22-12-2005, 01:19 AM
REVISED 23 Dec 05
I received my copy of RC4 in the mail yesterday and installed it no problems. I must say that the anti-piracy registration is top notch as
they would only send me a key to the email address that they had on records. I got my key about 12 hours after I send the email to them.
Once everything was installed, RC4 had to build the airport/scenery database. Took about 3 minutes and then RC4 was ready to go. My first flight took me from CYHU to CYJN IFR. This is a fairly short flight but I just wanted to test RC4 out. Turns out the interface is intuitive. My only comment is that you must make sure to disable the FS2004 ATC system. If you don't you'll be getting conflicting clearance as the FS ATC will think that you want to communicate with it.
1st Flight CYHU-CYJN, C172, IFR
For this first flight, I enabled the RC4 radio chatter. This turned out to be a big mistake! Not that the sounds are bad but they are looped
and do not enhance the realism. For example, I was instructed to taxi to runway 06R and RC4 radio chatter had planes lining up on runway 24! A big turn off. I simply disabled that function and no problems there after.
So, I taxied to 06R and got my take-off clearance. At 1000' I was transferred over to departure. This is when I noticed that unlike in Fs2004
ATC, RC4 automatically lets you acknowledge the clearance, switch the frequency and contact the next ATC immediately with a single
click. Cool!
As I approached CYJN, RC4 controller cleared me for the full procedure VOR06. No problem there. Then was switched over to tower
were I received my instruction for landing. One of the things I noticed during the VOR was the thigh vectoring to the inbound radial. While
FS2004 ATC took me out 20 DME from the YJN VOR, RC4 got me to VOR at a decent altitude for the approach.
I landed without any problems and was transferred over to ground where I received my taxi clearance.
2nd Flight CYHU-CYJN, C172, IFR
I did a second flight (same). Except that this time, I purposely did everything wrong. I veered off course and busted my altitude. RC was
quick at having me correct my altitude deviation. However, it didn’t notice that I was 20 miles off track! I also tried to accelerate time 16x.
RC couldn’t handle the load which is normal. But, when I reverted back to 1x, RC didn’t catch that I was 1500’ above my assigned altitude. I terminated the flight at that point.
3rd Flight CYUL-CYYZ, B734, IFR and lots of traffic
I did a third flight today flying from CYUL (Montreal) to CYYZ (Toronto) in the default 737. This turned out the be a thriller of a ride as I set the visibility to 1/2 mile in heavy snow at both departure and arrival with 3 cloud layers between ground and FL350 and winds at 20 gusting to 30.
RC cleared me for taxi to rwy 24L. About 800' from the rwy, the ground controler transfered me over to tower. Tower cleared me to taxi to position and hold and then to take-off with an initial clearance to 6000'. Once airborne and upon crossing 4500', I'm handed over to departure and he immediately clears me to 12'000 and tells me to anticipate a climb to FL190 there after. Sure enough, I get to 10000 and I'm cleared to FL190... all this time I had been flying RWY heading and RC did a good job of vectoring me back to my airway and then gave me crap for not flying my flight planed route! After crossing FL180, my copilot (RC4) prompts me to change my altimeter setting and I'm cleared to FL230 my controler. I purposely levelled of at FL220 and, within about 20 seconds the controler reminded me that I was cleared to FL230. As soon as I acknowledge that yes, I was cleared to FL230 and started my climb again, I was cleared to FL240 (my cruise altitude).
Again, I purposely busted my altitude and the controller got back on the air to remind me that I needed to stick to FL240. I acknowledged and got back down to FL230. This time, the controller was upset. He told me that if I had a problem with my aircraft that I needed to advise him and if not, that I'd better stay on FL240! Sure, climbed back to FL240. About 5 minutes after that little episode, I requested FL220. The controler promptly refused because of conflicting traffic but he told me that he'd be able to accomodate me in another 20 miles! Just as I arrived at the 20 mile mark, Toronto Center asked me to start my descent to FL190 and that I could expect to be cleared to 12000' once I got there. At FL200, Centre got back on the air to clear me down to 12000 with the restriction that I had to reach that altitude by 40DME from YCF which I did.
I was then transfered over to arrival and instructed to descent to 9000 and subsequently to 7000. Upon reaching 7000, Arrival told me to expect vectors to the ILS 33L. About 2 minutes later they told me to turn to 150 and to descend to 3000. At 15 DME, I was cleared to a heading of 240 and then to a heading of 300 and to the ILS once established on the locolizer. At that point I was also transfered to the tower.
Did the approach without any problems until I got to DH. Couldn't see the rwy so I overshoot and went to my alternate (CYTR - Trenton... yes, I know, it's a military airfied!). Anyway, I landed in Trenton without any problems.
This flight was taxing of RC4 because I use Ultimate Traffic with all routes enables and GA traffic. Needless to say that I run FS2004 with 100% traffic so there was heavy traffic leaving CYUL and heavier traffic arriving at CYYZ. RC4 had no problems handling the load everybody feel neatly into place and there was no accident whatsoever! Great.
Overall Impression
After seing the demo videos, I was sceptical about the quality of the sound system (meaning that the flow was too slow). After three flights, I still notice the slowness but it doesn't bother me anymore. At first I could still hear the FS2004 ATC in the background but I corrected the situation by disabling the FS ATC sounds in the FS Sounds menu! At this point, I would say that the biggest drawback is that the airport name database is NOT large enough. I think that it’s limited to about 110 airports which is not sufficient. For all those airports which are not sounded, you get the ICAO ID. So St-Jean (CYJN) is Charlie Yankee Juliet November airport.
Overall, I highly recommend RC4. I think it adds depth to the ATC experience especially when flying IFR. It is very intuitive and easy to use.
The vectoring is tight and well done. It handles emergencies and can vector you to an hold (which I haven’t tried out yet). It also supports alternates and manages AI traffic very well. Also, I didn’t notice any change in FPS when running RC and FsP. On the down side, the sound is not as flowing as FS2004 ATC, RC4 does not give you clear taxi instructions (taxi to RWY 24, not clear A-B-C-F to RWY 24... and the big one: proper taxi clearance and progessive taxi are no longer available.
So, RC4 rates between 4 stars out of 5 in my books
It should be noted that I did not read the manual prior to playing RC4. It's possible that some of the points brought forth above might have already been addressed in the manual!
PS: this is my opinion and not that of this forum. Don't go around saying that Dan is not supporting RC because it's not the case. I just thought some of you would appreciate what I had to say about it.
THERE ARE MORE REVIEWS BELOW... KEEP READING!
Post Edited ( 01-04-06 15:05 )
I received my copy of RC4 in the mail yesterday and installed it no problems. I must say that the anti-piracy registration is top notch as
they would only send me a key to the email address that they had on records. I got my key about 12 hours after I send the email to them.
Once everything was installed, RC4 had to build the airport/scenery database. Took about 3 minutes and then RC4 was ready to go. My first flight took me from CYHU to CYJN IFR. This is a fairly short flight but I just wanted to test RC4 out. Turns out the interface is intuitive. My only comment is that you must make sure to disable the FS2004 ATC system. If you don't you'll be getting conflicting clearance as the FS ATC will think that you want to communicate with it.
1st Flight CYHU-CYJN, C172, IFR
For this first flight, I enabled the RC4 radio chatter. This turned out to be a big mistake! Not that the sounds are bad but they are looped
and do not enhance the realism. For example, I was instructed to taxi to runway 06R and RC4 radio chatter had planes lining up on runway 24! A big turn off. I simply disabled that function and no problems there after.
So, I taxied to 06R and got my take-off clearance. At 1000' I was transferred over to departure. This is when I noticed that unlike in Fs2004
ATC, RC4 automatically lets you acknowledge the clearance, switch the frequency and contact the next ATC immediately with a single
click. Cool!
As I approached CYJN, RC4 controller cleared me for the full procedure VOR06. No problem there. Then was switched over to tower
were I received my instruction for landing. One of the things I noticed during the VOR was the thigh vectoring to the inbound radial. While
FS2004 ATC took me out 20 DME from the YJN VOR, RC4 got me to VOR at a decent altitude for the approach.
I landed without any problems and was transferred over to ground where I received my taxi clearance.
2nd Flight CYHU-CYJN, C172, IFR
I did a second flight (same). Except that this time, I purposely did everything wrong. I veered off course and busted my altitude. RC was
quick at having me correct my altitude deviation. However, it didn’t notice that I was 20 miles off track! I also tried to accelerate time 16x.
RC couldn’t handle the load which is normal. But, when I reverted back to 1x, RC didn’t catch that I was 1500’ above my assigned altitude. I terminated the flight at that point.
3rd Flight CYUL-CYYZ, B734, IFR and lots of traffic
I did a third flight today flying from CYUL (Montreal) to CYYZ (Toronto) in the default 737. This turned out the be a thriller of a ride as I set the visibility to 1/2 mile in heavy snow at both departure and arrival with 3 cloud layers between ground and FL350 and winds at 20 gusting to 30.
RC cleared me for taxi to rwy 24L. About 800' from the rwy, the ground controler transfered me over to tower. Tower cleared me to taxi to position and hold and then to take-off with an initial clearance to 6000'. Once airborne and upon crossing 4500', I'm handed over to departure and he immediately clears me to 12'000 and tells me to anticipate a climb to FL190 there after. Sure enough, I get to 10000 and I'm cleared to FL190... all this time I had been flying RWY heading and RC did a good job of vectoring me back to my airway and then gave me crap for not flying my flight planed route! After crossing FL180, my copilot (RC4) prompts me to change my altimeter setting and I'm cleared to FL230 my controler. I purposely levelled of at FL220 and, within about 20 seconds the controler reminded me that I was cleared to FL230. As soon as I acknowledge that yes, I was cleared to FL230 and started my climb again, I was cleared to FL240 (my cruise altitude).
Again, I purposely busted my altitude and the controller got back on the air to remind me that I needed to stick to FL240. I acknowledged and got back down to FL230. This time, the controller was upset. He told me that if I had a problem with my aircraft that I needed to advise him and if not, that I'd better stay on FL240! Sure, climbed back to FL240. About 5 minutes after that little episode, I requested FL220. The controler promptly refused because of conflicting traffic but he told me that he'd be able to accomodate me in another 20 miles! Just as I arrived at the 20 mile mark, Toronto Center asked me to start my descent to FL190 and that I could expect to be cleared to 12000' once I got there. At FL200, Centre got back on the air to clear me down to 12000 with the restriction that I had to reach that altitude by 40DME from YCF which I did.
I was then transfered over to arrival and instructed to descent to 9000 and subsequently to 7000. Upon reaching 7000, Arrival told me to expect vectors to the ILS 33L. About 2 minutes later they told me to turn to 150 and to descend to 3000. At 15 DME, I was cleared to a heading of 240 and then to a heading of 300 and to the ILS once established on the locolizer. At that point I was also transfered to the tower.
Did the approach without any problems until I got to DH. Couldn't see the rwy so I overshoot and went to my alternate (CYTR - Trenton... yes, I know, it's a military airfied!). Anyway, I landed in Trenton without any problems.
This flight was taxing of RC4 because I use Ultimate Traffic with all routes enables and GA traffic. Needless to say that I run FS2004 with 100% traffic so there was heavy traffic leaving CYUL and heavier traffic arriving at CYYZ. RC4 had no problems handling the load everybody feel neatly into place and there was no accident whatsoever! Great.
Overall Impression
After seing the demo videos, I was sceptical about the quality of the sound system (meaning that the flow was too slow). After three flights, I still notice the slowness but it doesn't bother me anymore. At first I could still hear the FS2004 ATC in the background but I corrected the situation by disabling the FS ATC sounds in the FS Sounds menu! At this point, I would say that the biggest drawback is that the airport name database is NOT large enough. I think that it’s limited to about 110 airports which is not sufficient. For all those airports which are not sounded, you get the ICAO ID. So St-Jean (CYJN) is Charlie Yankee Juliet November airport.
Overall, I highly recommend RC4. I think it adds depth to the ATC experience especially when flying IFR. It is very intuitive and easy to use.
The vectoring is tight and well done. It handles emergencies and can vector you to an hold (which I haven’t tried out yet). It also supports alternates and manages AI traffic very well. Also, I didn’t notice any change in FPS when running RC and FsP. On the down side, the sound is not as flowing as FS2004 ATC, RC4 does not give you clear taxi instructions (taxi to RWY 24, not clear A-B-C-F to RWY 24... and the big one: proper taxi clearance and progessive taxi are no longer available.
So, RC4 rates between 4 stars out of 5 in my books
It should be noted that I did not read the manual prior to playing RC4. It's possible that some of the points brought forth above might have already been addressed in the manual!
PS: this is my opinion and not that of this forum. Don't go around saying that Dan is not supporting RC because it's not the case. I just thought some of you would appreciate what I had to say about it.
THERE ARE MORE REVIEWS BELOW... KEEP READING!
Quote:eddy wrote:
Got my key this morning, took them 14 hrs but ok, glad it´s there.
First impression is positive as well. Totally agree with Ryanamur, think it´s worth the money, don´t regret having spent it.
I wasn´t impressed by the sound at first, just like on the video it was bad. However it´s mentioned in the manual and during install that it
might help to disable sound accelaration. And after I did that it got a lot better, it´s still not at the level of the default ATC but absolutely
acceptable.
I´m also a new RC user. Haven´t used any of the older versions, but it´s very intuitive. Lot´s of options that require some reading, but for
me that´s a good thing. Gives the product a lot of flexibility.
And it supports and runs fine with WideFs. That´s how I use it.
Hope this helps
Oliver
Quote:Dutch64 wrote:
Did my first flight from Zurich to Amsterdam with RC4. WOuld love to try an emergency but will keep that to a next flight to see how it deals with that.
First thing i noticed was how well it leads you through your climb and descend, at FL210 it's telling me already i can climb to FL270 for example, i
really love that.
So now and then i hear the fs original chatter but only the conversations about traffic in sight etc. Need to find out where that comes from.
During flight everything went well, i made a little mistake though by setting the altimeter at local pressure too early (at fl 180 instead of 3000 ft
which is the setting used for EHAM) so it kept telling me several times i should keep my FL and after 4 times it mentioned something about getting a
good insurance or so
(After landing this came back in the flight review, it told me again we needed to have a talk about i have to listen to atc)
Vectoring went perfect, so great to finally have a realistic approach instead of the default fs sightseeing.
Remarkable how easy you get used to the "voice problem". After a few minutes I didn't really notice anymore the 'choppy' voices, too busy dealing with
everything and listening what it's telling me.
So far, after 1 flight, i give it 9 out of 10. Not the full score because i still think the voices could be a bit faster spoken and sometimes it
reacts a bit slow to confirmations etc.
It was also my first flight with ASV 6 and that one gets 10 out of 10. Period.
2nd flight:
I chose to fly from singapore to bangkok. Filled the flightplan in RC, checked all the settings (disabled also the atc sound of fs) and requested
pushback.
Everything went fine, it told me to hold for runway 2L. I waited there for a while, lots of arrivals so i decided not to wait and just turn onto the
runway. RC immediately woke up and urged me to stop the plane. I stopped just in time and waited till finally i could line up for take off. All good
and fine, it noticed me in between of a pressure change and i too decided to leave the planned route and after a few minutes it was asking me what i
was up to. It kept asking me that but more and more in a severe way, it really sounded that you should not mess with those guys . It vectored me
back to the original route (great that it shows in the little window where the next waypoint is, heading and distance). Then i decided at cruiselevel
(FL360) to declare an emergency. That was fun, you get a lot of options, like a rage, engine troubles and some more and i decided to choose for
cracked window ( i think it was called like that). It asked me if i wanted to be vectored to the nearest airport. Yes, i want, and so it calculated
the nearest airport for me which was Kuantan, Malaysia. It also immediately told me i could descend at own discretion and it would inform other
traffic around me.(Things were quite hectic so i don't remember the exact words anymore but it was close to that) It did chose a runway for me at the
airport but you can choose another one if you like, you can choose for a visual approach or IAP. It also asked me whether i would like to have
paramedics, fire brigade etc at the airport waiting for me.
It vectored me perfectly to the glidescope for the runway and landed safely The "flight critique" is quite nice at the end of the flight (optional,
you can also just end the rc session)
The only think i keep forgetting is to set the gate at the arrival airport, if you forget that, you are on your own after landing
Till so far my first impressions are very good, really love it and looking forward to have more flights with this addon, i think it will be like FsP
and ASV, never fly without it anymore.
Quote:Drew wrote:
ok, my RC4 quick review, phil you can add to 1st post if you wish.
received and installed yesterday, the key only took around an hour to arrive by email.
Had a small problem with the display, but the FAQ on there site sorted things out quick enough.
Took 1st flight today, the climb is much better than default atc, as when you are approaching an assigned altitude, it gives you the next
level, whereas on default, usually you level off before the next level comes.
inflight, on the atc screen, it shows you the waypoint name, distance to it, and the heading required.
the decend, and vectoring to the runway was perfect, (also in the atc screen it shows the ils frequancy for the runway and the course,
which is very helpful)
All in all, i loved it, far better than the default
Post Edited ( 01-04-06 15:05 )
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