OnCourse Software

Hi Dave,

Today's flight from Geneva to Glasgow was going perfectly, until I got closer and closer to Glasgow. At 25 miles out I was still at FL300 and ATC was ominously silent.

I gave up waiting and made a long loop to the North so that I could land at runway 23. As I descended I kept getting messages from ATC to maintain FL300. Even more puzzling was that, as I was on final approach, I was hearing messages to/from GENEVA Approach!

Log attached to see if you can make anything of it.

Cheers,
Bob

Looking at your log, you were never handed off from Departure at Geneva to a control sector.
I believe that the cause of your problem was the way your flight plan was loaded into PF3 with a SID (DIPI6A) and STAR (APLE1G) defined.
For this to work you should mark 'DIPIR' as the SID exit (DP), 'APPLE' as the STAR entry (ST) and exclude waypoints 1-5 and 29-33.
waypoint.0=LSGG, A, N46* 14.18',E6* 6.34',+001372.00
waypoint.1=RW22, I, N46* 15.01',E6* 7.37',+001411.00
waypoint.2=PAS, V, N46* 9.49',E5* 59.59',+005811.84
waypoint.3=PAS, I, N46* 8.25',E5* 57.55',+007000.00
waypoint.4=Intercept, I, N46* 15.42',E5* 54.51',+010426.59
waypoint.5=KELUK, I, N46* 33.20',E5* 41.08',+019463.48
waypoint.6=DIPIR, I, N46* 40.09',E5* 35.35',+022992.55
waypoint.7=LUKID, I, N46* 44.31',E5* 32.04',+025246.50
...
waypoint.27=HALIF, I, N53* 44.06',W1* 34.50',+030000.00
waypoint.28=APPLE, I, N54* 30.00',W2* 30.50',+030000.00
waypoint.29=ASLIB, I, N54* 49.27',W3* 3.39',+026000.00
waypoint.30=ENIPI, I, N55* 1.10',W3* 15.10',+022845.04
waypoint.31=ODIGI, I, N55* 11.44',W3* 25.39',+020000.00
waypoint.32=VAPPI, I, N55* 31.38',W3* 45.42',+011457.40
waypoint.33=LANAK, I, N55* 42.01',W3* 56.19',+007000.00
waypoint.34=EGPF, A, N55* 52.19',W4* 25.59',+000000.00

What happened is that PF3 was expecting you to pass waypoint 1, RW22, but you were always moving away from it rather than towards it.

If you try this flight again, with the suggestions above, then you should have a satisfactory flight.

Martin

Hi Bob, I've had a quick look at your log but need to do so more thoroughly, but I'm somewhat tied up with real world chores today.

Thanks Martin,

I always use Simbrief for my flightplans and usually they work fine with PF3, so not sure what happened with this particular flight.

I'll try your suggestion on my next flight and see how that goes.

Thanks again.

Bob

Hi again,

I meant to say that I have SIDS active in PF3 but not STARS.

Cheers,

Bob

Thanks Bob, I believe the problem with your flight was due to a few things that PF3 failed to handle unfortunately.

The first being Runway 22 was entered as the first waypoint in your flightplan and I can only assume you disregarded the NOTAM when loading the FP about the first waypoint being too close to your departure

The next issue was due to you using a SID, because PF3 doesn't check to see if you've gone past a waypoint until the SID mode is deactivated. Now, SID mode is deactivated when you reach the first waypoint or the cleared SID altitude, whichever comes first. Obviously you never reached waypoint #1 because those checks don't start until you're airbourne, at which point WP #1 was behind you. So SID mode wasn't deactivated till you reached 15,000', when you were then past waypoint #4.

At that point PF3 is checking WP #1 and WP #2 and trying to determine where the heck you are in the FP.

So, not your fault, although I would strongly suggest you don't disregard the NOTAMS when loading a flight plan. In the meantime I will look into how to handle such a strange situation

.

Thanks Dave,

I fully take on board your recommendation that I should pay attention to the NOTAMs! I promise to do better in future.

Is it better to have either SIDS or STARS active in PF3 or not? As I said, I currently have SIDS active but STARS not active.

Meantime I'm off to check the manual again to make sure I'm not doing anything else wrong!!

Thanks again for your prompt (as always) response to queries.

Cheers,

Bob

It's fine to have SIDs or STARs active, if that's what you want