OnCourse Software

I wonder if anyone has any tips on how I can better 'synchronise' my PF3 flight plan with the one my aircraft is using, so that the ToD in PF3 is the same, or close to, at any rate, that in my aircraft flight plan? As it is, even though I add manual waypoints to the PF3 flight plan before and after the ToD that my flight planner ('Little Navmap') calculates (since it is clear that waypoints trigger PF3's ATC descent requests), there is often enough disrepency between them that by the time I am on final, I am too high to make a comfortable landing: ATC more often than not asks me to descend too far past the ToD shown on my flight instruments. Or, if the intial descent instruction is about at the right place, the next one comes too late.

Unfortunately, I cannot ask ATC for a descent to a specific altitude in X-Plane - that was the subject of a thread I posted a couple of years back maybe. It just doesn't work in X-Plane for some reason. The best I can do is to ask for descent 'due to turbulence': I often need to repeat that request several times, as I only get instructions to descend in 2000' increments. Not very realistic.

Probably nothing to be done, but maybe someone (probably Dave M if anybody! ) will have some suggestions - maybe a way around the issue, rather than a fix, per se? I wish I knew why asking to descend to a given altitude won't work in XP (no response to the keyboard inputs). As it's X-Plane, I don't think there's any way OnCourse can troubleshoot this though, is there?

Do you adjust the altitudes on the PF3 waypoint page to match those in your FMC or aircraft flight plan before the flight?

Also note that you can now (in the beta version) choose a longer descent profile for PF3 to use (Options #2, Advanced Options, Approach section) which will start you down sooner.

Thanks Dan for both suggestions. I don't tend to make altitude adjustments - if I do in future, maybe the ToDs will match better. Will look at the descent options in the current beta (which I have installed) too.

(I have become rather lazy, I guess, with regard to PF3 - just load a flight plan and fly (in my 'defence', it already takes me such a long time to set up flights before I pushback, I cut corners where I can!): there are a lot of options that I am probably ignoring. I need to spend some time reacquainting myself with what is available.

Well, I have only tried one flight, and having set a PF3 profile (large airport, climb/descent rate, approach speed), the descent and approach went well. I will test again of course and see if this helps consistently. I had previously stopped enabling a PF3 profile, as doing so seemed to cause XP11 to CTD, but that was three or four years ago! Certainly today there were no such issues..

I am posting a log though, in the hope that it may show why I cannot request a specific altitude to climb or descend to. I have the hotkeys set to 'L' and 'H' and the request is answered, but as I hold down either of those keys and press a number, that number seems to be ignored - as I am sure is clear from the log, the request, no matter which number I press, is always to climb or descend to my current altitude. Be great to get this working, but...

Thanks!

Using the L and/of H key along with a numeric is sometimes difficult to get right. You need to hold down the L or H key then press and release the numeric key and then release the L/H key. Pressing the numeric key has to be done as soon as the L/H key is down, otherwise it won't be recognised.

Of course it's always possible that this dual key feature doesn't work with XPUIPC

I think that I gave it my best shot Dave! I suppose XPUIPC is the problem.

Would it be possible therefor to have ATC decide to which flight level one ascends or descends - you press the L or H key alone, and ATC selects the new flight level? That would be realistic, and the .wav files would be already present.

“Would it be possible therefor to have ATC decide to which flight level one ascends or descends - you press the L or H key alone, and ATC selects the new flight level? That would be realistic, and the .wav files would be already present.”

That would be my preferred option too.
Bill

Dave can confirm this but I think having a good descent profile will also help. With this "bizjet" profile I get a TOD ATC clearance from PF3 several miles prior to my TOD on my FMC. 95% it works. The FMC usually wants a descent rate of ~2250 FPM so the descent rate of 1750 FPM in the descent profile causes PF3 to issue a descent clearance several miles early. This works well most of the time.

A320Flyer wrote: *

Fri Jan 05, 2024 8:47 am

“Would it be possible therefor to have ATC decide to which flight level one ascends or descends - you press the L or H key alone, and ATC selects the new flight level? That would be realistic, and the .wav files would be already present.”

That would be my preferred option too.
Bill

Those keys are currently used to request a new cruise level in case you have issues climbing to your FP cruise level. So they basically mean 'request current altitude'

There's a new feature in the next beta that will allow you to request a start of descent, so if you're FMC is showing you've reached TOD but PF3 hasn't initiated the descent you can request it.

I was thinking more like just the L or H key on its own , with no number afterwards, and ATC instructs a random descent or ascent or not, depending on traffic.