OnCourse Software

ThomasAH wrote: *

Thu May 11, 2017 9:21 pm

What happened here? Heading 92 is >5 degree from 85.

With 30+ kts crosswind, did you point your aircraft's nose to 85 or did you fly in a way that your flight path is heading 85?
I must admit that I don't remember right now what PF3's ATC expects here. Dave?

It should expect heading, not track, no?

The problem here is not the nagging - when flying manually, it does happen to me that I deviate more than 5 ° (or a couple of hundred feet altitude, as I can see in the logs ), and I guess in that case it's appropriate for ATC to nag. The real problem is that ATC doesn't "move forward" according to the situation. Meaning: You can see in the logs at around 2:10 PM I captured the localizer runway 23R while flying heading 92 or 94. But ATC was "stuck" on waiting for me to turn to 85, it didn't clear me for the approach, as it should have shortly before - at least that's the way I remember it. And I'm pretty sure that happens as well when one isn't on the commanded altitude: If one's deviation in heading or altitude is too big at the moment ATC were to issue the next command, it doesn't, and it that command then never comes. As well as the following ones, I think.

PF3 is event driven.... if instructed to do something you need to do it to please PF3 so it can then move on to the next step

I understand, and I try to, believe me But when I fail, it would be nice if ATC would still talk to me...

As Thomas mentioned, if for any reason you are unable to maintain an assigned heading during a vectored approach, you can press hotkey 1 to request clearance at pilot's discretion. The nags will stop but you will not get further vectors, and will need to navigate to the final approach course on your own. If for some reason you do not then get a handoff to Tower (sometimes happens with close-in approaches) you should tune Tower manually and press 1 to request landing clearance.

Dan77 wrote: *

Fri May 12, 2017 2:25 pm

As Thomas mentioned, if for any reason you are unable to maintain an assigned heading during a vectored approach, you can press hotkey 1 to request clearance at pilot's discretion. The nags will stop but you will not get further vectors, and will need to navigate to the final approach course on your own. If for some reason you do not then get a handoff to Tower (sometimes happens with close-in approaches) you should tune Tower manually and press 1 to request landing clearance.

Thanks, manually contacting tower is what I did once I was established, but it's beside the point. Even if I deviate too much from my assignment, in my opinion, ATC should not stop giving me further assignments. Not a biggy, as there is a work-around, but it will destroy the immersion.

dtsakiris wrote: *

Fri May 12, 2017 2:44 pm

Dan77 wrote: *

Fri May 12, 2017 2:25 pm

As Thomas mentioned, if for any reason you are unable to maintain an assigned heading during a vectored approach, you can press hotkey 1 to request clearance at pilot's discretion. The nags will stop but you will not get further vectors, and will need to navigate to the final approach course on your own. If for some reason you do not then get a handoff to Tower (sometimes happens with close-in approaches) you should tune Tower manually and press 1 to request landing clearance.

Thanks, manually contacting tower is what I did once I was established, but it's beside the point. Even if I deviate too much from my assignment, in my opinion, ATC should not stop giving me further assignments. Not a biggy, as there is a work-around, but it will destroy the immersion.

Well for full imersion you would in reality have couple of Eurofighters staring down your exhaust ready to put an end to your "deviation!" Unfortunately PF3 doesn't have the ability to shoot you down for not obeying ATC and deviating from your prescribed course. YET!

That would be the real world approach to someone not following their fpl or paying attention to the RT. So that's all you have to do with PF3. "listen carefully" to instructions and if you have deviated from your fpl identify that you have done so and get back on course otherwise your PC will self destruct after 5 seconds.

vololiberista wrote: *

Fri May 12, 2017 4:23 pm

That would be the real world approach to someone not following their fpl or paying attention to the RT. So that's all you have to do with PF3. "listen carefully" to instructions and if you have deviated from your fpl identify that you have done so and get back on course otherwise your PC will self destruct after 5 seconds.

Of course, but the problem is: Even if I deviate for 2 seconds only, and PF3 were to issue a command in those two seconds, it won't - and after that there won't be any commands at all any more, even if I'm back on course for the rest of the flight! Is that "real world"? Come on...

Like I said, not a biggy, but it would be nice if you could put it on the bug or wish list for the future.

Quote:

and after that there won't be any commands at all any more, even if I'm back on course for the rest of the flight!

That's not correct... if you turn to the heading ATC instructs you to then you will get further instructions

dmarch wrote: *

Mon May 15, 2017 2:14 pm

That's not correct... if you turn to the heading ATC instructs you to then you will get further instructions

Until now, that wasn't my impression. I'm pretty sure it has happened to me a number of times that I overshot the initial cleared altitude right after take-off, descended back to it, but then never got clearance to climb further. Or I didn't get further heading instructions after deviating and passing a crucial point like the localizer while flying a slightly wrong heading. But if you say so, then I believe you. The next time something like that happens I will collect the logs and we can analyze them to see what went wrong.