OnCourse Software

I've made several flights with PF3 and am generally very impressed... definitely a major step up from PFE. With that said, I've noticed several issues that appear to recur consistently. I consider most of these problems to be minor... but they're obvious bugs just the same:

1. After making changes in the options #1 window (more than once) clicking close shuts down the entire PF3 program.
2. Altimeter mismatches... in areas where the altimeter is designated for Millibars, I sometimes get the altimeter in inches of Hg (and vice versa).
3. Many times when checking in to a new sector after a frequency change, the new controller just responds with my callsign. At least put a "roger" or a "good morning" in there if the controller has nothing else to say.
4. During vectoring, sometimes when the controller issues a right turn, the pilot responds with a left turn (and vice versa). The direction issued by the controller is usually correct (i.e. it's the shorter turn)... so the readback is incorrect.
5. Sometimes after issuing a frequency change to the next controller, the previous controller comes back with another instruction before I can switch. He needs to be quiet until I check in with the next controller. The way it is now, I don't know whether to acknowledge the instruction or check in.
6. Airport elevation is added to ATIS ceilings and cloud heights. This is not needed because they are already reported as AGL in the METAR.

That's all I have for now. Once again... job well done! Keep up the good work!

MD

mach2000 wrote:

I've made several flights with PF3 and am generally very impressed... definitely a major step up from PFE. With that said, I've noticed several issues that appear to recur consistently. I consider most of these problems to be minor... but they're obvious bugs just the same:

1. After making changes in the options #1 window (more than once) clicking close shuts down the entire PF3 program.
2. Altimeter mismatches... in areas where the altimeter is designated for Millibars, I sometimes get the altimeter in inches of Hg (and vice versa).
3. Many times when checking in to a new sector after a frequency change, the new controller just responds with my callsign. At least put a "roger" or a "good morning" in there if the controller has nothing else to say.
4. During vectoring, sometimes when the controller issues a right turn, the pilot responds with a left turn (and vice versa). The direction issued by the controller is usually correct (i.e. it's the shorter turn)... so the readback is incorrect.
5. Sometimes after issuing a frequency change to the next controller, the previous controller comes back with another instruction before I can switch. He needs to be quiet until I check in with the next controller. The way it is now, I don't know whether to acknowledge the instruction or check in.
6. Airport elevation is added to ATIS ceilings and cloud heights. This is not needed because they are already reported as AGL in the METAR.

That's all I have for now. Once again... job well done! Keep up the good work!

MD

I can certainly advise you regarding no.5 That is already on the to do list as it were. Sometimes speed calls are "orphaned" between handovers. Your PO will for example eventually contact the Tower himself if you forget to change frequency. So I think the orphaned calls might be linked in some way. Anyway Dave has already been advised so it will probably come as a mainatenance fix in due course.

No.6 I think that too has already been mentioned.

No.3 Yes it sounds a bit terse. But when real ATC are busy that's often all you hear! An ocassional "Good Morning/Afternoon" would be nice too. Something of that nature is already on Dave's list for the future. It stems from stripping out the phrase "Radar Contact" as in ICAO it is rarely used. It was used too often in PFE. The ICAO manuel only requires "Radar Contact" as the reply on one ocassion only when an a/c is under a form of surveillance radar approach and is requesting vectors to the ILS from the Approach controller.
That's how it will end up in PF3+

Hi MD... welcome to the forum...

1. That is a known problem for some users unfortunately... the following is from the user guide:-

23. known issues
23.1 Your Skin
No we're not trying to be personal, we mean your choice of PF3 skin.

As you must be aware of by now PF3 comes complete with an assortment of different skins that can be applied to the program to change its look and feel. Some are, shall we say, different, and others are really nice (in my opinion) and besides they say a change is a good as a rest. So the nice folk at OnCourse Software provide a means by which you can experience a rest!

Now that said, we have to be completely honest and say for some of our testers these news skins did cause some problems... namely the GUI would crash at random times when selecting different buttons. Personally I haven't had the problem at all, but then I only run PF3 on my development rig which comes complete with all the necessary, but more often unnecessary, gadgets, gizmos and drivers that I've collected along the way and this machine is about 12 years old now. So not really a good test!

So, if you don't like the look of any of these skins or you're one of the unfortunate users who have more than your fair share of skin related problems, namely PF3 will simply disappear when you click on something without even a goodbye message, we have provided a way for you to turn off the skins completely.

Please see section 7.1.25 for further details

2. Please check your Trans Alt & Baro Calls selection which you access from Options #1 then trans Alt & Baro Calls. Each of the PF3 geographic regions can be individually configured for altimeter calls in inches or millibars.

3. Added to my maintenance list

4. Next time that happens please send me your latest debug_monitor.log file from the PF3/Logs folder so I can check it out. A left or right turn is not calculated again by the 'roger' routine, it's simply a flag. Problems is there are a lot of such procedures so I need to nail the one causing the problem.

5. Again, please send me a log with as much info as you can to help me pinpoint the exchange in the log

6. I'll check that one

Thanks for your feed back and kind words

vololiberista wrote:

No.3 Yes it sounds a bit terse. But when real ATC are busy that's often all you hear! An ocassional "Good Morning/Afternoon" would be nice too. Something of that nature is already on Dave's list for the future. It stems from stripping out the phrase "Radar Contact" as in ICAO it is rarely used. It was used too often in PFE. The ICAO manuel only requires "Radar Contact" as the reply on one ocassion only when an a/c is under a form of surveillance radar approach and is requesting vectors to the ILS from the Approach controller.
That's how it will end up in PF3+

Thanks for the insight. I agree that PFE used "Radar Contact" way too much and even the terse callsign response is better than all those radar contacts (although including a "roger" would be an easy universal fix). Regarding "Radar Contact"... in the U.S. (and I think pretty much the rest of the world), Radar Contact is only issued the first time an aircraft is identified on radar. So typically the most appropriate time to hear it is when contacting departure right after takeoff. I don't think PF3 simulates it, but "Radar Service Terminated" is also used when an aircraft enters regions with no radar coverage such as the mountains or oceanic crossings. In these situations, "Radar Contact" will again be issued the first time after radar surveillance has been re-established.

MD

dmarch wrote:

Hi MD... welcome to the forum...

1. That is a known problem for some users unfortunately... the following is from the user guide:-

23. known issues
23.1 Your Skin
No we're not trying to be personal, we mean your choice of PF3 skin.

2. Please check your Trans Alt & Baro Calls selection which you access from Options #1 then trans Alt & Baro Calls. Each of the PF3 geographic regions can be individually configured for altimeter calls in inches or millibars.

Dave,

Thanks for the feedback. I will experiment with the skins and see if that eliminates the issue.

For the altimeter calls, I believe I have all the options set correctly (or at least to my preference). I have Canadian, Carribbean, French Canadian, Latin American, and all of the U.S. un-ticked for inches; everything else is ticked for millibars. The issue I'm encountering is that I still occasionally receive the altimeter in inches when flying in Europe (where I have millibars specified)... not always, but sometimes. I believe the problem is more prevalent with altimeter settings on the ATIS; but I think I've had controllers issue the wrong format too.

I will send you a batch of log files later this weekend.

Thanks Again,
MD

mach2000 wrote:

vololiberista wrote:

No.3 Yes it sounds a bit terse. But when real ATC are busy that's often all you hear! An ocassional "Good Morning/Afternoon" would be nice too. Something of that nature is already on Dave's list for the future. It stems from stripping out the phrase "Radar Contact" as in ICAO it is rarely used. It was used too often in PFE. The ICAO manuel only requires "Radar Contact" as the reply on one ocassion only when an a/c is under a form of surveillance radar approach and is requesting vectors to the ILS from the Approach controller.
That's how it will end up in PF3+

Thanks for the insight. I agree that PFE used "Radar Contact" way too much and even the terse callsign response is better than all those radar contacts (although including a "roger" would be an easy universal fix). Regarding "Radar Contact"... in the U.S. (and I think pretty much the rest of the world), Radar Contact is only issued the first time an aircraft is identified on radar. So typically the most appropriate time to hear it is when contacting departure right after takeoff. I don't think PF3 simulates it, but "Radar Service Terminated" is also used when an aircraft enters regions with no radar coverage such as the mountains or oceanic crossings. In these situations, "Radar Contact" will again be issued the first time after radar surveillance has been re-established.

MD

It certainly might be useful and comforting for pilots crossing deserts, jungle and oceans. "Ah back to civilisation ahhh!"

mach2000 wrote:

Dave,

Thanks for the feedback. I will experiment with the skins and see if that eliminates the issue.

For the altimeter calls, I believe I have all the options set correctly (or at least to my preference). I have Canadian, Carribbean, French Canadian, Latin American, and all of the U.S. un-ticked for inches; everything else is ticked for millibars. The issue I'm encountering is that I still occasionally receive the altimeter in inches when flying in Europe (where I have millibars specified)... not always, but sometimes. I believe the problem is more prevalent with altimeter settings on the ATIS; but I think I've had controllers issue the wrong format too.

I will send you a batch of log files later this weekend.

Thanks Again,
MD

There is a known problem (well it's not a "problem" as such) with island territories even if they are politically attached to an ICAO nation or sovereign. During the beta test we picked up a few but they are legion so it'll take a bit of time to iron that out. For example Tenerife and Madeira. The islands themselves are ok but the stretch of water between them seems to be policed by the FAA

vololiberista wrote:

There is a known problem (well it's not a "problem" as such) with island territories even if they are politically attached to an ICAO nation or sovereign. During the beta test we picked up a few but they are legion so it'll take a bit of time to iron that out. For example Tenerife and Madeira. The islands themselves are ok but the stretch of water between them seems to be policed by the FAA

What he said. Next time it happens try to make a note of the atc centre you are connected to and over time Dave will iron them all out !