OnCourse Software

So I'm pretty sure I did something wrong somewhere or omitted something but as I can't read the log file I kindly ask you Dave to have a look at it.
Everything went fine until I arrived at my destination and I didn't get any vectors towards the runway. I did however get descent instructions
to 3000' but that was it. So I ended up flying parallel but in the opposite direction of the runway and once over 40 miles away from the airport
I decided to turn back. At that point you will see that I tried different hotkeys to get in touch with ATC but to no avail. VP did however change frequency but no contact with ATC. I pretty sure the last part of the flight I used wrong hotkeys but at that point I just wanted to land the plane, which I did.
I never got in this situation before, I even didn't get a Runway assigned for landing. I did however skip a waypoint in the FP way in the beginning.
Reason being that when ATC instructed me "direct to ..." if I wanted to follow the instruction I had to make a 180° turn back to reach the waypoint
which understandably I didn't do, so just continued to my next waypoint. ATC didn't "nag" me about that so I assumed everything was fine so I continued.
In hindsight, should I have used "C/S/D" and then "N" to have skipped to the next waypoint? Again, as ATC didn't complain I just assumed I was ok.
Cheers,
Luc

I think the main culprit here is your flight plan... SIPPO was only 5 miles from your destination and that wasn't even you last waypoint. The last waypoint AUTOWP2 was exactly right on the airport. Looking at the name of that waypoint I guess it was generated by your flight planner?

As Dave said you have waypoints too close to the destination airport. It looks like you included much of the SWFFT2 arrival in your flight plan. PF3 doesn't go into arrival mode and start vectoring you until after you reach your last PF3 waypoint, so the last waypoint (for PF3 purposes) should be about 25-40 miles out. After loading your flight plan in PF3, click on 'Adjust Altitudes, SIDs, STARs, and Holds' to go to the waypoint page. You can use the waypoint removal feature to remove all waypoints after ADAAY, which is about 29 miles out. When you cross ADAAY, PF3 will hand you to Approach and start issuing vectors to whichever runway is active.

Similarly it would be a good idea to remove the waypoints before ZELAN because they are too close to the departure airport. This may be why you had difficulty with the first waypoint. Try to have your first waypoint at least 10 miles out.

See also section 20.5 in the User Guide for more info.

You're right and I did get remarks when loading in the FP in PF3. I always adjust the FP in PF3 as you indicated in your reply because usually I get waypoint too close to departure and sometime too close to arrival. This time I got plenty waypoints too close to each other so I thought, what the heck, let just fly.
Yeah, not a good idea, learned my lesson.
Anyways, just to be clear, if I ever skip a waypoint for what ever reason, do I have to notify PF3 ATC (C/S/D) or can I just continue my flight?
Cheers,
Luc

Quote:

Anyways, just to be clear, if I ever skip a waypoint for what ever reason, do I have to notify PF3 ATC (C/S/D) or can I just continue my flight?
Cheers,
Luc

If you miss one waypoint, for whatever reason, bad navigation or due to wind drift,etc, PF3 will catch up once the waypoint is a few miles behind you and skip to the next one. However, if you purposely wish to skip two or three waypoints then I would suggest requesting a 'Direct To'. Even if you don't PF3 will still catch up eventually, it will just take a little longer.