OnCourse Software

I started using PF3 about 4 years ago as a replacement for Radar Contact and used PF3 exclusively for a couple of years. Have since purchased another 2 ATC add-ons for P3D and all have their pros & cons. Only recently moved back to PF3 and was a bit surprised at how many pros PF3 has over the other add-ons I have in particular the way PF3 controlled speed during descent with a lot more ATC interactions than the others, was something I had forgotten about.

I also thought PF3 gave better vectoring to FAF when setting this as the type of approach required not withstanding PF3 not being aware of local terrain.

However, it is how you have to edit a PF3 specific flight plan to trigger realistic vectoring to FAF that is my biggest gripe with PF3. In short I have to download a flight plan from (Simbrief) that includes the STAR and load the flight plan into PF3 to select a waypoint in the STAR that is about 40 miles from FAF, then manually editing a copy of the xml file to delete all the subsequent waypoints and it is this manually edit copy of the plan you have to load into PF3. You do not get a realistic vectoring approach if the last waypoint in the plan is too far away or too close to the FAF.

This hassle would be removed if when the STAR checkbox was left unchecked, PF3 started vectoring at a specific distance from FAF say at 40 miles regardless of last waypoint in the plan. Then as far as I can see you could use the flight plan from whatever your preferred flight planning tool was without having to worry about the distance form the last waypoint.

As there has been no updates to PF3 for a couple of years now and no announcement of any major enhancements or PF4 in the pipeline I appreciate that PF3 is regarded as a stable product and what you see is what you get. None the less I would appreciate your views on the points I raise and of course there is the distinct possibility that I am missing a trick here and that I actually do not have to edit flight plans to get realistic vectoring to FAF

Thanks in advance

Good points. In PFE (PF3's predecessor) the program automatically dropped all waypoints closer than 15 miles to the destination airport. This allowed PFE to begin vectoring with an adequate buffer zone even if the user's flight plan had waypoints that were too close. If the STARs box was checked, the user got clearance to complete the approach at pilot's discretion (instead of vectors) and could fly the rest of the approach by hand or by FMC.

During development of PF3 there was a lot of discussion about this because some users complained about waypoints being automatically dropped without their knowledge, so the decision was made to not drop waypoints but instead to show a warning dialog about waypoints being too close to the airport. This does mean the flight plan needs to be edited or remade if the user wants to remove the close-in waypoints.

I think from a programming standpoint it would be fairly easy to have PF3 automatically drop waypoints that are too close to the airport, but Dave would need to make the call on whether or not to include that in a future release.

I guess I don’t understand the significance of the last waypoint as do not see why waypoints have to be dropped they just need to be ignored if a vectoring approach is requested.

The way it pans out after the manual edit works perfectly for me. I have a STAR selected in the SID/STAR screen but left the “Use STAR” unchecked. When handed over to approach I was told to continue with STAR then having deleted the last few waypoints of the STAR I was given pretty good vectors from about 40 miles out. Perfect!

One solution to this would be to be able to set “start vectoring” option the same way you can set the “end of SID” and “Start of STAR“. Another work around would be to just enable the “Request Vectoring” request option.

I use Simbrief for my flight plans and I can download a working plan for all add-ons, aircraft, weather and ATC straight out the box. However, the other ATC add-ons don’t give anything like the realistic vectoring I am getting from PF3.

Just having to edit an xml file now is not a show stopper for me, but before I used Simbrief the flight planning tool I used previously did not let you delete waypoints from the STAR. Instead I had to manually add the STAR waypoints to the main plan up to about 40 miles out rather than delete the ones closer than 40 miles and that became a real hassle.

I just think there could be a more user-friendly way in PF3 for setting up vectoring approaches

musky wrote: *

Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:21 pm

As there has been no updates to PF3 for a couple of years now

The last update was in October 2018, which is less than 2 years ago

Regarding your question: Maybe you can ask the simbrief people to add such a feature?
I'm using PFPX to create flight plans, which gives me the option to not include the STAR waypoints.

You shouldn't have SIDs or STARs in your flight plan at all

I give up|

Well you're over completing things for yourself if you include a STAR in your flight plan.

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