PF3 ATC

[cj241101]

Never heard of this but there's a link to it on the latest Flightsim.com news letter.  Does anyone have any experience of using it?  Apparently compatible with all versions of FS back as far as FS2004.  Having watched a couple of YouTube videos it looks very complex with a wide variety (119) of different voicepacks from around the world, SIDs and STARs, just wondering how well it handles AI aircraft.  Particularly in FS2004, still my main field of interest.  Not cheap at USD49 and the voices do come across as rather more computer generated than the default ones but at least they have regional accents.  

[Tom/CalClassic]

I used the old Proflight 2000. It was good, I enjoyed it. As I remember one limitation was they didn’t include classic airline names so I had to customize that somehow. Also, the intensive takeoff to landing ATC direction was not typical in the classic era. I liked the flight plans the program generated, I still have lots of those printed out for easy reference.

[johnhinson]

I use PF3 all the time. It has its good and a few not so good features but it has come a long way over the years. It can be adapted to use ICAO two-letter codes in place of unavailable call signs for AI.

It has come a long way over the years and is far better than it once was. If you look at the support forum it is still being updated with new features.

John

[awralls]

John's point about adaptability is really important. I, too, use it all the time for classic flying. Among the tricks you can use to partially simulate flying in the pre-long-range radar age are:

- Partially remove any centre control. PF3 has the ability to simulate oceanic HF comms where the ac is completely out of radar coverage. Clearly, it's meant to be used for modern oceanic crossings and includes position reporting using SELCAL tones and stuff like that. However, you can just as easily designate a portion of ANY route as oceanic. If I'm flying KMSP-KSEA in 1955 for Northwest Orient, I leave KMSP, climb to cruise and at a predesignated point, get transferred to 'oceanic control'. In effect, I'm out of radar coverage, can go where I want and climb/descend where/when I want. Providing I hit my waypoints within a couple of miles, I'll get position reporting comms. At the appropriate point nearer to KSEA I'm handed back to a 'centre' controller and the flight continues to its conclusion. This is a reasonable simulation of comms in the 50s before centre radar coverage was introduced with simple position reporting being all that was used.

- I can assume an airfield has approach/departure radar control and vectoring as the larger cities did from the late '40s, or if I want to go where no such radar exists, have my route terminate a a local beacon and be told the landing runway and have to make my own way to finals. The local beacon can be set as the hold point with a percentage probability of a hold. I have my own tabular list of hold probabilities depending on destination/weather/time of day and set the hold % when creating the PF3 flight.

It has excellent AI interaction and uses a lot of old airline names with the period-correct callsigns. I was delighted when I first heard "Cappy 311, cleared to finals at pilots discretion, runway 13C" at KMDW!

It's main strength is also a potential weakness; it is so very configurable that it is correspondingly complicated to master. However, I've rarely found things it can't do.

I love the immersion from something like arriving overhead HECA in a BOAC Argonaut to be greeted by ATC controllers with local accents talking to aircraft from airlines of the 50s (They aren't ALL there, but an impressive number are). That simply is not possible with other ATC offers. Dave who produces it keeps updated it as well and is very responsive to suggestions.

Unequivocal recommendation. Also, I think there's a way to try it out before purchasing.

Cheers,

Andy

[Tom/CalClassic]

Thanks John and Andy for the reports. It does sound like it has been nicely updated since the old ProFlight days.

[cj241101]

Thanks for all the replies. Sounds like I'll give it a try.