henri5

If you do't need STARs and SIDs, Plan G is free and cannot be beat. If you want SIDs and STARs, Flightsim Commander has a free full-featured demo except that you cannot save plans in the free version. It costs nothing to try them. Henri

Try reducing the sliders. Another possibility is that these planes are put there by FSX or another application. In my case at CYQB I had to remove some of the static planes by hand because there were even two planes at the same spot. In this case the extra planes were due to an addon airport at CYQB (Quebec City - great free addon BTW). Henri

Note that the FSX ATC is not always realistic or convenient. Personally I don't use it at all, and if the approach is not already fully programmed into the FMC, I use "heading" to intercept the glideslope at a reasonable altitude , and press "appr" when I am almost lined up. In fact this is almost necessary (with our without ATC) with the Majestic Q400 Dash 8, since among other things it has no autoland and one cannot adjust the course while in "nav" mode (so one has to be in "heading" mode while adjusting the course to the runway heading) . In sum, when approaching the next to last approach waypoint, one sets the heading to the next to last approach heading (which will intersect the glideslope), press the "Hdg" button, then set the course to the runway heading, and when the plane approaches the glideslope, one presses the "appr" button and the plane lines up with the runway and later grabs the glideslope. Some airplanes will set the runway course by themselves from the FMC, but not the Q400. The Q400 is a bit finicky about holding the glideslope and the speed has to be controlled manually as well as the landing itself (no autoland). Henri

If you don't want tospend more time prepping on the ground than flying, try Ideal Flight, which will choose airports depending on time and distance specified by you or between airports you specify. It will set you up at the gate with the FMC already programmed and a detailed flight plan including frequencies, TOC, TOD, weather, approach waypoints etc indicated on a map. Once I reach TOC, I usually speed up the simulation to 4X until TOD and the whole flight can take maybe 20-30 minutes for a 300 nm flight. I use it a lot with the Majestic Dash 8 Q400, and although I do not follow check lists etc, I enjoy the short times. Although the plane starts off cold and dark, if one is not fussy about check lists, the engines can be started and the Q400 can be taxiing in a couple of minutes. Ideal flight is less complex than FS Captain, which has more interactions with the crew (for example meals), and more factor of flight evaluation after the flight. I have both and prefer Ideal Flight for quick and dirty flights. Henri

Just change the com1 (or com2) frequency and no ATIS message will appear if no transmitter is in range at that frequency.

Having watched the first 8 videos, you can be confident that the tutorials are not "system" videos but "operations" videos with emphasis on the practical. For example, when some recommended procedures are not necessary, the instructors say why, without going deeply into systeml details ("The company says to turn these switches off, but it really doesn't matter whether you do or not, unless you are a maintenance man."

I have now watched 8 of the 10 episodes, and it is well worth buying given the modest price and the lack of a suitable operations manual (as opposed to a system manual) for this aircraft. Buy it, you will learn a lot. Here are a few comments I mean to be helpful, please do not take them too seriously. 1) I tried to watch the episodes without first downloading them, and despite having a 1.2 Mb/sec download speed, the stopping of the video every few seconds made it a pain to watch, so I downloaded the episodes and watched them without any problem. These videos seem pretty big, and I wonder if there is not a more highly compressed format than the mpeg 4 format used (perhaps not?). 2) The speaking habit of the pilot to speak fast and to end his sentences with a decrease in frequency and volume along with and increase ins speed ending in a whisper as if running out of air makes it more difficult to understand than it should. 3) One or two of the videos having to do with flight planning have little to do with the specific aircraft and require additional software, and for a person like me who does not care very much about spending a half hour of preparation before taking off could do without them. 4) A complete newbie not familiar with the Q400 and/or with all the acronyms of flight (ACARS, PFD, FMS, ILS, MDA, ATC, charts and so on) will find it very difficult to follow these tutorials and should probably learn some of the basics first. These videos seem aimed mostly at experienced simulators already familiar with the main features of the aircraft able to start from cold and dark, taxi to a runway, take off and land with the autopilot. Some of the explanations go by very fast, ad there is not always a cursor showing which specific screen they are talking about. In a couple of cases, the screen disappeareed before I could identify which specific screen I was not very familiar with or button was being talked about and had to backtrack the video to recognize it. 5) I had no problem going back to the videos screen on the following day (today) where the videos were still available for download. Probably because i have cookies turned on). 6) If like me you can fly the plane, but are unsure of how some of the less obvious things work (like fuel calculations and weight distribution, the de-icing equipment and toggles like the hydraulic or fuel pumps) or the reason for some specific procedures and whether they are really necessary (many are not), then it is really worth it to shell out the modest amount of money for this video course. henri

Although the first speaker speaks very clearly, even fluent English speakers will sometimes have difficulty with the second one (the pilot I think). He has the occasional British habit of lowering the frequency and volume of the speech as ne nears the end of a sentence to finish in a whisper as if he has run out of air, in addition to speeding up at the end of the sentence. Good series though, and not too expensive. I will make a few additional comments on the other thread. Henri

Many commercial FSX addons are not licensed for P3D and some do not work for P3D, and although I have both FSX and P3D, I almost only use FSX because it works fine for me and I can use all of my addons. Henri

If you are following a glideslope and the nose pitches up, either you are too low and the plane wants to climb, or you are going too slow, or you are using too much flaps for the speed you are going. For some planes that do not have autoland, this can be used to flare just before landing (not in real life). If not following a glideslope but on autopilot, it depends on the plane, but it could be related to your elevator trim. Henri

Although you mention jets, I would not overlook turboprops. The Majestic Dash 8 Q400 is my favorite plane, and has its own simulation program. It is fun to fly (but hard to land), and is a STOL aircraft and so can use short runways. If you want something smaller, the Flight 1 Beech Super King Air B60 is also very realistic. Henri

I also bought a sectional of my area but I never use it because there is too much information written in text that is too small and crowded for my old eyes. The problem is that sectional cover too much area - hundreds of square miles so are big and clumsy to use, in addition to not having approach information, which you probably use a lot more than the information of the sectionals. What I DO use is SIMPLATES X Ultra on the Ipad for Approach plates and airport information all over the world. Most of the information on the sectional that is required for simulation is available on the FSX map (airport and navaid frequencies, airways etc), but more convenient to see better is Plan G, where you can see any airport or Navaid information simly by mousing over it, in addition to seeing your aircraft on a zoomable real moving map showing cities, roads and so on. The same information can be obtained from FSCommander, but on a black background instead of an actual map. Plan G is free and FSCommander has a free demo. Both also have flight planning, but PlanG does not have SIDs and STARs, whereas FSC does. Henri

And do not forget to set the navigation to "GPS" as opposed to "NAV". Some planes have a toggle switch, some have a rotary switch and some have a button.The "NAV" will try to follow a navigation beacon that is set with the nav frequency buttons."GPS" will follow the flight plan. When you approach the destination, if you want to use the autopilot, you have to switch back to "NAV" (as well as setting the ILS frequency and the runway heading), and eventually the "APPR" button to intercept the glideslope. If you have problems, state here which specific plane you are using and someone will happily walk you through a whole flight. Henri

groentesoep, the 400 does not autoland. One has to turn off the autopilot just before landing and land by hand (and it is one of the hardest planes to land properly due to the small wings). However the FMC is simple, and if you use Ideal Flight to prepare your flight, it will prepare the flight plan and it can be copied into the FMC directly using the "copy" function. Henri

Fly in the rain? Henri

Anone else having difficulty taxying at night with the Q400? I can hardly see the runway and mostly cannot see the guide lines at night. The bue lights are hard to follow. Any suggestions? henri

I have no problems hand-loading a FS Commander flight plan with SIDs Stars and transitions into the Q400 FMC. As some have mentioned, it can happen that a certain waypoint (including the ILS frequency) will not work with the Q400, because the latter uses its own AIRAC database. But I have had it happen only once. FS Commander DOES allow visualisation of SIDs STARs and transitions, for example one clicks on "transitions, sids or stars" on the "sid star transitions" menu the on "select" and the trajectory of the sid, star or transition will appear on the map. Click on "add to plan". It could not be easier. Here is the whole procedure for a plan: 1) Press "new" on the flight plan menu. 2) type the starting and ending airports on the top line of the plan, for example "EGKK EHAM". 3) Choose a SID, STAR and Transition as described above. A short version of the pln will appear above the detaied flight plan, and the former is all that is required to enter into the FMC. Henri

Despite the media hoopla, there remains a basic fact. The pilot is the person most responsible for his plane and the safety of his passengers, so in cases like this, it is normal that his name be first on the list of POTENTIAL suspects. No one has yet accused him, and it took days for his simulator rig to be siezed for the unlikely possibility that he had recorded flight plans on it that could correspond to this case. One question that I have no heard is whether or not there was a second crew on the aircraft. There is considerable sleeping and loitering space on the 777 for a second crew, so it would probably be useful to know if someone was there. Another question I have not seen on CNN is given the accuracy of the PMDG 777, whether an amateur could learn enough from that simulation to fly the plan after it had been taken over by terrorists. Also that could explain why the plane flew for some hours after deviation and perhaps crashed, if such an amateur pilot was not as competent as he believed, a possibility that has not been discussed as far as I know. Henri

I have the same problem with the Rotterdam EHRD ILS localizer ILS 24. The default FSX aircraft see it but not the Q400. The frequency is the same as FSX in Plan G. Does the above mean that the Q400 has its own database of frequencies? The above seems to say that there is a file somewhere with the right frequencies for the Q400. Where is this file located and how can I find the frequencies for the Q400? Henri

I am not sure I understood your question correctly, but the Los Angeles scenery goes way beyond the city,for example all the way down through Long Beach (the ads should say), and about a dozen airports are covered. I am not sure how well it matches with other city or airport scenery. I have only San Diego in addition in that area in Calif. However I do have FScene and Ultimate Terrain, and that meshes perfectly with the LA addon (actually I think that the LA addon just goes over it and masks it. Henri

Just for your information, I just did the KSAN-KLAX flight and it went perfectly. I had changed the runway from 07 to 24R, and the program had immediately generated a new plan with a perfect approach to runway 24R. When I turned into almost the runway heading, I turned from GPS mode to NAV, pressed the APPR button (this was on the default Baron), and the autopilot landed the plane (I took control just before touchdown) for a perfect landing giving me a 100% score after I parked. Just to see, I pressed the new mission button and the program generated a flight plan to St Louis Obispo. I checked the approach map,. and indeed, the plan lines me up with the runway once again. So once one has done a flight, generating a new random flight with a complete flight plan within the limits set up previously is really a one-button job (I have it set up for a max one hour flight)! Henri

YAHOO!...It looks like you put your finger on it. I changed the approach leg times to minutes instead of seconds and generated the flight from KSAN to KLAX and this time, the flight plan showed a nice curve at the end finishing up directly in line with runway 7. So now all Ihave to do is follow this with the GPS and either land by hand or change to NAV mode and APPR as the plane lines up with the ILS glideslope. I had assumed that the default leg values that came with the game (I bought it last night) would have reasonable values, but the leg times were all less than 5 seconds, which is why all the approach waypoints were all bunched up. The truth is that I had not even looked at these values until you mentioned them in your last message. Sorry about the trouble and thanks for the help, but I suggest that you change the default values to minutes instead of seconds when the program installs toavoid noobs like me from pulling out their hair. And congratulations on your very fast response time. Now I am off to generate another flight!... Henri

I do have "computed approach" on. I have tried a number of different flight plans, all with the same type of result, i.e. essentially a direct beeline for the destination airport with the additional waypoints apparently all at the same place at the end of the runway. Here is an example flight plan for KSAN to KVNY (the flight plan of course has much more than this, but this is the problematic part for me). Route: KSAN KVNY Waypoint Region Name Heading T(m:s) Total Leg(Nm) Alt(ft) Min Route Airport KS KSAN 0.7 44:26 - 108.2 15 3000 - Waypoint - APP5 322.3 3:29 0:44 9.0 22000 5000 AP16R Waypoint - APP3 265.6 0:02 0:48 0.1 4300 5000 AP16R Waypoint - APP2 205.7 0:02 0:48 0.1 4300 5000 AP16R Waypoint - APP1 161.5 0:03 0:48 0.1 4300 5000 AP16R Waypoint - TDWN - - 0:48 - 774 5000 AP16R Airport KV KVNY - - 0:48 - 774 5000 - Aircraft Situation: Parking 1013 Depart: RWY 09, TORA 9394ft, ALT 15ft, HDG 0.7°, ILS 111.55MHz Arrive: RWY 16R, LDA 8012ft, ALT 774ft, HDG 161.5°, ILS 111.30MHz Note that the last 4 waypoints are all located at the same place 0.1 nm from the destination (the end of the runway), and the flight does not seem to follow any STAR, as was the case for KLAX. Oh well, I can always make a flight plan in minutes with FS Commander, save it and load it into FSX and have a flight plan with a SID, a STAR and a TRANSITION. Unless there is a bug, I don't understand how this version is any more useful for flight planning than simply doing a direct -to GPS flight plan between two airports with the FSX planner, except of course for the other bells and whistles (that are not negligible). Henri

I don't have it here, but I will check tonight. I used the plan type with approaches, but I don't remember seeing near the bottom, "computed approach", somaybe that is the problem. As I remember, I only chose KSAN and KLAX as start and end airports, the aircraft was the Pilatus PC12 (no FMC). I chose the plan type with approaches, and do not remember doing anything else but generating the flight plan. Since it gave me runway 7 I preferred coming fromthe East, I edited the plan to arrive at runway 25L or 25R (not sure which) and recomputed the plan, which I think had only one waypoint between KSAN and KLAX (forgot the name), and a bunch of additional waypoints near KLAX arriving at the end of the runway along the line KSAN-KLAX. BTW I just realized that I was using "STAR" to mean both STARs and Transitions, maybe that is part of the problem, since the program ads do not mention supporting TRANSITIONS (from the end of the STAR to the end of the runway). Some STARs are far from lining up the aircraft with the runway and most cut off a fair distance from the airport. Of course planes with a FMC make it easy to add a transition to the flight plan when a STAR is chosen), but planes that use the FSX flight planner have neither a STAR nor a TRANSITION. Am I to understand that the augmented IF adds STARS but not transitions? If that is the case, it seems to me that the old way of leaving the "beeline" FSX GPS straight route to the destination airport some 30 miles away from the destination in a direction appropriate to intersect the glideslope would be easier than using a STAR (albeit losing one's pilot licence in the process in the real world). Henri

The Pilatus PC 12 has no FMC, and I was not using ATC, so I was following a GPS route put into the FSX planner by the IF program. But as I said this route did not line me up with the runway (the "correct" direction) but intersected the end of the runway at about 45 degrees. I know that in real life the ATC would be used, or that I would ask ATC for permission to use the STAR if I already programmed it. Since the Pilatus has no FMC, I don't know what you mean by " the procedure given by the ATC". Do you mean that talking to the ATC would actually change the FSX route as I near the destination? In the previous version of IF (as with the FSX flight planner itself), as I neared the destination, I would have to deviate from the route and change from GPS to NAV so that I could interset the glideslope at a fair distance from the runway. I don't understand in what way this version is different, except that it added a few useless additional waypoints. What I WOULD expect IF to do is plot a route to say, POM or another waypoint that is on the runway centerline at least 10 miles away, after which additional approach waypoints would follow the runway centerline with recommended altitudes. Maybe I am doing something wrong? The manual says nothing about how to use STARs and SIDs. Henri [edit] I wrote the above before I read the previous message. In the above example, the FAF for LFPD seems to put the aircraft in the right place to intercept the glideslope about 5 miles from the runway, which was not the case for me. Could it be that it screwed up the plan because I changed the runway? Anyway I will do more experimentation to see how it works.