However, I do IFR flying at times. Due to the inclement weather here in California, I’ve been doing some IFR flights.
I have now done enough of IFR flights since SU14 released that I am noticing a pattern here that is frustrating, and I wish was different. I am always being assigned vectors to final approaches. This did not used to happen prior to SU14. Yes, I did occasionally get vectors to final, but now it’s all the time. With the way that vectors are so poorly handled, this not ideal; not to mention that there are plenty of non-vector approaches that ATC could assign. Fortunately, I can ask for a different approach most of the time, but this is a cumbersome process and I’d rather be assigned a more appropriate approach by default.
I have had Options > Assistance Options > User Experience > ATC Enforce Flight Plan > OFF. Is this the cause?
What are most of you, who regularly fly IFR, experiencing and how have you set that assistance option?
When you do that, will traffic also follow the same?
I’m envisioning taking off/landing on the runway opposite to all the traffic, because of this…
This entire ATC thing is such a hot mess. I signed up for VATSIM and have passed my test, but no one is ever active where I fly. I need to be English or Dutch or something…
Yes, for the most part, they do.
I do use the into the wind runways, but I plan through Simbrief.
Occasionally it gets backwards, but that’s probably because I’ve altered what Simbrief selected.
Sorry for the delay, my good friend “Oops” keeps showing up…
Anyhow, I tried again with the assistance setting altered to ON.
This time, however, I never received an approach and was, subsequently, not handed off to the tower and was 5000’ above the airport at 10 miles out.
How do I get this ATC to work with an IFR flight plan imported from SimBrief?
As far as I understand an approach isn’t selected by SimBrief. Again, pre-SU14 this was not an issue for me. I could fly the DC-6, 737, 747, 787, EMB-110P, ATR, BAe 146 and use SimBrief and the default ATC without much issue. Now, I can’t get it to cooperate, at all.
How am I alone here, because I’ve found no other thread complaining of this.
I just ensure the runways simbrief suggests agree with the current metar, and then let Simbrief build the plan.
I then take note of what sids and stars Simbrief has used.
Import it to MSFS, and then in the World Map Planner I ensure I select the Sids and Stars as per the plan.
So I do exactly what @TheSevenflyer does, right down to selecting the approach for the destination in the world map. I use FSLTL and Simbrief so usually the traffic all matches up.
Sadly this is another case where Asobo tried to fix something and made it worse. Seb said in a livestream to turn this “assist” off for maximum realism, I tried that and it doesn’t work at all. If you turn it off it completely ignores STAR and approach you requested, even if the runway still matches. To get this right it should use what you ask for unless the runway doesn’t match and only then assign the new approach.
I tried with it off for a while and eventually realised it’s more realistic with it on. It’s not an assist, it’s an unbreak-me option.
But with it on you have to fully assign the SID, STAR and approach in the world map where that wasn’t really necessary before, otherwise it just doesn’t work, as you discovered.
And even if you do all of this and fly the STAR perfectly, there’s a good chance it will tell you to climb to 12,000ft when 10 miles out, or something equally daft.
I loathe being critical, really, I do, but this kind of “fix” is just hard to understand.
Honestly, the way it worked before was significantly better than the way it is now. Now, it’s as though “automatic” is simply “left blank” and your flight plan is just finished where you left it with zero input from ATC as pre-SU14.
That or all you get are vectors to final approaches. Pick your poison. This is a massive step backwards in an already massively compromised ATC. I’m confused, what did we get for this change? I still have to request, repeatedly, for vectors when it is supposed to be ATC’s job to tell them to me when a course change is required, so that “fix” isn’t fixed, ether.
Yes exactly. IMO there’s more wrong with ATC than there is right, it’s so bad I think the only way is to start over with a totally new design. Same thing with the 250 → 2,000 ft cutoff for level changes which was only fixed for climb and not descent , where it actually matters far more. Developers have all worked with code at some point that adds more bugs every time you touch it than get fixed, from there a rewrite is the only way, this ATC is already there.
The last time I was critical of the ATC I got an official warning, so if I disappear you’ll know what happened!
I think it depends where you fly. In US they will assign a vector to final approach but in other parts of the world ATC will give you other types of approach. I flew to RJCC yesterday and was given ILS Y approach. You can always refuse and ask for a different approach, if available.
I don’t mind getting a vector to final approach but it’s annoying they never give you that vector. You can fly for hours and they will never tell you the vector, you need to ask for it.
It’s not just the requirement that we ask for the vectors, it’s that we have to keep asking and asking and asking and asking, repeatedly, without knowing when that request will result in a new vector.
It ends up feeling so farcical that the whole illusion of simulation is broken.
It’s odd, it isn’t like ATC is incapable of providing instructions to us on their own volition, they tell you to taxi using taxiways, hold short, line up and wait, takeoff, ascend, change frequencies, report other aircraft in sight, descend, expect approach, hand off to tower, receive clearance to land, go around, etc., but they can’t tell you your vectors without being asked? Well, why not?
I totally agree. The state of ATC is a joke. It cannot guide you to vectors on its own, it ignores SID altitude restrictions, it thinks transition level is FL180 everywhere, it tells you to descend when you have mountains on your flight path. I don’t understand why it doesn’t have higher priority in development, in the game focused exclusively on civil aviation? It doesn’t make sense.
