OnCourse Software

First off - please consider this just a question for discussion...not a criticism.

For departure - IFR and VFR radar monitoring - what drove you to utilize a 'fake' frequency rather than using the actual ATC frequency for the area the aircraft is operating in?

Few relevant use cases from recent flying.

US: IFR departure in southern California will give me generic departure frequency which then transitions to a real approach/center - like LA Center or SOCAL Approach. IRL we'd be pushed directly to that real controller and skip the middle man.

US: VFR departure - after departing from the airfield utilizing the local unicom or tower frequency as appropriate we'd likewise just jump straight to the relevant approach/center frequency. The agency we'd do flight following with is the same that would provide IFR services. Not sure if there are VFR radar service providers exclusive to IFR services in other parts of the world.

Australia/PNG: With a few exceptions there isn't a radar approach/departure layer outside of the biggest airfields so you'd be operating via 'own-navigation' using established procedures until you are either picked up by a center radar or proceed voice-only for situational awareness in areas where there isn't radar (majority of PNG).

So i leave you with the question. What programming/design decision led to the use of a 'fake' departure (and by extension...approach) controller?

Cheers, mike

PS - and once again - PF3 is by far the best ATC out there short of using a human ATC controller service like VATSIM (which is a bit of wild-wild west at times) or PilotEdge (which is cool but very geographically limited). PF3 provides a consistent experience ANYWHERE...ANYTIME!

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the feedback... certainly food for thought going forward.

Quote:

So i leave you with the question. What programming/design decision led to the use of a 'fake' departure (and by extension...approach) controller?

Wish I could remember but it's nearly 17 years since I first started working on this I think back then it was a bit hit and miss if we always got a Dept frequency. I'll certainly look into changing things to use the FS freq for departure

17 YEAR!?! Wow - good for you. A labor of love. I figured that may have been the case - ensure there is a frequency to use just in case one wasn't easily extracted from the FS database. Keep up the good work!

Addressed in 3.18.0

BRAVO!!!

It 'may' not give you 'exactly' what you want as there are many airports in the MSFS database with no Departure frequencies at all. In those cases we use an Approach frequency... the last in the list if there are multiples.

Does this new feature apply to P3D as well?

Yes... all FS versions... FS9, FSX. P3D and MSFS

That's great! Thanks