Plan-G manual

[jfail]

On page 69 of the Plan-G manual,step eight of the tutorial states "In FS, you have already selected PARKING 1 - RAMP GA SMALL".

I did not find anything in the previous steps on that page to say that I should start FSX, select a Cessna 172 and go to EGNC, PARKING 1 - RAMP GA SMALL" prior to starting the tutorial.

I find this a little confusing, should I have previously started FSX and selected EGNC etc. prior to starting that tutorial?  Or, is this just an omission in the manual?

I am trying to go "by the book" and read the Plan-G manual carefully.

Other than this minor problem I have found the manual to be quite good.

[tim arnot]

Thank you; As you say, it does appear to be getting ahead of itself. You can of course set airspeed and initial parking to whatever is appropriate to the aircraft of your choice. I'll pass your comment on to the author, to amend the next edition.

[jfail]

I seem to have run into another problem in the manual, which seems to be inconsistent.

Page 71, step 10.  This paragraph indicates that I should be seeing terrain altitudes of 2605, 2994 and 3959 feet respectively on the DEM.  When I move the cursor on to the DEM display (refer to attached screenshot) and on to the first highpoint at 17.8 miles it indicates an altitude of 994 feet instead of the 2605 that the manual appears to be using.  When I moved to the next higher point at 23.8 miles the DEM display indicates 2110 feet as opposed to the manual indicating 2994.  The final point in the manual (which I presume would be the last ridge, so to speak, of the DEM display) indicates 3959 feet, whereas I see 1890 at 24.8 miles.

I checked options to make sure that I have runway dimensions set to feet, which I presume would apply to altitude also.  Perhaps I am totally misinterpreting the manual as opposed to the DEM display.  Right clicking at various points between 18-26 miles of the plan seems to indicate discrepancies between the manual and what is shown for the altitude along those points.

Hopefully, I am simply misinterpreting what I am seeing on the screen as opposed to the manual and need to be corrected.

I really like Plan-G and have spent a lot of time with it and reading the manual very carefully.

[tim arnot]

It would appear you have positioned the Keswick waypoint slightly differently compared to the author, and as a result your track goes over a slightly different part of the hill, which is at a slightly different elevation. It's quite clear looking at the map that you are in an area of rapidly changing elevations, where a few feet either side will give a significantly different elevation, so I can't see how this is a problem?

[jfail]

I did exactly what the manual said to do, Page 70, step 6 "Right click on the name Keswick shown on the map and complete the user waypoint dialogue box".  So I expected that my elevations would be reasonably close to what was shown in the manual.  So the "Problem" is that perhaps the manual should indicate that "your displayed elevations may vary somewhat from the elevations shown in this manual".  Remember I am reading the manual word for word so I would expect that I see the same results as the manual when I follow the instructions.  The manual says click on the name Keswick so I did!

[jfail]

I suspect I am on the track of the problem.  In looking at the flight plan tutorial I noticed that my DEM display is not even close to the displayed figure (Figure 79) in the manual.  I downloaded the DEM files from NOAA as described in the manual.  I suspect there is some problem with the downloaded files.  I placed them in \TA Software\Plan-G v2\DEM folder.  But I find that the file sizes are somewhat less than what the NOAA site says they should be after extraction.  I have downloaded and extracted them several times as zip, gz or tgz files.  They are always 101,250 kb and 126,563 kb after extraction instead of the 103,680 kb and 129,600 kb that the NOAA site says they should be.  I have tried qzip, winzip, jzip and all of them extract to the same incorrect size.  If I look at the compressed files, they are the correct size. 

I'm stumped on this one but I suspect the DEM files are the problem I am having with the Elevations/Altitudes described earlier.

[Peter Dodds]

The tile b10g is the one which covers most of the UK.  It is 101,250Kb in size on my PC, as downloaded and unzipped.  It was that file which I used to create the flight plan in the manual.

The manual text is:
"That is some mountain (in UK terms anyway) 24 nautical miles en route.  Move the mouse pointer and find the highest point of the mountain, the Maximum Elevation Figure (MEF) and the Suggested Altitude)....  You should get 2605, 2994 and 3959 feet respectively."

Revisiting the plan as I write this, On my elevation diagram, I get 2605 at 24nm, (the first of 2 peaks) the MEF (red dotted line) is 3000ft at the scale I have set at the moment, and the Suggested Altitude (the orange solid line) is 4000ft. Those three values are thus consistent with the text in the manual. The minor errors in the second 2 figures may be down to mouse position error and using a different vertical scale now than when I wrote the manual.

My Keswick waypoint is at 54.60031128 latitude and -3.137969971 by the way.

The plan of course is intended to be illustrative of the technique rather than to be accurate to a few feet.  Perhaps a health warning is needed  in the next version of the manual as you suggest.

I will look at the point you make about page 69. It is all too easy to skip vital points when familiar with a subject - a complaint I am always making about other manual writers!  :)

Peter
Plan-G Manual Author

[jfail]

Thanks for the reply Peter.  Very informative and I appreciate you taking the time to work with me.

I guess my tiles are ok then since they are the same size as yours.  I cannot figure out for the life of me why my Terrain DEM display is so different than yours (see attached screen shot).  I have examined it very carefully to make sure it conforms to your figure in the manual.  Now that I feel better about the terrain files I will look even closer to see what I am probably doing wrong.

My Keswick waypoint is at 54.6026992797852 & -3.13316345214844

Pretty close to each other.

I should mention that I lived in SouthWest Colorado for several years and am very, very familiar with the elevations etc. there.  Many 11,000 foot peaks and low valleys there. Plan-G, DEM etc. are right on the money and work perfectly showing correct elevations of peaks etc. in that area.

Don't get me wrong Peter,  I certainly have no complaints of any kind about the manual.   It is excellent.   I just got stuck on these points and wanted to clear them up for my own education.  I considered a few payware flight planners and I thought Plan-G was better than all of them.  I sent Tim a couple of donations to help out.

[jfail]

Hi Peter and Tim.

I think I have finally pounded into my hard head what I was misinterpreting with the DEM versus the manual.

When I defined the waypoint at Scafell Pike I expected the DEM display to immediately update with that terrain being showed.  Apparently Plan-G does not update the DEM display until you define the next waypoint beyond that (At least that is what I observed conducting several waypoint tests, I hope I am correct on that?).  If that is indeed the case I would suggest adding something about that to the manual so that dense people like me won't get into trouble.

Also I was neglecting to add my flight altitude to each of the waypoints along the way which showed me plowing into Scafell Pike until I added the flight altitude to each waypoint and defined the next waypoint.

I love Plan-G.