I have had P2A for over a month and yet and have not been able to make it work for me, even using the most basic setup available. I have followed the actual user's manual and guides and found them very incomplete, for the most part. I will refrain here from adding countless forums I visited and videos I watched in search for answers. Unfortunately, none of them have giving me a clue as to how to make it work the way it should. But I am deviating from my actual problem. So please help me out to find some sort or compromise or solution to make P2A work for me. 

I begin by having beforehand the SIM running at the world screen along with FSUIPC7 with a blank airport and location. Then I build the flight plan KSAN to KLAX ("Quick Start IFR Flight Guide"), then I click the "Auto Plan" button to automatically select the SID, START and Approach plus Cruise Alt, Ground Speed, etc.   Notice that at this point I need to connect P2A to the SIM to "Validate and File" the FP. However, P2A will still not turn green unless I go further up and choose a plane and the position of it, either the runway MSFS2020 proposes or some Gateway/Parking position of my choosing. Only then I should be able to have the FLY option available to me and continue loading MSFS2020. After that, the plane and its chosen location loads and, it is at this point, that I am able to hit "CONNECT" and get the green color status and file the FP with ATC accordingly. Notice, that I have chosen the default option which is RW27.

From here on, I am completely lost. Page 7/17 says "Call for Clearance".  I tried that and nothing works.  The MIC is working in WINDOWS and I set the Ctrl S key to activate the speech in P2A. Also the plane's engine is already running and it is sitting on RW27 (placed there by the SIM itself) and the flight plan does not even display in the default G530 (JustFlight TurboArrow III). Is P2A supposed to load automatically the PLN into the SIM? Some videos suggested to manually export the FP into the SIM, which I kep on doing it that way. However, the FP would not stick to its course with the active automatic pilot. Other videos suggested to load and change the location of the plane (instead of the P2A filed chosen departure runway). However, I read threads where people ask MSFS2020 to "prevent the flight planner from reshuffling the plan after adding or changing a runway, approach, SID or STAR". So that is what happens to me if I dare to change the departure point, for instance, one GATE/PARKING location.  So that obviously is not an option! 

Before I purchased P2A, I was using, AIVLASOFT. I used for many years and it always worked fine. It will automatically place the Flight Plan into the G530 no matter where the plane was sitting (Parking/Gate, etc.), and there was never a problem. I'll tell you, If it wasn't for the very poor ATC system MSFS2020 has, and that I wanted to learn more about ATC without having to subscribe to VATSIM, I would have, undoubetly,  stick to AIVLASOFT.

So, any tips, guides or help for me?

Thank you,

R. George Balzaretti

 

Your process is incorrect.  While there are many sequences that would work, here's one that is relatively simple and should work every time.  Config FltPlan options can make a difference, but the defaults should work to begin with.

• Be sure you using P2A 2.6.2.4 Public Beta 2e as it has some changes affecting import/export to MSFS
• Open P2A and create your flight plan
• Save it for later use, if desired
• EXPORT it to a file folder for later import into MSFS
• Start MSFS.  That should start FSUIPC automatically if you have the latest version of FSUIPC
• Go to the World page of MSFS and at the bottom, Select More, then Load
• Load the flight plan you exported earlier into MSFS
• Check to be sure the load seemed to work correctly by checking the flight plan in MSFS against the one in P2A
• Press the FLY button and then again to get into the cockpit
• Get the ground power on in the plane or start the engines 
• Turn on Avionics and Battery, if required for the aircraft
• The Flight plan should be loaded into the GPS already, based on the Load you did earlier
• Check the flight plan in the GPS against P2A, but it should match
• CONNECT P2A by pressing the Connect Button.  When Pilot2ATC connects, there will be 3 lines in the Speech Text Window at the bottom right and the Connect button will turn green.  The last line in the Speech Text Window will be "Grammars Loaded".
• If your aircraft is set up and battery/avionics switches are on, the Power button in P2A should turn green
• Press the FILE flight plan button.  It should turn green.
• After listening to ATIS, change frequency to Clearance Delivery.
• Say "Beech one victor bravo ready to copy" where Beech one victor bravo is you call sign.  User whatever call sign you have in Config.
• You should get your clearance.  If you have the Copilot set to Respond to ATC, then the copilot will do the readback for you.
• After a successful readback, you should get sent to Ground FReq, and again, the copilot will change frequency for you if you have it set to do so
• When ready to taxi, check you are on Ground and say "Beech one victor bravo, ready to taxi".  The copilot will handle the readback.
• etc. etc. etc.

While there are a lot of steps above, once you know what you're doing, it only takes a few minutes to get it going.

Hope that helps.

Dave

 

 

Thank you Dave for your reply. The flight plan already has an assigned sim since I cannot choose a departure from a gate like in real life. Once I load the flight plan the sim will put me directly into the runway, so I have to skip the clearance delivery and the taxi business because I am already in the runway. I am sorry if I seem a bit slow to follow. What I have done to come around is to place the plane in a parking or gate. Then I load the pervious flight plan thru FSUIPC7 instead. But two things, I lose communications with ATC and the waypoints no longer are shown changing in the waypoint display of P2A.  As a matter of a last resource, I uninstalled P2A, clean up the windows register and all folders with files. and re-installed with a different folder name, but some of the config settings came back again and not a clean default config that was hoping I would get after re-installing. Anyway, Thank you again for your support and I am sorry that I am causing some trouble.

R. George Balzaretti

To start at a gate instead of a runway, after you Load the .pln file into MSFS, at the top left of the World screen there is a dropdown with starting locations where you can select the gate.  

Even if you start from the runway, you MUST File and get clearance, or  the program won't work.  After switching to ground, you just tell them you are ready for departure instead of asking for taxi instructions.  Then you'll switch to tower and you can tell them you are ready for departure. The flight should proceed normally after that.

Dave

Edited December 22, 20214 yr by Dave-Pilot2ATC

Thank you Dave! I will give that a try sometime today.

George

 

Hi Dave,

I followed your iinstructions to the book! But when the position on the map gets to the MNATE waypoint it begins to deviate further east and leaves the route. I started the flight 3 times and always does the same thing at the same waypoint. Why does it do that? Is it something I am doing wrong?
Thanks, George

PS: I'm trying to upload a GIF image of the Pilot2ATC screen to illustrate my point, but I don't know how to do that.
Anyway, see if the following links works:  https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive

 

That appears to be a difference in how P2A draws the ILS Transition and how your GPS flies it.  That should not cause any issues.

If you start getting called off course for this, just increase the "Allowed Course Deviation" in Config and it should fix it.

Dave

Thank you, I'll try that!

Thanks, George

That option did not fix it at all. I don't know what's going on with P2A it does not process all waypoints Sid's, Start's and Approaches, the way it should. I will state this again, after a few minutes flight, it begins to deviate the planned course and ATC begins to advise that the plane is getting off course. So, the ATC advise portion of it seems to be working all right.

I also used SIMBRIEF to create the same flight plan KMIA-KEYW, I exported to P2A, validate it, file it and get clearance from P2A and got the same results, at one point, the plane will go out of course using this flight plan instead.

Decided to use AivlaSoft\EFB2, that I had before I purchased P2A, rebooted my computer, run MSFS2020, FSUIPC7 and AivlaSoft\EFB2. I used one archive flight plan that I had saved before with this software. I started the flight with no ATC (AivlaSoft\EFB2 does not include ATC option) and everything worked perfectly with the same waypoints and sids, etc., proving to me that nothing is wrong with my JusttFlight Turbo Arrow III Model and its GPS530 unit, including the SIM settings as well (all ATC is off) and the SIM itself.

Dave at this point I am giving up!
Most of the youtube training I watched did not include topics of how to load the .PLN file to the plane's GPS unit, ss I have told you before, I useFSUPCI7 to load the FP into the GPS unit in the plane. This is the only way I know to get the FP working in the SIM.
Also, using the FP of the SIM itself is not good because when one changes to another GATE/PARKING, instead of using the actual planned departure runway, reshuffling occurs, and everything goes BANANAS!

Any last minute advice please?

Thank you,

George

 

With MSFS, you load the flight plan into the SIM, which also loads it into the plane's GPS.

• Export plan from P2A to any folder you like
• Start MSFS
• On the World screen, where you set up flight plans, press the "MORE" button at the bottom of the Page
• Press the Load Button
• Search for and select the plan you just exported from P2A
• Load the plan
• The plan should show in the World map
• You can check it to be sure it matches at this point, but do not make any changes

Now go straight to Fly without touching the plan you loaded.

Dave