How To...Get Proflight 2000 To Work In FS2002 And FS2004

By Gerard Salden

Proflight 1998 and Proflight 2000 and their wonderful ATC. Who can't remember that? Proflight from AETI was one of the first ATC programs available for Flight Simulator. The unrealistic silence was suddenly filled with pilot and controller voices. No more alone, but a feeling that there where other aircraft around you and that you had contact with controllers, from Clearance to Approach.

Proflight quickly became very popular with flightsimmers. Now you could fly flight plans and would be guided all the way to the destination airport. One of the strongest features of the program was that it contained country dependent voice accents. There where fourty of them, so when flying from one country to the other, not only the controllers where different, also their accents changed. When flying over the UK the controllers had English accents. When flying over France they had French accents. For the US only there where more then ten accents, from north to south.

When FS2002 came out it had an ATC environment built in, with up to ten different controllers and a nice ATC window to see what was happening and what to choose for interaction. Only the features of this default ATC where not that overwelming compared to Proflight 2000 and all the controller voices had American accents. That is not a problem when flying over the US, but when flying over Italy it is less realistic.

From the moment FS2002 came out, multiple people tried to get Proflight 2000 to work in FS2002. About five people claimed that they had it work in FS2002, but lots of others who tried it did not succeed. I am one of those few people who have Proflight 2000 run in FS2002 since FS2002 came out. Together with Game Commander II I use it on almost every flight and I never fly with the default ATC.

When using Game Commander II you interact by speaking to the controllers like they really exist. That puts in so much more realism, You can type commands through short keys, but saying them and getting reactions from the controllers is different.

I know that we have online ATC programs, but for people who do not have a fast Internet connection, or people who like to hear background chatter from other pilots and controllers, this could be an option.

First I will explain how to install Proflight 2000 into FS2002 (and after a couple of months also in FS2004). Then I will tell you how to make an adventure (flight). Then I will point you at three add-ons which can be used with Proflight.

The Installation of Proflight 2000 Into FS2002

1 Install Proflight 2000 and set the setup path to FS2002.

2 Restart the computer

3 Install APLC 1.34 into the FS2002/Adv directory. This is a newer one then the one in the Proflight package

4 Then when starting Proflight set the path for APLC to FS2002/adv

5 Install the voices of your choice.

6 Open a text editor, such as Word(pad) and go to FS2002.cfg file

There has to be the lines: [APL]

CACHE_WAV_FILES=0

If they are not listed add them manually. Important: value has to be 0 not 1!

7 Install Proflight latest upgrade. This will give you some extra very nice features.

8 Now close everything and start the program Proflight 2000.

9 Check the 'Settings Tab' in PF2000 and be sure that path is set to FS2002.

Also check the path to APLC is FS2002 /adventure pad

10 Load a flight plan from Ultimate Airlines, FsNavigator, the FS2002 flightplanner or any other flightplanner which

is compatible with FS2002.

For example name the adventure: 'myplan'... this can be any name you wanted, but to make it easy we use this title.

11 Make the adventure as desired, compile it and close Proflight 2000

12 Go to the default FS2002 folder

Now You will have 'four' new files in FS2002:

a) myplan.pln - You can locate this file in : FS2002/pilots

b) myplan.brf - " " : FS2002/adv

c) myplan.flt - " " : FS2002/pilots

d) myplan.adv - " " : FS2002/adv

13 Copy the myplan.pln and myplan.flt files of the compiled adventure from FS2002 / Pilots/ into FS2002 / flights / myflts

14 Copy the 'adv + brf 'files from the compiled adventure fromFS2002Adventure folder into:FS2002 / flights / fs2Kadv

In this case you search for the files 'myplan.brf' and 'myplan.adv'.

Copy the myplan.pln and myplan.flt files of the compiled adventure from FS2002 / Pilots/ into FS2002 / flights / myflts

15 Start FS2002 and create a flight

Choose the airport and the aircraft from the adventure you want to fly.

After loading close the FS2002 ATC window if it is open. Better is to close default ATC completely.

16 Now go to Select flight

Scroll down to FS2000 adventures

Choose the Proflight 2000 adventure, in this case: 'myplan'

And if desired print the flight plan

17 Click OK and start the adventure. After the first time running it's only choosing the adventure or in case of a new adventure step 10 -16 again.

You can use Dave March's S-Combo (or his wonderful Flight Deck Companion) for additional voices from the crew and the co-pilot. Or in combination with Game Commander for real voice recognized ATC interacting.

When having installed the latest Proflight 2000 upgrade, you will have some extra options as choosing another runway to depart from or another to land on. Also you have the option to request for landing clearance at you own discretion. In the download package I have included an enhanced Command Sheet, as also a Game Commander II.

At the bottom you wil find the link to the download site, where you can download all the additional files you need for your Proflight 2000. Also I have included a new command sheet with all the latest commands. A game Commander II file is also included.

Co-pilot and FMC

One of the nice things about Proflight 2000 is the co-pilot. When setting it to Comm mode it will handle all your frequency changes. In PIC mode it will fly your aircraft regarding heading. In FS2000 that mode will also change you altitude, but not in FS2002. The other PIC modes do not work completely correctly in FS2002. But it is a matter of trying how it will work for you. For me I only use the Comm mode where the Virtual Co-pilot changes the frequencies for me.

Proflight 2000 has an FMC in the package. Unfortunately that is the only one thing that does not work in FS2002. If you try to use it then FS2002 will shut itself down within minutes.

Add-on Utilities

In the download package you will find a Database editor and an ATC voice manager. With the Database Editor you can add or modify runway frequencies, and you can add or modify SIDs and STARs. With the ATC voice manager you can record your own extra voice sets and add them to Proflight 2000.

I hope that I have given you enough information to start using Proflight 2000 again. Although there are other ATC programs out, the features from Proflight 2000, especially all the country dependent accents and the possibilty to interact to the controllers by speech make it it a feast to use.

I want to thank Mike Dolle and Adrian Bew for all the work they have done in order to get Proflight 2000 work in FS2002. Adrian because he was the first that really had it work in FS2002 and Mike because he really tested every aspect of Proflight to see what worked and what not in FS2002.

Download the extra help file. This small batch file, made by Robin Kraak, places the compiled files directly into the correct folders in the FS2002 Flight folder. So no copying by hand from the Adv folder into the FS2K Adv folder inside the Flight folder, but automatically done for you.