OnCourse Software

I'm actually having a few problems with PFE but I'm gonna take them one at a time. I have taken all the steps suggested here to correct a bad installation and am running the latest version of PFE. I've read the manual over and over to make sure I'm setting it up right. I've tried this six or seven times now on several different STARs and I can't get PFE to clear me for the STAR altitudes I have set up. The latest one has been flying the REDFA 1A arrival to Amsterdam. I set the ST and and altitude of 23,000 at REDFA. Then I set 10,000 feet at SUGOL. I know it has the altitudes saved because if I reload the flight plan there are still there. When I fly it PFE totally ignores the altitudes. Additionally on most of the arrivals I have flown it waits so long to clear me for the descent I have to use the speed brakes all the way down and sometimes even have to extend the landing gear and I still end up high. I don't know what to do next. Either I don't understand the manual correctly or this thing just isn't working right.

Have you seen my tutorial for Sids/Stars on front of this website under Tutorials...

I just watched it. I am setting up my SIDs and STARs the same way you describe in the video except I was setting the start of the STAR at REDFA whcih is the first waypoint in the STAR. I tried moving the start of the STAR to the last waypoint which is SUGOL but again PFE ignored the altitudes I had set for REDFA and SUGOL. The whole program seems to work pretty well right up until the descent then it derails badly. I'll start a different thread about the other issues so this stays on topic.

I am using the PMDG NGX. I checked which plane was selected in PF2000 and it was the 737 but when I investigated further I saw that it had 4000fpm for the average climb and descent rates. I changed them to more realistic number and re-flew the flight. It worked perfectly that time. PFE cleared me lower in plenty of time to make the crossing restrictions and gave me very nice vectors to final. That was just one flight but hopefully that fixed my problem.

That's good to hear!

I thought I had this all worked out but not quite. I flew from Amsterdam to Narita and back in the PMDG 747 I got no descent clearances from cruise. On the way to Narita I waited and waited then finally just started the descent myself. I had power to idle and the speed brakes out the whole way down but I made it to the crossing altitude at the end of the STAR. On the leg back into Amsterdam I just started descending at the FMC computed top of descent and crossed the final fix of the STAR at the proper altitude. On both flights I received perfect vectors to the approach which included descent clearances down to 2000 feet. ON the way into Narita I just left the same aircraft performance for the 737 in PF2000 for the flight back I selected the 747-400 and appropriate performance numbers but there was no change. In both cases I got at least one call to maintain my cruise altitude after I started my descent.

Next I flew from Amsterdam to Vancouver in the PMDG MD-11. I put in the appropriate performance numbers into PF2000. On this flight I received no descent clearances at all and no vectors at all. I started my descent at the FMC TOD and made the crossing altitude I had set. The only clearance I received was to maintain present heading (which was about 90 degrees to the runway 30 miles out) and cleared for the approach at my discretion from 10,000 feet. Again I waited but finally I started a descent to 3000 feet on my own and self vectored to the approach. I was down to 3000 in plenty of time to get reasonable vectors to the approach if PFE wanted to do that. The next communication was when the VCP contacted tower.

I set these flights up as similar as possible as the three successful 737 flights I had but it didn't work. The only real difference was that the 737 flights were less than two hours and the others were over nine. At this point I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. For those flights I was using Active Sky 2012, Amsterdam Mega Airport and default for Narita and Vancouver.

Oh yeah and on this last flight I think I was seeing closed caption mode. Every ATC communication was appearing in the FSUIPC window. If that is CC mode I don't know why it was showing up because that box is not checked in the options menu. This is the first time I have ever seen that. Maybe my installation is just screwed up even though I did all the things mentioned in this forum to correct that.

Just a thought...did you at any time in the cruise ask for an increase in flight level ?

Peter

Do you check the FP profile withing PFE? Is it the same as you're entering into your FMC?

If the last flight you did was the one with problems please send me the debug log and I should be able to tell you why you didn't get descent instructions. If not then please recreate and then email me the log

I emailed the debug log from the MD-11 flight I mentioned. When you say FP profile within PFE do you mean the fix crossing altitudes. If so yes and they match the FMC.

Peter I did request an cruise altitude change because PFE will not assign me even thousand altitudes for westbound flights.

Ralgh wrote:

Peter I did request an cruise altitude change because PFE will not assign me even thousand altitudes for westbound flights.

I and others have experienced not getting descent instructions after having made a "step climb" request during the cruise. In my flights now I do not use the "request higher altitude" function in PFE. If I need to step climb I just do it without requesting it. PFE won't nag you like the default ATC.

I believe Proflight2000, when compiling a plan will assign 290/330/370/410 as Eastbound routes, and 310/350/390 as Westbound routes, changing the cruise altitude you set in PF2000. It (understandably) takes no account of areas of the world where the divide is North/South rather than East/West. Nor does it account for RVSM. But after you have compiled, and before you connect to the sim you can change the cruise alt in PFE.

Peter