can't narrow it down to any one of the dozens of updates I made. There were driver updates, security updates, performance updates, the whole nine yards. Any one, or any combination of those updates could have been to blame for the freezing issues I'm having now.I should also note that I had recently installed backup software. However, I had this software shut down and it still froze.Now, about the sound theory... that might have some merit, because another thing I did recently was enable cockpit sounds when previously cockpit sounds were turned off (once I turned them on I realized why I had turned them off long ago in the first place: for some reason using Traffic X I hear the light switch sounds in all the aircraft surrounding me and it was driving me nuts. I'll see if despite all the OS updates I made recently that turns out to be the culprit.It kind of stinks figuring it out because it's so random and happens so intermittently (probably once a week for me, which is likely far more frequent than the every 50-60 hours you guys are reporting. For me it's probably more like every 10 hours or so) and it especially annoys me that this just started happening after years of it working mostly fine.I'll keep you updated.

For a jet airliner, the descent rate varies between 1,500fpm and 4,000fpm. Pilots with discretion at 36,000ish feet usually start their descent about 100nm from the airport. At this point the descent rate is usually a uniform 3,000fpm, although it varies with speed restrictions, and what ATC tells you. (Sometimes in RC they'll ask you to expedite through a flight level, which means you need to raise your spoilers and dive).I use payware addons like the Wilco Airbus collection, ERJ's, and Captain Sim 757 and 767, and they all have an FMS which calculates the optimal descent rate, which generally speaking is the descent rate at which the airplane reaches its destination on idle thrust. Obviously due to crossing restrictions and the like, it's impossible to maintain this optimal descent rate, but I have never busted an altitude restriction by relying on the FMS to descend me to 11-12,000 and have comfortably approached and landed at the airport afterwards.

Thanks for your explanation. To be sure, STARs contain crossing restrictions, and I guess Providence, despite being a small airport, has an approach center to enforce those restrictions and make sure the planes are separated not only from other PVD traffic, but from traffic near Boston, Hartford, and NYC. I guess I was confused because in FlightAware's track, it shows the pilots in contact with Boston Center all the way to final. Is this because Providence's Approach ATC is sort of an arm of Boston Center specialized for low traffic in the airport's vicinity?Are there major differences between a class C airport's approach procedure and a class B airport's approach procedure in the sense of crossing restrictions 40 miles from the airport and just in the less strenuous traffic that you would get with a much busier airport like Boston, which has many more flights arriving and departing at once on parallel runways?

One thing I've noticed is the default Flight Simulator airports often have arrival and departure frequencies when their real life counter parts do not.If I have this straight, "Approach/Departure" in FSX is equivalent to TRACON in real life? If so, most airports in real-life do not have this facility and you're in contact with Center until you're at around 5000 feet or so, at which case they ask you to contact tower. There are no vectors, no crossing clearance, and they ask you directly what kind of approach you'd like (visual or IAP).Even medium sized airports such as Buffalo, Milwaukee, Providence, and Jacksonville do not have TRACON facilities, despite them having published STARs and SIDs. Only the largest hub airports like Atlanta, LAX, JFK, Minneapolis, and O'Hare have TRACON facilities, and some smaller airports which share the same airspace like Teterboro, Laguardia, Midway, and Burbank might need to go through TRACON as well. When I look at a tracking site like FlightAware, I notice most of the large hub airports holding planes between 10,000 and 13,000 for a few minutes just as they do in RC, presumably reflecting the crossing restriction, while most of the smaller airports usually keep aircraft descending at a much more uniform rate, and they're in contact with center the whole way down.This is just a heads up for those of you who are looking to make the most out of a very realistic ATC application. A lot of the threads here seem to be critical of the whole "crossing restriction" thing and it never seems to get brought up that most airports do not have a TRACON, and you're usually chatting with center until you're able to wave to the tower. Keep in mind it's not RC's fault that most of the commercial airports have TRACON; they're simply getting this info from FSX who tells RC it's got TRACON.When there is no arrival/departure, you'll observe the following differences:Around the time you'd normally receive the crossing clearance, you're asked to maintain 13,000 or so (sometimes with discretion).About 40-50 miles from the airport you'll be asked if you've received weather, and if so, to choose an arrival procedure. If you select negative you'll switch to Wx, receive the weather (be observant of the active runway), and then will be prompted to choose an approach. You can choose a visual approach or an IAP approach. I haven't tried the visual approach yet, but the IAP approach is identical to the IAP option when you're with approach. They will then tell you to *EXPECT* this approach, but will not clear it yet. Instead you'll be given discretion to 5,000 or so. At some point during the approach to the airport they'll clear you for your requested approach, and you'll be asked to maintain 5,000... when you're close enough to the airport you'll be cleared final approach, asked to contact tower, and your radar services are terminated. At this point you can complete the approach and tower will clear you for landing.Let me know if I'm wrong on all of this, though. Those of you who actually do this for a living can tell us if I'm wrong. :)

Hey, guys,I've got a quick question regarding approaching an airport. There are really two methods I generally use, one is to simply default to the vectors and have controllers tell me where to go. This is always predictable, using simple downwind to base to final, without many deviations. In aircraft that have an advanced enough FMS, I'll use the computer to insert waypoints retrieved from the database of published approaches and let the autopilot vector me in, and request a full ILS approach instead of the vectors.What do real pilots do? Are vectors generally only used at airports that don't have published approach plates or in cases where weather or other obstacles may preclude pilots from using a published approach? Or do the controllers, under normal circumstances, simply ask pilots to use a certain published approach and only vector them if necessary, such as if the pilot meanders off course or has a navigation issue?

Keep in mind NOTAMS and IAP approaches are the two things you'll want to do for prohibited airspace considerations. At Regan National Airport, I make sure I check the NOTAMS box for departure, and if I'm arriving, I'll request an IAP published approach as soon as possible so I can take the required visual approaches to avoid prohibited airspace.

1.) When you're on the phone with a friend, you tend to repeat the last thing your friend said, followed by your name.2.) When you're about to leave a parking spot, you fumble for Shift+P.3.) After you enter a parking spot, you fumble for F12 to see how good you did4.) When you're about to merge with highway traffic, you reach for your stick and instinctively go "full throttle" into "P", destroying your transmission.5.) When you've arrived at home, you kick off the "reverse thrusters", which ironically seems to work in an automatic-transmission car, since it switches you to a lower gear.6.) When you're stuck in traffic, you wish so hard for a real-life "Slew Mode" so you can easily bust past everyone at a ludicrous speed.7.) You feel dejected when you find all you need to do to turn on your car is insert the key and turn the ignition.8.) You are in a real-life airport, and you are amazed at how "realistic" it looks.9.) You are in a real-life airliner and the passenger in the neighboring seat looks at you funny after you tell him you're not used to feeling the G's when the aircraft takes off and descends.10.) When you're in an airliner and you just have to take notes on exactly how the pilots operate so you can best emulate their procedures when you get home.

According to Wikipedia (and I know that Wikipedia isn't always the most reliable source of information), landing lights are required for transport category aircraft (airliners and regional jets). I'm not sure if the requirement is at under 10,000 feet or 10 miles from the airport, but I guess you're right that for general aviation, it's merely strongly encouraged rather than flat out mandatory. When ATC asks you to start your descent, it's usually between 130 and 160 miles from the airport (in RC, unsure about real life). You have the option to request "Pilot's Discretion" on the descent, and if ATC grants the request, you don't have to descend right away. In real life, most airline pilots like to save as much fuel as possible, and the more time they spend in thin air, the better for fuel costs... plus, it's also a bonus to descend at the best rate and let gravity and your momentum do the work instead of your engines.I often give controls of the ATC comms to my copilot, especially during cruise, since most of that is traffic advisories and handoffs, but when ATC says it's time to descend, my copilot simply acknowledges the request and I'm forced to descend whenever they say so. (You can't "undo" the acknowledgement and say, "Actually, could I get discretion on that?". So, what I would like to do is, somewhere in the setup options, maybe, set a preference that the copilot will, by default, request PD on initial descents instead of automatic acknowledgement.

Thanks for your reply, jd. That's a good question. I guess you can't account for everything, but it's still a nice-to-have. I was talking more about the co-pilot's control over comms (when you press Ctrl+Shift+F), automatically responding to the ATC's requests. I mean, sure, I can simply transfer control to myself when it's around time ATC will start my descent, but sometimes I forget, and I get frustrated that I have to go through the motions of leaving thin air too early. I guess you can attribute that to my own incompetence rather than the lack of RC's features, but that darn co-pilot will just say 'yes' to anything. ;)Personally, I never give controls of the plane to the co-pilot. It kinda defeats the whole purpose of Flight Simulator if I did so, so I'm glad you're not focusing any time on co-pilot's control over the plane. I just wanted a little more control over how he manages the comms. :)

Hi, manplaneMake sure you start RC *after* you've started your flight in FS. You'll have to alt-tab out of FS after it has finished loading and then you can click "Start RC" and return to the flight.

First of all, I've been using Radar Contact 4.3 for FSX on all of my IFR flights due to its fantastic realism and attention to detail and recognition of international standards, and I'd like to congratulate everyone who has contributed to the development of this essential addon to Flight Simulator.I'm not sure what the plan is for a next version, but if one is in the works, I would like to make the following suggestions to make RC even better than it is now.I'll just start with three I know have already been suggested, simply to emphasize how important I think they are. First, ground control is a bit lacking, and to have specific taxi instructions and advisories would be great. And the second is the ability to send special squawk codes to indicate emergencies and other scenerios. And the third, I know has been reported to be impossible due to limitations to FSX's API, but it's just so annoying I want to say it again. I can't count the number of times I've been cleared to land or takeoff on a runway that is not active to the AI traffic, resulting in a near headon collision. I have "Detect Vehicle collisions" turned off simply due to this. Also, airports which have parellel runways usually dedicate one for landing and one for takeoff. I'm on the taxiway for 15 minutes in Atlanta waiting to takeoff because of 5 landing jets on my runway, when the other runway is barely being used! Again, I know this is a known issue which seems to be FSX's problem and not yours, so I won't blame you if you can't do it.Beyond that, I would think RC should be a bit more picky regarding pilots' behaviors, especially with lights. When you are in a final approach and the tower is unable to see your landing lights, they should give you a stern warning, which would reflect your performance at the end of the flight. Similarly, tower should not clear you for takeoff until your landing lights (and all other required lights) are turned on. It would be even better if you were on approach 35 miles from the airfield and an AI aircraft in your vicinity noticed your landing lights were not turned on and, if the pilot was on the same frequency, could alert the controller that there is an approaching airplane at under 10000 MSL without the lights turned on. I'm not sure how something like this would be handled in real life, though.Also, there are quite a few medium size airports which are identified using the generic ICAO code. It just sounds odd to hear Kilo Papa Victor Delta instead of Providence, or Kilo Bravo Uniform Foxtrot instead of Buffalo. I doubt you can be as extensive as Flight Simulator's default ATC, but it would be nice if at least most of the medium-large hub commercial airfields are named.Another feature which I think would vastly improve RC is giving your copilot a little more intelligence by setting defaults for him/her in the RC control panel. For example, currently, if center gives me a direction to start my descent, the copilot simply heeds the instruction and I'm left having to descend. Instead, I'd like to indicate what I'd like the copilot to do by default to specific instructions: - When ATC asks to descend from cruising altitude: a.) Copilot heeds instruction b.) Copilot requests PD c.) Hand comms to captain - After clearance delivery confirms: a.) Copilot requests taxi b.) Copilot requests clearance to start/pushbackPerhaps, alternatively, you can dictate what specific responsibilities the copilot has, assuming you have given him/her comms. For example, the copilot will acknowledge all traffic advisories and controller handoffs, but leave the descent and other instructions to you.Once again, even without these features, RC is one of the best addons out there, and is essential to any flight simulator addict. It never fails to impress... except in those occasions where it takes the GUI forever to respond to my keyboard. ;)

Aha, that makes my life much easier. I didn't think to simply "skip" that waypoint with that request. This seems to be routine for certain flight plans; I made my KLAX-KOAK again and the same thing happened.Thanks a lot... my fuel efficiency will be vastly approved now. :) It's just too bad the critique guy is going to ding me for it.

I'm getting an issue on certain occasions in RCv4 where the controller has the idea that I am "way off course" and instructs me to fly a heading that seems to take me back to the first waypoint. My plane's GPS shows up saying I had already passed that waypoint, but the controller seems to suggest otherwise.Example:I load a flight plan for KLAX to KOAK... and start my B737. Clearance tells me I'm cleared to KOAK as filed (confirming that RC has the right flight plan loaded), and tower clears me for takeoff on runway 24R, and asks me to resume own navigation.My auto pilot does its thing and takes me to the first waypoint, and so forth, while I am climbing to cruising altitude. I am instructed to contact Los Angeles Center at around 12000 feet, then the high controller. It's right around when I'm crossing FL270 that I have crossed the second or third waypoint when the controller tells me I'm "drifting off course"... my GPS and NAV screen on the B737 each show that I am right on the line... the controller then instructs me to fly heading 100; exactly 180 degrees from my current bearing.Since RC doesn't have a "retort" option ;) I first decide to fly that heading, and the ATC controller doesn't say anything or anything for a good half hour, at which point I give up and decide to fly my nav again and hope the controller doesn't say anything about it....well, the controller notices and tells me I'm off course "again" and instructs me to fly that heading... this time I flat out ignore it and the controller gets angrier and angrier, at which point I give up and declare an electrical failure emergency and ask for vectors back to KLAX.The same exact thing happened on a flight from Calgary to Vancouver.I can try to get a log to you guys, but since it seems to happen randomly, it might be difficult. I could try to fly the same flight I did before, I suppose.Additional note:In each of the flights, it happened after I had already successfully landed an IFR flight to KLAX and Calgary respectively. My original KLAX flight was from Salt Lake City and my original Calgary flight was from Providence. Both happened to be B737s. I basically landed, arrived at the gate, then loaded another flight plan without ending my flight. I did, however, closed and restarted Radar Contact between flights.I also have Traffic X installed, if that helps