Jarkko

FSCaptain reads the arrival metar from the weather engine output file. If you try to run FSCaptain without telling it, where it can find the weather engine file, it will act just like VoxATC -> No weather at your destination. As mentioned FSCaptain works around this by reading the weather outside FSX and not from FSX.

Here is a reply of my first landing with the Fiber Accelerator enabled at FlightBeam's KIAD (stutters are caused by the FSX's replay engine): The frames dropped below the 24fps threshold I had set, but I still was able to make the landing even though flying fully manual.

Hello Ken, This is what I had in mind in my first post. Opus and FSGRW also generate similar weather files as ASN.

Correct. There are multiple places, where VoxATC could get the weather from. The most likely is the NOAA as it is the place where most of the weather engines get their METARs from. The data from NOAA is in a nicely formated xml file with the winds, temperatures and visibility in their own fields so minimal parsing required. Has anyone already pitched this idea to the developer?

The co-pilot will do some actions for automatically during he's flows (based on real world). Things like turning on the APU and handling the landing lights. Other than that, you are still expected (for example) to start the engines and complete the captains flows.

Except for the fact that ProATC support forum's most talked about subject is wrong runway assignments (especially on airports without SIDs and STARs).

No, RC doesn't assign you STARs at all and ProATC has ability to read the weather outside of FSX so my statement should still be valid. FWIW I own and use all of the mentioned ATC programs.

This is a problem for all ATC programs, that dynamically assign STARs based on winds (and read the weather inside FSX, instead of the weather engine's/NOAA's/Vatsim's output file).

Hello, I have been using VoxATC for quite a long time, but only recently started using it with FSGRW. That is when my problems with "wrong" STARs and tailwind landings started. Based on what I have read here on avsim, VoxATC seems to "lock in" the destination weather when you first lauch ProATC. This seems to be quite strange and would explain my problems. When I have the FSGRW injected to FSX before I launch VoxATC, there is no weather available at my destination. It will only be set, when I get about 100nm from my destination. I have confirmed this with Aivlasoft's EFB. This causes VoxATC to report wrong weather in the arrival airport ATIS even after FSGRW has injected the real world weather (checked by having FSX ATIS and VoxATC play at the same time). Of course, in this situation, VoxATC assigns me the incorrect runway based on the "missing" weather info (during VoxATC start). I seem to remember, that the situation was quite similar with Opus. The difference was that my destination airport had the origin airport weather set until I was about 100nm away from my destination. Last but not least ASN. I haven't upgraded my AS2012 to ASN (yet), but how does ASN work with VoxATC do you experience similar problems as I'm having with FSGRW and Opus? One more thing. I know, that many weather engines output the weather in a file, where external programs (like VoxATC) could read the weather that will be eventually injected into FSX. Would it be possible for VoxATC to read the weather from the weather engine generated files? This would remove the weather engine injection problems all together? Thank you for the help! - Jarkko

I do not have the ASN, but I do have REX4, AS2012, Opus and FSGRW. I currently have REX providing the textures, FSGRW providing the weather. I have been very happy with the results. Once FS2Crew is released for the 777, I might upgrade my AS2012 installation to ASN in order to use the weather radar integration.

Only ProATC and VoxATC are able to get the SIDs and STARs correct as they read the required speed and altitude restrictions from the NavData. The problem with ProATCs SID/STAR handling is that it spells out the names one letter at a time. Approach names on the other hand are hit and miss with ProATC. VoxATC has the most accurate SID/STAR handling as it reads out the full names of the the SID/STARs. Just remember that there isn't a "complete" ATC product out there. RC4 has it's limitations like the other ATC products. This is why I personally switch between VoxATC and ProATC based on the flight I'm doing. RC has one of the most accurate procedures, but there is no taxi instructions and SID/STAR handling more of the same that you get with PFE.

I think I have found a combination that works for me. I now fly with online ATC and when there is no human controller available, I turn on VoxATC. When a human controller comes available, I disconnect VoxATC.

ProATC reads weather either from your weather engine or VATSIM (NOAA was also available, but no longer working). This is why you get the correct SID and STAR assigned based on winds even when using Active Sky or FSGRW. ProATC also has the ability to import your flight plan in the ICAO text format. I personally would like to see this in other ATC programs as it makes PFPX integration easy and fast.

What were the things you didn't like about VoxATC, RC4, ProATC and Pilot2ATC?

I use VoxATC to train for flying online with Vatsim or IVAO (has helped a lot). For flights where I want to have a reduced workload, I use ProATC. I also have RC4, but no longer use it due to the way that the SIDs and STARs are handled.

Yes, at 03:25 I listened to the ATIS and it matched the FSX ATIS.

Ok, so here is a link to the flight I just did: http://www.twitch.tv/virtualfreightdog/b/541451113 1) At 57:26 you can see me requesting the latest weather using TOPCAT. The winds were from 250 at 19kts. 2) At 01:09:52 I listened to the VoxATC ATIS for the first time. Winds were reported as calm and runway in use was 06L. 3) At 01:21:32 I listened to the ATIS once more. You can see the FSX ATIS in text format on the screen as follows: winds 250 at 19 (the same as TOPCAT) runways 24L/R in use, but... if you listen carefully. VoxATC ATIS was reporting the same info as before. Winds calm and runway 06L in use. 4) At 01:23:46 VoxATC clears my for ILS06L approach which would give me 19kts tail wind during landing. This is why I request ILS24L approach. 5) From 01:37:29 forward, you can see from the navigation display, that the winds stay locked at 250 at 19kts just as reported by TOPCAT. So to me, this seems like a VoxATC problem, because FSX ATIS got the winds and the runway correct.

Hello Vaughn, I didn't have departure in my plan. Only DCT YEG. VoxATC dynamically assigned me DEVON1 from rwy 20. FWIW I have the whole flight recorded and can go over and verify these if need be. Only the same problems with VoxPop server that other users are having. Just wanted to report, that I found a work around. Yes, I flew the HELNS5 with SEA transition. I was about 10nm away from the end of the STAR which has a hard altitude limit of 12000ft. As I was being kept at FL230, I requested a lower altitude. I was then told to descent to 6000ft which work well for the approach vectoring. Only a few seconds later, I was told to descent to FL180 :huh: I was doing a live stream using ProATC, so I was unable to answer. The flight had the same ATIS problem and therefore wrong runway assignment. I will soon post more info.

Here is the plan for CYEG to KPDX: N0447F360 DCT YEG DCT YXC/N0446F380 J505 SEA HELNS5 This means that my FSX flight plan started from YEG and ended at SEA with cruise altitude of FL360 I think I was assigned DEVON1.20 departure and HELNS5.SEA arrival.

Ok, so I have now upgraded from 6.05 to 6.45 and did a flight from CYEG to KPDX. Some positive things and a handful of problems. Good things first: 1) I got VoxPop working with 6.45. After the install, the VoxPop server refused to start. Lucky for me, I had saved the working VoxATC folder before the uninstall. After I replaced the voxpop folder inside the new installation folder (broken) with the one found in the old (working) installation folder, the VoxPOP came alive. 2) I like how the AI traffic is handled in the new version. Next the not so good parts: 1) I wasn't given an initial altitude for the departure (vectoring). The problem is that there was no altitude info in the charts or the navdata. I decided to climb to 5000 and hope I got it right. 2) The radio ping-pong is still there: After contoller Y send me to controller X, the Controller X sends me back to Y after initial contact. 3) VoxATC becomes unresponsive for couple of seconds after reading back instructions. It wan't respond to any keyboard or joystick click commands. 4) Arrival to KPDX was a disaster. I was kept quite high. Once I requested lower for arrival, I was sent down to 6000ft. Five seconds later, I was told to descent to FL180... 5) VoxATC ATIS for KPDX didn't work. It was reporting default "ISA" weather (temp 14, winds calm, baro 29.91, runway 3) even though the FSX ATIS was reporting the correct weather (winds from 110 at 4, baro 30.09, runway 28R) in the background. 6) Approach was even worse, than arrival: "Fly heading 145, descent to 2900ft". Then couple of seconds later: "Fly heading 360, climb and maintain 8000ft". ATC had me flying away from the airport, and froze. Once I had flown away from the airport, even crossed the start of the STAR (SEA VOR), and still no directions from ATC, I restarted VoxATC. 7) After the restart, all went fine until vectoring on the downwind for rwy28. I was told to descend to 2900ft. As I was flying in the dead of night, I wondered why the aircraft was telling me that my gear should be down. I soon realized, that the radio altimeter was showing about 300ft even though I was flying at 2900ft. I was flying into a mountain! Had to manually climb like crazy, while ATC kept on telling me to immediately descend to 2900ft. 8) Taxi instructions were odd at KPDX. I was told to taxi to G26 via T to B6 and hold short 28L. The problem? Taxiway Tango would have taken me direct to gate G26. No need to cross any runway using B6. So... The betting handling of AI, especially during cruise is great, but... there are still a lot of things, that can and do go wrong.

Great news! Just to double check: 1) 6.45 is a full installer, so the previous version must be uninstalled? 2) 6.45 no longer works with VoxPop server, so it has to be uninstalled? 3) Buy new voices to replace the VoxPOP voices? Thanks for the help once again! P.S reason for the questions, that I'm live streaming a FSX flight tomorrow and thinking of upgrading VoxATC before the flight.

Just purchased a week ago. A great piece of software. I do hope, that it will continue to be developed!

As I wasn't sure, I went back and checked. TOPCAT has three profiles: - TO: 26K - TO1: 24K - TO2: 22K I wasn't able to find any info on the winglets though.

I might be wrong, but the TOPCAT model is for 22K engines and without winglets. PMDG on the other hand has 24K of thrust and winglets. This is one of the reasons, why you should prefer the PMDG calculated values instead on TOPCAT.

Hello! I just did my first landing with the NGX while using the HUD. I managed to smash my virtual head through the HUD while breaking after landing. Here is a video of what happened (starts at 2min 6s): I'm not 100% sure, but might this happening because of the landing effect on the Opus camera? Is there anyway to modify, how much the camera moves forward during breaking? Thank you for the help! (just for reference, I'm using version 3.01.2)