How do you change frequencies so fast?

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

Flew in to KBOS a few days ago, it was awesome with all the controllers.

 

But...there was Center, Approach, Tower, Ground. I'd written down each frequency on my notepad while still en route; however, it is really tough to change frequencies so quickly in the Cessna, and it's moving slow!

 

In fact, approach told me to switch to tower. I responded immediately, but was trying to dial in Tower (took about 20 or 30 seconds) and Approach told me again to switch. I'd heard him, and acknowledged, but it was a taken a minute to get switched over. And of course, once I'm switched over, I still have to rapidly get ground tuned in. Are there any tools available that can make these switches for me rapidly? Some sort of macro?

[Bradley Grafelman]

Well, you can always cheat... I think most (all?) of the pilot clients have commands, e.g. ".com1 123.45". However...

 

Was there ever a moment during the approach where you had several seconds to spare, i.e. you weren't actively engaged in any other task? If so, you could have used those seconds in advance to tune the tower frequency in the "standby" window of your radio. That way, when approach instructs you to switch, it's just a matter of hitting the transfer button.

[Morten Jelle]

I haven't heard of any tool for such things, to be honest. In the real world there are 2 pilots, and that decreases the workload a lot, but in the sim, you are the only one. You can use dot commands in your pilot client. Eg. .com1 123.45

 

Maybe that will make things faster - but I usually just plan ahead, if there are more than 1 frequency for each position online, then I'll just do it when I get the frequency, and then it takes the time it takes. For Tower you can usually just plan ahead, and put in that frequency before you have to switch. Making the switch faster there. Same applies for departure frequencies.

 

EDIT: Another person with the same advice was seconds faster, than me!

[Lindsey Wiebe 1101951]

As stated above, being a real world pilot with 1500 hours IFR flying it's ALL about keeping ahead of the airplane. You do whatever you can to stay ahead. So in your instance, as you were listening to the ATC chatter and the APP handing people to tower you know (99% chance) what TWR freq he is going to give you so plug that into the stby freq window. Once APP gives you that switch over all you have to do is hit flip, listen for a few seconds to make sure you not going to step into an ongoing convo, and make your call. Remember when you switch freq the new controller is expecting you so you can be brief "Boston tower, 098QN, with you ILS 8R". If there is only one TWR freq being used you can look at the pilot client and see what's listed and put that freq in the stby window. You'll get used to it, and you'll learn what you can preplan for. Same goes for Nav radio, when you dial a new VOR and flip it to active, look at the next one so it's ready to go.

Edited July 25, 2017 at 05:31 PM by Guest

[Simon Kelsey]

As others have already mentioned - part of the trick is to plan ahead and get the next frequency dialled in on the standby so that all you have to do is press the flip-flop to transfer it in to the active window.

 

However, one other tip specific to the default C172 that I will give you is that if you are currently changing frequency by clicking/scrolling with the mouse wheel on the tuning knob -- and therefore having to scroll through 25kHz at a time -- there is a faster way .

 

Just hover the mouse over the actual digits on the radio. You can then use the mouse scroll wheel to change the numbers in front of the decimal point separately to the numbers after the decimal point.

 

This means if your standby is tuned to 134.97(5) and you need to tune 119.50(0) then all you need to do is hover the mouse over the digits '134' and scroll so as to set 119.97 - then hover the mouse over the digits .97 and scroll to .50. Much faster than scrolling through everything in between 134.97 and 119.50!

[Jim Hurst 1353723]

Hi Chris,

 

As Morten mentions, it's helpful to plan ahead (once you've gotten a good feel for the procedures and who you're likely to need to talk to -- which mostly just takes practice).

 

I can't speak for any other clients than vPilot, but in that client, you can see a list of the controller's callsigns and frequencies displayed. Also, in your aircraft, you have 4 radio frequencies available (COM1 & COM2 - with 2 "channels" each).

 

So, for instance, you could have CTR and APP dialed in on COM1, and TWR & GND on COM2. At that point, you need only two button clicks to get to the right channel (Comm Select & and Freq Select), knowing that the likely order you'd be contacting them is Ctr, then App, then Twr, and finally Gnd. Of course, it's still relatively easy to mess that up if you're talking on the wrong radio but, that would probably be the "quickest" approach if speed is the goal.

 

Typically though, in actual practice just using the one radio, with the 2 channels is enough -- so, in that case, you'd have CTR on Com1 - Ch1 and App on Com 1 - Ch2. When Ctr hands you off to App, you just flip the Freq Select and check in. Once checked in, you'd then (in a spare moment) put replace the Ctr freq with Twr freq on Ch 1. So, when App hands you off to Twr, once again, all you have to do is flip Freq Select again and check in. Once again, after checking in with Twr, you'd replace the App freq with Gnd, and you'll be set up again, once you land.

 

With a little bit of practice, it's actually *much* easier to do it, than it is to describe it here...

 

Basically, it all comes down to that old pilot catchphrase of: "stay ahead of the airplane" -- that applies certainly in the hands-on flying part, but is also very helpful for the procedures and communication parts as well.

 

I've not used the "dot" command Bradley suggests for setting comms, but I'm sure that would work too, and might even be easier for some to follow. I find the "dot" commands very handy for picking up weather and atis info (.wx & .atis respectively), and I use those all the time, but I use the procedure I outlined above for the radios.

 

Hope that helps!

 

 

Regards,

Jim

 

 

PS> Wow. A bunch of folks chimed in while I was typing this reply -- all with good advice, esp, using mouse hover to change the radio freqs -- I do it that way also, and it is a *lot* faster ... that also works with navaids (VOR, ADF, XPNDR) as well.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

great answers from all, thanks.

 

Ironically, I already DO have the next frequency dialed in to the standby channel; however, the instant I switch over I still need to dial up the NEXT channel (and control airspeed, heading, trim, etc. - with one arm?)

 

I think the best thing I heard above was dialing up the frequencies in to both COM1 and COM2.

 

I'm not using the default C172, but instead the Airfoils C172. It has a radio stack with COM1 in the GPS, and then COM2 in the Bendix radio stack. I can give that a try and see if it works they way I would like it to.

 

Thanks again.

[Dace Nicmane]

I don't bother to tune ground while on final. I may have to go around and contact approach again.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

I don't bother to tune ground while on final. I may have to go around and contact approach again.

 

I never have to go around because of my mad flying skills and my landing priority that trumps all other pilots.

[Nathan Elliott 1278737]

I don't bother to tune ground while on final. I may have to go around and contact approach again.

 

I never have to go around because of my mad flying skills and my landing priority that trumps all other pilots.

 

However, if ATC instructs you to go around for one reason or another you must comply:)

[Robert Shearman Jr]

... or disconnect.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

I'm joking guys.

[Trent Hopkinson]

No need to tune up "the next one after the one after that" frequency till you're ready.

 

Centre sends you to Approach? Just hit the toggle frequency switch (takes about 1 to 3 seconds depending on if you need to pan your view around the VC first)

 

THEN talk to Approach. He give you a heading or descent and QNH, you dial in the Autopilot commands, set the QNH, (Already have at least 2 ILS frequencies for different runway options dialed up in NAV1 because you listened to (or read the text version of) the ATIS before top of descent!)

 

Once the instructions have been read back and dialled into the automation, then have a look at the next frequency. Is it Director/final approach? Tower? It's not like you'll go from initial contact with Approach to contacting Tower in 2 minutes flat.

 

If you have already started descent and have been staring out the window/looking at the magenta line crawl along for 2 minutes and you aren't on Tower Frequency already, then you probably should be doing something like tuning another controller or ILS frequency

[Andreas Fuchs]

What Trent said. It is all about setting priorities. Tuning the next freq is at the end of the list until you got some time to spare: aviate, navigate, communicate.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

Normally you can sort of figure out who's ahead of you on the same arrival, based on the instructions they're getting. When ATC gives them their handoff, that can often be a great time to dial that freq into your COM1 standby, in anticipation of getting the same handoff in the next few moments.