OnCourse Software

Hello again.
As I was writing yesterday in other topic on this forum, I had very long brake in PC using and flying (no updates, PC off), before everything was working almost nice in PF3. I came back to flying several days ago, updated win 10, PF3 and after that PF3 became unplayable for me in VFRs (IFR have not checked yet).
Scenario description:
VFR Start and landing from uncontrolled airfield, fly through controlled airspace and request flight following.
First contact with FSS to open flight plan, then with local multicom/unicom, then contact with ctrl and request flight following, next contact with local destination airfield.

What I have discovered.
1. "pf3_display" occasionally does not show "key" column, it is coming back after restarting "pf3_display" aplication.

2. During communication with FSS, the station does not give us any information about to who should I contact after take off, no ctrl. or departure freq's. There is no informations about altitude to rich after take off BUT when we will contact with ctrl at 4000ft then controller says to descent to 3000ft , when we will descent to 3000 then controller gives permission to climb to the flight plan altitude for example 5500ft (YT movie time stamp 04:20). So just to avoid it I always try to contact with ctrl before I rich 3000ft or just hold climbing on 3000ft.

3. Contact with ctr. after take off and request flight following: Here the circus starts .
First the pilot during first contact with ctr. should describe own position and altitude to make easier to controller identify echo on radar before he give us transponder code but during this contact pilot just says "call sign with you at altitude" and adds crazy "request radar service terminated" instead of "request flight following". (YT movie time stamp 07:30)

4. Problem when you closing up to the uncontrolled airfield and ctr. want to pass you to approach (YT move time stamp 10:20).
Controller gives you information that radar service terminated SQ7000 contact appr freq. Then you go to appr freq and check in pilot again says wrong "request radar service terminated", controller gives you new SQ code and right after that he cancel it and gives you new the same frequency. When you try to check in again, the story repeats.

5.When you are close to uncontrolled airfield controller should give you information "call sign, airfield is x NM, xx direction of you, descent to xxxx ft at pilot discretion, report airfield in sight" then when you reported airfield in sign the controller should say "call sign, radar service terminated SQ 7000/1200, frequency change approved, contact unicom/multicom at xxx,xx"- like that it was in previous versions of PF3 and it was quite good.
Now the controller does not inform you about direction to airfield and distance, no info about descending, no report airfield in sight and no information about premission to change freq to unicom/multicom.

6. Before entering to traffic pattern of uncontrolled airfield we should check in to unicom multicom, and say "call sign, describe our position and altitude" - before it was working.
Downwind, base leg, final reports works fine, but from unknown reason I can not change runway to land or force it.



P.S 6-8 month ago version of PF3 was working almost prefect on VFRs. Sometimes just needed to tweak waypoints or add small corrections in .pln files by notepad ++.

Any possibilities to revert to older versions? Just asking because fixing those above surly will take some time for you
I rebuilt PF3 database with make rwy's etc. Nothing helped

To this topic I attaching logs from PF3, flight plan, PF3 database files and short as possible non-public movie on YT.
Movie on YT
https://youtu.be/W9m2FSFTnHA

2. After departing an uncontrolled airfield you should contact Departure. FSS will give you that frequency if yu use Hotkey #4 at your departure.

3. You should NOT be attempting to contact a Control Center when flying VFR as the ceiling altitude for VFR is below Control Center altitude.

Please try the correct procedures and retry the flight. It certainly looks like PF3 got stuck in a loop due to you not following correct procedures and I will look into that, but I#m sure if you do things correctly you will have a good flight.

Ok I am going to check this soon. But coming back to the contact to ctrl. freq. after departure from uncontrolled airfield, why pilot of plane says LN001, at 3000ft request radar service terminated instead of flight following? Maybe it would be good to add option that if player will connect to wrong freq then controller will give correct freq.

I will let you know how the test will go soon.

In PF3 version 3.10 the VFR options and procedures have been extensively reworked and there are now more options and flexibility, including the ability to fly VFR without following a flight plan or requesting flight following unless you wish to do so. See the User Guide pp. 106-107 for more info on the new VFR options.

Ok I have results of test from VFR flight.
The same scenario as before, same plane, same flight plan.

You had right that I need to contact departure and FSS gives freq if you ask.

Unfortunately, the pro flight 3 stucks on point 4 of my first post. Controller want to pass me to approach with 133,5 then I check in to approach, controller gives me new SQ and right after he gives another communicate that radar service terminated sq 7000 contact with approach on same freq and this loops to the infinity.

Point 5 still suffer too.

Point 6 is dead too. Check - in to multicom "key 0" on 122,9 multicom does not work. Report the legs traffic patteren works fine.

Please attach the debug log for our last flight otherwise I really can't help

Ok I will attach soon.

I am sending logs

I've just released 3.10.20 which should address your issues

Ok I am gonna to test it today. Tomorrow I will come back with feedback and logs. So thank you for support today and too see you tomorrow.