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This is bound to have been asked before because it seems a pretty basic problem but.....

 

Very often when wanting to start a flight I don't get any ATC options other than "Turn on prpgressive taxi" when what I actually want to do is ask for taxi clearance. The only thing I can do is taxi without permission,  take off and wait for ATC to get pissy with me because I don't have permission to takeoff. I've tried swapping back and forth between ground and tower channels but I still get no options pop up. Is there either a way to get them to talk to me OR an alternative ATC prog that actually plays nice with others. I've seen 'VOX ATC' advertised but as I do a lot of my flying late at night, using voice ATC would wake up the household.

 

TIA

Steve.

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I'm going to just guess here if that's alright.

 

First is do you start from a saved flight that might have some of the ATC communications already completed? That's were ATC will start from each time you start that flight, from the last contact.

 

Have you changed the original default flight that FSX starts with and have you initiated any ATC communications as mentioned above before the save.

 

Does this happen at all airports big and small.

 

Did you not complete a full takeoff or landing at an airport and ATC is stuck. Try closing out of FSX completely and then restarting at a different airport and aircraft.

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Hi Brett. What I usually do is fly to an airfield/airport, taxi to parking, shut down the aircraft and save the flight. Then next time I go back to that saved flight so I have a cold and dark aircraft. I make a new flightplan using my current location as the start point, start her up and away I go. Sometimes ATC works as it should and other times it's like they're asleep on the job until I takeoff and then they start whining at me for taking off without clearance.

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Sounds like fun, I have a few saved flights like that.

It's important that you complete the ATC instructions as far as where to park. Do you park where required by ATC ground because if you do not go to the required parking spot, ATC thinks you have not finished and will not start from the next sequence.  

I have found any deviation will mess up ATC and not complete the sequence it follows. I have the same problem with doing a touch and go at an airport and then moving on to another airport. ATC still thinks I want to do another t&g and will not let me move on to find the next closest airport.

I can only suggest reloading the flight from that point to regenerate ATC from scratch again as if you never have been there before.

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Thanks Brett, that may be it. I always go to the parking area I'm told  such as "general aviation parking" but not necessarily the exact spot because I tend not to use the progressive taxi markers if I have an airfield chart. I'll make a point of going to the exact parking spots as indicated by the progressive taxi markers and see if that helps.

 

Thanks again, mate.

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This is a very good discussion, and I have just one thing to add:

 

Coincidentally, yesterday, I experienced a lack of functioning options on the ATC menu, myself. I had initialized an old flight that I had not flown since the time that I had saved the flight. When I tried to tune to clearance in my C-130E, I found that I couldn't. The reason for this was that, when I had saved the flight, I had turned off the Com radio. Turning on the Com radio re-enabled the ability to tune to clearance.

 

Dan

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That's a good point I'll need to check on, Dan. There's been a few times when I've shut down the aircraft and even though officially cold and dark, the radio was still chattering away. I've had to switch off the radio even though it already is. This would maybe confuse things when I start her up next time and the radio appears to be on even though it isn't. I'll have a play and see what happens.

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For an enhanced ATC experience, if you're willing to spend some money for payware, consider Radar Contact. Yeah, it's old but it works well and once you've experienced it you will not want to go back to stock MSFS ATC.

 

John

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Oh no! Now we have a choice of more than one ATC alternative. These both seem geared more to the heavies than the small-fry I buzz around in, though. How do they cope with the small stuff and the VFR guys in these progs?

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There's a latest version of RC, tell me more! I have 4.3 and I thought that was it? Or is that still the latest. Reviewed by John http://www.mutleyshangar.com/features/jda/rc4.htm John mentions in the conclusion that V5 was under way?

 

Pro-ATC is more for the heavies, I am trying to program it for use with GA type aircraft but it seams to insist on a published flight plan with SIDs and STARS so VFR is out of the question

 

Joe

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Latest version is 4.3, sorry. :( Didn't mean to get your simamine's flowing Joe. I meant the original version did not support VFR originally and then it was later added in the later version from what I was led to understand.

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As far as I know, RC does not support VFR, other than to offer you the option to cancel IFR - it then tells you where you are, instructs you to squawk 1200 and folds its tent, leaving you to your own devices.

 

When using RC you must follow IFR procedures, have a flight plan, etc, but there's no reason you cannot fly it in VFR weather. After a few flights it's pretty easy to use. It is suitable for GA aircraft as long as they are capable of radio navigation. You designate the route of flight, cruise altitude, cruise speed, etc, so light aircraft are not an impediment.

 

Unlike the real world, you ALWAYS get the route you file for, without changes, though you can deviate enroute if you wish to - the menus allow you to request deviations of various types (.e.g. divert to an alternate airport, skip a waypoint, proceed direct to a fix, request a different approach or a different runway, etc.) Requests for such things are almost always granted, sooner or later.

 

John

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I might have jumped the gun on my original statement, at least it is GA friendly. I believe the not yet released(delayed for some time)version 5 was supposed to include that option.

 

Glad your back John  :thum:

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Version 5 has been in the works for at least five years and the developer has long since said he will no longer even answer support forum posts asking when it will be ready for release.  He says it will be ready when it's ready, or words to that effect. 

 

In the meantime, version 4 is pretty much bug-free and works well with FS9 and FSX.  Though there are some additional features that we'd like to see become available, it's infinitely better than MS ATC, is not broken and is still a good value for the money. 

 

Happy to be back, Brett.  Vacation is good, but so is home when it's over.

 

John

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RC4 is the way to go... it totally changes the experience, also you can IFR train with it and it makes you fly the published missed.

 

One thing I will all ATC client would have is the ability to say unable or to reroute you for a myriad of reasons, the real world does it, aren't we trying to emulate that?

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