This Topic was moved here from General Discussion by ShaneG.

Wow!
The reason i came here was to get some real answers, if i wanted sarcasm i would not have come here. 

Thanks for nothing!

Mrgothere,

I'm one of 'The Few' who still use FS 2002, so I'll see if I can help you out a little:

1) ATC will give you just a couple of basic departure options, based on its default ACTIVE departure runway. I find when taxiing to different RW's and hit ATC it'll just give me departure options from the active RW. In order to get altimeter and field conditions you need to use the ATIS function on the ATC.

2) As far as why ATC gives you contact options for the Bay Area instead of LAX I couldn't tell you. I'll have to check that one out for myself. I do know that when I take off from my local airport ATC will give me the options for contacting most of the airports in the general area, even though my flight plan doesn't fly past them.

3) In my experience, if I don't use ATC at all during the flight I won't be contacted by them. It's only when I initiate the ATC call (flight following, etc.) that I'll receive ATC info, based on the type of flight I'm doing (VFR vs. IFR). If you file an IFR departure ATC will track you to some degree (I think... I don't fly IFR too often).

4) The Map info you receive about an airport is general information only. Frequencies, Long/ Lat. & that's about it.
The reason ATC is vectoring you to a different RW than the one you want is because FS is using its default active RW for departures & arrivals.

5) The green line on the GPS is the track you're flying. If you deviate from the heading in the GPS, it'll tell you how far left or right of the planned course you've deviated from.
Bear in mind that as you approach the airport, the GPS won't line you up with the runway; it just gets you there. You'll have to set up to land on the appropriate runway you want. An airport chart will help immensely for this.

Whenever I fly, I usually keep my browser open and have a link to www.skyvector.com, which is a great resource for flight planning. you can click on an airport and it'll give you all the information you need about altitude, RW headings, departure & arrival plates, etc. You can also get Sectional Maps which will give you all of the route information you need, as well.

One thing to keep in mind is that in the real world, having airport charts and flight plan info at hand is part of this wonderful passion of flight. The more info you have, the more enjoyable your flight will be.

FS 2002's ATC & GPS leave something to be desired, but it's a good start to immerse you in the experience. If you keep a couple of charts close at hand for where you're flying, it'll help out even more.

Don't get frustrated... you'll get the hang of FS 2002's quirks and be flying like an old Intruder jockey in no time.

Hope this helped!

Alan

P.S. It's good to see another FS 2002 user here... we all have to stick together!

I'd say part of the resurgence of FS2002 maybe because of me. I could never get used to the new spot plane view thats been used in the last too flight sims that I always went back to FS2002.  Silly isn't it but whenever I would take off in spot plane view the view would always rotate to the bottom of the fuselage and it bugged me.  In FS2002 and the sims prior it wouldn't do that.  Still didn't stop me from forking over another $150 to Microsoft!

MIKE

Northwest 102 wrote on Mar 10^th, 2010 at 3:05am:

Hi Mike. I've seen this view difference mentioned before but can't say I've noticed it. Perhaps it's the way you set it up. What you describe sounds more like Chase View. I've had every version of MSFS since FS98 & all except FS2000 are still installed on my PC. The Spot View is exactly the same in them all.  I always use the HAT on my joystick to pan views.

Yeah I don't get it with that view.  If the view stayed the same I would keep upgrading but for sime reason when I take off the spot plane wants to pan to where I'm looking at the underside of the plane and I can't tell what my angle of attack is.  If I could post a video of what I'm dealing with I would but I don't know if that's possible or even know really how to do that but I think you get the piture of what I see vs FS2002 and before.  I use the keyboard for control.

MIKE

Northwest 102 wrote on Mar 10^th, 2010 at 6:33pm:

I think that explains it. I strongly recommend treating yourself to a joystick with separate rudder control & HAT.