OnCourse Software

Could you please look at my logs if this is due to a bug in PF3 or if I do something wrong.

It happened on several flights, Center declares (often quite far away from destination) "Radar Service terminated, contact Approach on .... Frequency change approved." I turn to Approach frequency and make contact. Approach declares "Radar contact" and right after that "Radar Service terminated, contact Center on .... for flight following. Frequency change approved." That repeats several times until Approach finally keeps me (only once in the attached log - it was a very short flight; but it happened more often on longer flights).

So I wonder if I turn to Approach frequency too soon or if it is a bug in PF3. Should I wait after the first "Frequency Change approved" by Center until I am closer to destination?

Thanks dor your help!

Ralf

RALF9636 wrote:

It happened on several flights, Center declares (often quite far away from destination) "Radar Service terminated, contact Approach on .... Frequency change approved." I turn to Approach frequency and make contact. Approach declares "Radar contact" and right after that "Radar Service terminated, contact Center on .... for flight following. Frequency change approved." That repeats several times until Approach finally keeps me (only once in the attached log - it was a very short flight; but it happened more often on longer flights).

So I wonder if I turn to Approach frequency too soon or if it is a bug in PF3. Should I wait after the first "Frequency Change approved" by Center until I am closer to destination?

You have set all your center altitudes to 16000, but your cruise altitude is 3500, because of this you get handed off to Approach all the time.
Default is (I think) 8000, and somewhere (PDF docs or in the settings dialog itself) it is noted that you should set this below your cruise altitude to avoid such situations.
But I don't know how this interacts with VFR flights in PF3, can you try it?

Thank you Thomas, that makes sense. I forgot these Center altitude settings. So I will set them real low for my VFR flying.

How about an option in PF3 to have the relevant center altitudes set automatically in reference to the cruise altitude of the selected flightplan? Maybe to half the cruise altitude?
Or the center altitude setting could be included in the "Adjust Altitudes ... for selected Flight Plan" page so that it can easily be adjusted as needed for that flight.

Ralf

Well, I changed the Center altitude to the minimum of 3000 ft, with a cruise altitude of 4500 ft. But now I wasn't handed off to Approach at all. Center cleared me to descend to 3500 ft and then no further contact. When I was over my destination Airport I contacted Approach and Tower by myself.
I assume there was no handoff to Approach because I still was over 3000 ft. But I could not get clearance for a lower altitude because of the destination airport's elevation of about 1600ft.
So, how should I set the center altitude to make it work on low VFR flights with cruise altitudes no more than 2000 or 3000 ft. AGL?

Thanks again.

Ralf

Manually contacting Approach certainly is an option.
Or set Center altitude to 4000 feet (or 3500 feet), then it would have worked out of the box due to:

Code: Select all 06.10.2016 23:28:04: 470 - Transcript: ' November 45 Kilo The airport is to the west 20 Miles maintain 3 thousand 5 hundred at pilot's discretion. Report airport in sight. '

But I really don't know as the flights I made with PF3 (and PFE before) were either very short (so no problem with too many contacts to approach) or a bit higher (FL10/FL12, so well above Center altitude and enough altitude to allow for the automatically calculated descents to bring me to or below Center altitude).
By the way, Center altitude of 4000 feet will make you contact Approach as soon as you are below 4250 feet.

I set the center altitudes back to the default 8000 ft.

It worked ok now with manually contacting Center and Approach.

Thanks for your help.

Could you please look at this again.

The center altitudes were set at 8000 ft and I was cruising above that. When I descended through 8000 ft I was handed off to Approach. But Approach handed me back to Center which right away handed me to Approach again. That continued two or three more times until finally Approach kept me. I was on VCP mode 2 this time so my FO did all the work.
And I think listening to my FO I noticed that at first he checked in with Approach and requested flight following, while at the last time he checked in "to land". I'm not really sure about that but it certainly will be in the logs.

I'd really like to know a way to avoid this.

Regards

Ralf

Code: Select all 27.10.2016 20:23:08: 000 - Transcript: 'Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! FedEx 462 distress. Can not make final destination. Requesting Landing Clearance '

Not sure what PF3 will do in such situations

Well, that happened "by accident" But I let it timeout which cancels the emergency, doesn't it?

I don't think this was the reason. The issue with the repeated handoffs happened on many flights.

Another flight - same issue. Extreme this time. Repeatedly switched between center and approach for more than 10 minutes.

Please help.