What is PTD and what does it do? :-?

Jared_Maurtua wrote on May 20^th, 2012 at 3:02am:

What is PTD and what does it do? :-?

It allows you to leave your flightin progress (like if you need to go to bed), and when you come back, the Flight Simulator is paused (often 10-20nm before the TOD) and allowing you to prepare and continue the rest of your flight. Captain Sim don't have this feature on any of their aircraft for FSX (I don't know about their FS9 aircraft as I never bought any), but many have asked for it.

Hope that helps explain it.

Mark

That's actually a secret feature which was planned for the upcoming SP3 of FSX. It should include 'pause at bad approach', 'beer at cruise' and an automated response to 'wife says dinner is ready' too. Seems like they had something big in mind. There are rumours that some of those features are used in rw flying too, but you didn't hear that from me, ok?  :o

CoolP:

Your points, of course, are well-taken... ;D...

In my experience, even though I press the attendant button (of the most sophisticated voice-activated multi-crew experience expansion packs available these days), no dinner materializes from the galley (although voice-confirmed promises are made).

In fact, your 3rd possibility overrides... ;)...

More seriously, I did look for a PTD utility once when I forgot to pause my (LNAV+VNAV) active long-haul flight (on my arm-chair, mind you). When I returned a couple of hours later, the (gear-less) aircraft was found stuck to the ground in the vicinity of the DEST airport. I can only imagine the last few minutes(?) of the flight while the plane gallantly must have tried to follow the FMC instructions to reach its intended STAR and ILS RWY!

BTW, some like-minded virtual flyer had created an utility (aptly called "iwillbeback.zip") on avsim:

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=24428&Name=&FileName=&Author=&CatID=root

However, this being dated back to 2002 (and for FS2002), I've not tried it....

Good catch on the tools at Avsim. There's another one, but I haven't tested it. http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=BeThere!&CatID=root&Go=Search

Quote:

This package contains the BeThere! gauge. It lets you pause the flight simulator once the aircraft reaches a certain position. This is useful for long range flights where the pilot wants to leave the flight sim unattended.

Quote:

In my experience, even though I press the attendant button (of the most sophisticated voice-activated multi-crew experience expansion packs available these days), no dinner materializes from the galley (although voice-confirmed promises are made).

Looks like a limitation of FSX to me.  ;D Lets keep an eye on that one.

windycityflyer, pressing the flight attendant button in the real aircraft produced the same results.  :o

Often times, my wife brings me a "crew meal" consisting of healthy stuff like fruit or the like. One time I even got a dish of ice cream!  8-)

My PWB (pause whenever button) always works with all aircraft and situations, even Captain Sim planes!  :P

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/6/12205270.png

In the past one of the real flights I flew was New York to Cairo or Tel Aviv which is a long flight in any plane.

One evening, just a short while ago, I fired-up FSX, and loaded the flight plan in the FMS and took off for Cairo. At TOC in made sure all the systems were looking good. I left the computer running and the plane on autopilot and went to bed. Next morning I checked the progress. All was OK! I had breakfast, and sat down just about TOD and finished the long exhausting flight!  ;D

Lou

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Nice keyboard, Lou. Seems like our FSX rigs look the same.  :D http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/droolicious/2009/03/FisherPriceLaptop.jpeg

Thanks for sharing this incidence/experience, Lou.

Surely, gives us wannabes the proper perspective... (in spite of all the realism we can muster)...:)....

[CoolP: Will give the FSX Gauge a try one of these days...Thanks.]

windycityflyer wrote on May 20^th, 2012 at 12:27pm:

CoolP: Your points, of course, are well-taken... ;D... In my experience, even though I press the attendant button (of the most sophisticated voice-activated multi-crew experience expansion packs available these days), no dinner materializes from the galley (although voice-confirmed promises are made). In fact, your 3rd possibility overrides... ;)... More seriously, I did look for a PTD utility once when I forgot to pause my (LNAV+VNAV) active long-haul flight (on my arm-chair, mind you). When I returned a couple of hours later, the (gear-less) aircraft was found stuck to the ground in the vicinity of the DEST airport. I can only imagine the last few minutes(?) of the flight while the plane gallantly must have tried to follow the FMC instructions to reach its intended STAR and ILS RWY! BTW, some like-minded virtual flyer had created an utility (aptly called "iwillbeback.zip") on avsim: http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=24428&Name=&FileName=&Author=&CatID=root However, this being dated back to 2002 (and for FS2002), I've not tried it....

I have used a gauge called BeThere! that works as promised (FS9 & FSX):

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz155/fsxpaul/FSX/Screenshot.jpg

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=bethere.zip&CatID=root

The only piece of info you need is longitude & latitude for input into the gauge as a reference.
Then you input the off-set distance from your reference and then arm it.

The easiest lat & long to use would be your destination airport and then off-set maybe 150 nm or so.