snomhf

That's only because I had to create a flight plan in my effort to get P2A to work for this and because I set the Departure Airport the same as Arrival, P2A was just confused and handed me off to Center. Anyway, this is getting pointless. Obviously you are much more concerned about being RIGHT than following this. So I'll just say: "Ok my friend, you are absolutely Correct!" Have a great day!

I never said it was IFR (if I did it was an accident). The whole flight is obviously VFR. What's the point of contacting the tower at all? You've already flown 2/3 of the approach so you may as well fly the rest of it quitely. I like getting the clearance to fly the approach. I'm funny that way I guess.

It feels a little weird having this conversation mostly with myself but I see a fair number of people viewing so I'll continue. I have discovered that if my flight plan starts and ends at the same airport, P2A gets real confused. That seems to be the crux of the problem. When I was using the flight plan KRDU->WENDI->ILS05R.BEICH->KRDU, the controller never cleared me for the approach. I never even got the "Expect Approach" and when I decided to execute the approach anyway, the controller had no idea what I was doing. I then tried this from a nearby airport and EVERYTHING worked PERFECTLY: KGSO->LIB->ILS05R.BEICH->KRDU. I got the "Full Procedure" (aka "Own Navigation"/"Pilot Navigation") that I was expecting and was able to fly the entire route using the autopilot and VNAV and the controller knew exactly what I was doing. Cool! So, bottom line is: If you want to try and replicate shooting approaches you and a buddy might do IRL at your home airport where you just go out, circle around some convenient waypoint and ask the tower to clear you for a "full approach" (no flight plan, etc), the best way is to create a simple flight plan from a nearby airport (so your departure/arrival airports are different), this works fine. So, if Dave thinks this may be a "bug" that should get fixed, that would be great. Otherwise, this is a resonable workaround. Thanks -mark

Ah, I've learned something here. Thank you Fiorentoni. Apparently, "full procedure" is a colloquialism that is used a lot around these parts. Other phrases for this appear to be "own navigation" and "pilot navigation" but none of these are official FAR either. I will have to be more careful about throwing these terms around assuming everyone understands. Of course, this is a bit of a side track (though interesting) from my original question of trying to get ATC to clear me for a full procedure/own navigation/pilot navigation. Still struggling with that. BTW, you can certainly hop in a plane, fly to a fix and shoot an RNAV or ILS approach without any sort of flight plan. We do that all the time. We always inform the controller we want to do some approach practice so they know what we're up to and they are especially glad we want "full procedure" so they don't have to give us vectors. Of course, we don't do this during busy times and stay away from the big "heavy" runway too. I don't think I would try this at some big class B airport but we are small enough that one can get away with it. Cheers!

Full Approach opposed to getting vectors. When you want to request an approach from IAF to touchdown (for practice), IRL, we always use the phrase "Full Procedure" to let the controller know we want to practice the entire procedure. I am trying to figure out how to tell P2A I want to do that is all. Maybe that's a regional thing. Is there another way to request this that I'm not aware of? Everyone around here certainly understands that terminology. Maybe not since no one has responded to this. Hmmm. Interesting. I'll have to look into that. Thanks

I have been experimenting with ways to get P2A to clear me for a full approach. It seems to REALLY want to give me vectors. I have been using an intersection WENDI at KRDU which is a convienient spot for the downwind leg as I fly back toward my iaf BEICH for ILS rwy 05R. I have tried a number of scenerios without success and finally put together one that finally worked: Create and file a flight plan: KRDU->WENDI->ILS RW05R.BEICH I kept expecting ATC to give me "Expect ILS RW05" as I got close to WENDI but it never happened. After getting several miles past WENDI (on HDG), I started guessing as what to say. I didn't think a "Request" was appropriate since my flight plan had been cleared to RDU but I finally had success with: "Washington Center, N7WA, Inbound At 6,000 Request ILS Approach to Runway 05R" The controller told me to "Expect the ILS Approach to rw05R with the BEICH transition" and everything went just fine from there. No vectors! Yeah!! Now, here's the question. Do I HAVE TO have a fp to get a full procedure? I never got that to work. I had tried (no fp): "N2WA Inbound at 6,000 Request ILS Approach To Runway 05R At Kilo Romeo Delta Uniform" (omitting the "Radar Vectors" phrase thinking that would be how you get a full procedure) but that didn't work. I then tried (even though I see no grammar rule for this): "N2WA Inbound at 6,000 Request ILS Approach To Runway 05R With The BEICH Transition At Kilo Romeo Delta Uniform" and was not surprised that didn't work. I even tried with "Bravo Echo India Charlie Hotel". No joy So, how is this done? I'd really like to have a full approach as an option in shooting approaches without having to put together a fp every time. thanks -mark

I see your point. I'll have to rethink my strategy on this.

Wow! Behavior mode is the ticket!! Shows me the exact code I was struggling to write. Worked perfectly! Thank you Oliver. I was ready to give up. Maybe there's hope for me yet!

Thanks Oliver! I hope to at some point wrap my X-Plane-FlyWithLua brain around what you've said. Actually, dealing with these panel lights, I have indeed run into what you're talking about with these IEs. I've gotten lucky I guess so far as I have gotten most of them to work but there is still a giant cloud of mystery hanging over me as I do this stuff. I'm getting there slowly. Thanks so much for a great tool. Love that Event Viewer. I was using SimVars out of the VisualStudio SDK but this is much more convenient. The more I use AAO, the less I'm relying on outside tools. -mark

Would it be too difficult to give the option to OVERWRITE when merging a template into the current setup rather than making a duplicate of each axis/button? I know duplicates won't necessarily affect the behavior but I am far too anal retentive to allow duplicates like that. I use a lot of templates and having to be so careful to prevent these duplicates has resulted in my making a couple of costly mistakes. Thanks -mark

Well, this is downright scary! I powered off to eat dinner and when I powered back on, the scripts are working fine! I guess something got screwed up inside the sim and rebooting cleared it up. All is not lost though, I got rather intimate with Watch AAO script processing and Watch simulator variables/events. I'm much more equipped now to debug this crazy RPN stuff (always hated those HP calicaulators the geeks used in engineering school).

I'm wanting to create C172 Fuel Valve OPEN and C172 Fuel Valve CLOSE buttons. I've been at this for several hours and am close but just can't get it working. Here's what I have: C172 Fuel Valve CLOSE -- (A:GENERAL·ENG·FUEL·VALVE:1,·Bool)·if{·(>K:TOGGLE_FUEL_VALVE_ENG1)·} C172 Fuel Valve OPEN -- (A:GENERAL·ENG·FUEL·VALVE:1,·Bool)·!·if{·(>K:TOGGLE_FUEL_VALVE_ENG1)·} I'm watching GENERAL ENG FUEL VALVE variable change from 0 to 1 in the Observe Variables in Simulator tool so I know I'm referencing the right variable. TOGGLE_FUEL_VALVE_ENG1 works fine too if I simply use it as a toggle. These scripts sort of work for several switch iterations but then get out of sync and/or stop working altogether. Weird! Some help getting this figured out would sure be appreciated. -mark

Well, sorry to report that Beta 7C is worse than ever. I'm getting the infinite loop on taxi instructions EVERYTIME now and no matter what I do, I can't get ARTCC to recognize my report in. I've tried: TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED CLIMBING EIGHT THOUSAND LEVEL EIGHT THOUSAND LEVEL AT EIGHT THOUSAND Even tried the old WW2 speak that used to work: WITH YOU AT EIGHT THOUSAND Finally just said TALLY HO Which I don't really even know what that means but the controller liked that. I gave up after than. Frustrating All other communication works fine (ils approach, tower comm, ground comm, etc) Log: https://snomhf.exofire.net/data/p2a/KRDU-KCLT.zip

Hi Oliver, I sent you an email the other day. Just letting you know so you won't think I've forgotten. -mark

I believe you've done it Dave! Just finished a two hour flight with at least a dozen handoffs. Zero misunderstandings! I was cruising at 10k and reported in with "Level at ten thousand" and controller didn't recognize that so I changed to "level at flight level one zero zero" and used that throughout with no problem which is what I should be saying anyway. I tried several times to get the controller to do the loop repeat thing with taxi instructions but he got it right every time. Thank you for such quick response! -mark