OnCourse Software

Installed the stand-alone TGS gauge on my 2nd. screen. Absolutely brilliant. Love it!!! If only the cockpit gauge would work like that.

Thanks for the note Peter, re. vectoring. I'll have to look back at the logs re. not being vectored to final. The last message was turn XXX degrees. But I flew far enough from the airport that I thought 'enough is enough'. Actually, the second time it happened, I asked for vectors to the airport, and ATC turned me immediately. The last couple of flights, all has been fine.

As for vectoring to the first waypoint, my problem was that I was being sent in pretty much the opposite direction, even when I was established on LNAV. Unlike my tweaked FS9 ATC, PFE ATC doesn't give up.. they just went on and on telling me to turn east when I was flying west. Not sure yet how to get ATC to change their mind and let me continue the flight my way.. I guess there's a way... press 1 or 2 or something. Will have to go back and check in the manual!

PFE gets better the more I understand it (of course). The only 'niggle' I have left is the quality of some of the voices, compared to FDC at least (where they are 100% natural). Once I find which pilot voices to avoid (eg. British Pilot 11) I am sure all will be fine..

martinlest wrote:

As for vectoring to the first waypoint, my problem was that I was being sent in pretty much the opposite direction, even when I was established on LNAV..

Your problem here is that you are flying your route (LNAV in your aircraft), before ATC have told you to "continiue your own navigation" !

If you want a realistic ATC you have to follow their instructions until they tell you to navigate yourself.

I guess so!

BTW, I am having some problems with the TGS gauge freezing up. Right-clicking does nothing and I can only close it by killing the process in Task Manager. Anyone else had this? I uninstalled and reinstalled, but the same thing... Should the gauge be opened only after FS9 is active? And what are the lines to either side and the number at the top?

I am still having the vectoring problem after take-off. in that ATC sends me off in the wrong direction for about one minute, then vectors me back towards my planned flight path, involving a turn of some 90 degrees. ATC then tells me to 'check my position' and estimates me so many miles from my flight path... There are no SID/STARs programmed. Anyone any idea why ATC keeps doing this?

The stand-alone TGS gauge is working fine. I would have been totally lost (at night, taxiing to the runway) without it! It sometimes works in the cockpit, but mostly not. No matter. A few frustrations, but PFE is of course a massive step up from the default ATC I have been using all these years! I do my own FS 'bits and pieces', making airports, editing bgl files, a/c repaints and so on, but am in awe of folks who can programme stuff like this

The lines at the side of the gauge are like countdown markers at the side of a motorway,they show how close you are to an intersection.

What flightplanner are you using?

I use FSNavigator for FS9 and PlanG for FSX (but I am only using PFE in FS9 for now). I converted 1600 flight plans to PFE format the other day (and then backed them up!), and all went OK I think. I couldn't see why half the plans came up as not needing conversion and the rest did. They were all made with FSNav then exported to FS9. But I have all the plans in FS2000 format now, with the PFE prefix (in the Pilots folder).

Another oddity on the flight I have just finished. I was at 39000' but ATC still hadn't asked me to descend at 50 miles from the airport. So I requested a descent due to clouds and then ATC asked me to descend to 2000 ft directly (and reduce speed to 170kts!!!). I used the '1' key to cancel this, as I obviously needed to circle to get down to 2000'. I haven't worked out what might have gone wrong. My flight plan says 39,000'.... Oh well, early days. If, when I get more fluent at this, I am sure that it is PFE making the mistake and not me (wouldn't swear to it quite just yet) I'll post the issue to a new thread.

One other issue I just remembered whilst posting this. I have FDC set up, via the VCP/VCP-X section, to control flaps and landing gear, but it's not doing it now. I heard the co-pilot (FDC) say 'Gear down' at the right point, but it didn't happen and I got a warning alert just in time that the gear was still up. Flaps don't move either. Never had any issues with this before I installed PFE. I have the latter on VCP Mode 2. How might PFE be messing up my FDC settings?

Thanks again ...

Martin

Somethings not right in your settings,check your descent profile in PF2K....(double click on icon in PF2000 folder in PFE)i usually get descend instructions about 95-110nm's from airport.

Not heard of PFE messing with FDC..try again but also check your settings in FDC too

I seem to be taking a round-the-world with PFE.. flew to Beirut from Istanbul and I had no real problems this time: I even chose (by chance) a pretty good, realistic pilot voice, much less choppy than ones I have used up to now. FDC's VCP function acted as it always did, controlling flaps and landing gear. And PFE ATC directed me to descend in plenty of time. The only thing that it asked me to do that I couldn't (I was in a PSS a320) was to reduce speed to 130KIAS, which was somewhat lower than the FMC's target speed for touchdown, but I guess the programme's not quite clever enough to take that sort of thing into account (or is it?).

I suppose I may have done something wrong in the last two flights (though I have no idea what!). I can't imagine why the FDC VCP didn't work though, the settings (I checked) were the same as always. Well, as I say, it worked just fine this time.

As for the odd vectoring, I realised that I was in a PMDG 737NG or the PSS Airbus in those flights. When you enter the departure runway into the FMC F-Plan page, it creates extra waypoints/SIDs between the airport and the first waypoint of the flight plan as entered. As they are not in the PFE .pln file, I assumed they would be ignored by ATC. I deleted them this time in the FMC, so that the F-Plan page read exactly the same as my filed flight plan - and had no problems with vectoring this time. But I can't imagine that that is anything but coincidence, no? How could PFE ATC know about the extra waypoints that the FMC creates when you enter the departure runway into F-Plan?? Not even sure if that was where ATC was sending me last two times...

I am not sure which icon I am supposed to be clicking on in the PF2000 folder (there is also a folder PF2000 in the PF2000 folder). Could you elaborate? Thanks.

Hi Martin,

The vectoring problems you are experiencing after takeoff are probably caused by the extra waypoints being entered in your FMC. Your flight plan should not differ from the flight plan you have loaded in PFE. If it does, PFE will tell you that you are off the airway. (This is true unless you tell PFE that you are flying a SID/DP, in which case PFE will not vector you at the outset and will let you alone to fly your departure.) If you are not flying a SID, you should fly the flight plan loaded in PFE, without the extra waypoints created before the first waypoint of your flight plan.

Regarding final approach speeds, these can be adjusted by editing the PF_Emulator.ini file. See the following post for more info.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1331#p6517

Dan

Thanks, but I think the SID factor is a bit of a red herring, as even though the FMC creates intermediate waypoints, I never follow them. I don't engage LNAV until I am lined up with the filed flight path. I will try deleting the extra waypoints/SIDs some flights and not others, to see if there is a pattern, but as I say, I can't see why PFE ATC would be sending me to waypoints which are in the a320/b737 FMC but not programmed at all into the PFE flight plan..

Thanks for the link re. approach speeds.

M