OnCourse Software

Good day, Dave,

I find it hard to believe either is a general issue as I thought surely somebody else would have commented by now.

Since updating to v3.13.0 from (I think) 3.11 or thereabouts, I have noticed strange behaviour of the taxi gauge. For much of the time (whilst taxi-ing in and out (but not ALL the time) the gauge blinks on and off. It seems to be quite regular, perhaps 1 second off and 1 second on. This makes precision taxi-ing a little difficult at times, especially when looking for your gate.

I have tried this with both taxi gauges and they behave similarly. I have made about six flights since the upgrade and it has happened each time. I'm on FS9, with the gauge in a pop-up window on the panel. Upgrade was manually carried out from download. I don't think anything else has changed on my system but you never know with Windows 10, of course.

I have also noticed that after contacting approach, on the majority of flights (but not, as it happens, the most recent) you get an instruction like:
"300 Speedbird 1234, turn heading 300 bla bla bla". That's not the exact wording I'm sure, but the heading gets mentioned twice - once in very much the wrong place. I'm thinking it may vary by voice, but on most occasions you are getting given the heading twice. (There were a few inconsistencies in the instructions before the upgrade, something like "Speedbird 1234, 300 bla bla bla" without the "turn heading", but this is odder still).

Latest log attached in case it is pertinent to the taxi matter. Can provide another log in due course for the heading instructions if needed.

Best regards,

John

Thank you John, I'll certainly look into these issue shortly... please nag me if I don't get back to you within the next couple of days.

The blinking gauge does seems strange... I'm just wondering if I've inadvertently reset something during a refresh, because the gauge simply checks an FSUIPC flag which tells it to display/hide itself. Haven't used the gauge myself for many, many years now!

Re the bad call, again it must be something I did coz there's no one else to blame when it comes to the code!!

Get back to you soon

One more issue with contacting approach when flying a SID. Clearance Delivery will give an initial climb altitude. After takeoff, and after contacting Approach and reaching the initial cleared altitude, Approach gives no further altitude clearances. Once I noticed this, I did a check in and my VCP stated I was at altitude ___, climbing to altitude _____. (Example, Skywest 5260 out of 4500 climbing to 12,000). This happens on every SID. If there is no SID, everything works fine. This issue has arisen since last update.

Matt

pilotguy27 wrote: *

Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:28 pm

One more issue with contacting approach when flying a SID. Clearance Delivery will give an initial climb altitude. After takeoff, and after contacting Approach and reaching the initial cleared altitude, Approach gives no further altitude clearances. Once I noticed this, I did a check in and my VCP stated I was at altitude ___, climbing to altitude _____. (Example, Skywest 5260 out of 4500 climbing to 12,000). This happens on every SID. If there is no SID, everything works fine. This issue has arisen since last update.

Matt

Please don't add to other posts if raising problems because it makes it too hard to keep track of what I have and haven't addressed

dmarch wrote: *

Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:05 pm

Thank you John, I'll certainly look into these issue shortly... please nag me if I don't get back to you within the next couple of days.

The blinking gauge does seems strange... I'm just wondering if I've inadvertently reset something during a refresh, because the gauge simply checks an FSUIPC flag which tells it to display/hide itself. Haven't used the gauge myself for many, many years now!

Re the bad call, again it must be something I did coz there's no one else to blame when it comes to the code!!

Get back to you soon

Thanks, Dave, not a problem - there is no urgency.

In case it helps, here is a specific example of the curious message received after contacting approach: The present heading was indeed 295.

Hope this helps,

John

Hi Dave,

This is not a nag, quite the opposite in fact as I have just had an eye operation and it will be a while before I am safe to let loose in the skies, ha ha. It is additional information which hopefully will save you some wasted time. I didn't mention I use FDC alongside PFE and the combination has been working well; I didn't think it was relevant.

In the last couple of flights before the operation I had noticed that after landing the FDC checklists were playing slowly - not like a gramophone on 33 rpm but long pauses between reading items and responses. This made me wonder if problems are between PFE and FDC since the last PFE update and a simple test I have just made suggests that is the case. Without FDC running the taxi gauge seems to work exactly as it should without going on and off.

I know FDC is a very old product but I have grown to depend on the checklists and calls and I would hate to have to abandon it unless there is a very good substitute. For that matter, I know FS2004 is ancient too. I did use FSX for a while until a Windoze 10 update messed up the sounds on my hardware/software combination.

Best regards,

John

Thanks John. Interesting and yes it will undoubtedly help in my investigation as to the cause. Not that I'd forgotten about your post of course but I will take a look tomorrow

Hope your eye issues get better real soon

Did you get a chance to look at these two issues Dave? Hope you don't mind a reminder but I thought I would as it has slipped off the first page.

Best regards,

John

Thanks for the reminder John.... I did forget

I'll try to check the gauge issue over the weekend

Hi John

My first test was a long taxi at EHAM... 40 taxi waypoints to travers and not a single blip from my gauge... this was using FS9.

So I'm stumped till/if I can recreate the problem