Several times in both the Cessna 172 and the Piper Coranado while on low altitude IFR atc directs me to higher altitudes than the aircraft performance capabilities. Sometimes refuses request for lower to stay withing aircraft parameters. C172 to 17000 and the Piper to 20000. Flts from Manassas VA to Pitts International.
What is the altitude you file on the world map? If thatâs to high (and it mostly is for GA IFR), then this will happen. If you correct it before pressing âflyâ, then itâs a bug!
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Prior to takeoff the atc altitudes assigned are different depending on that particular flight but they are all assigned and in the profile within the aircraft specs. It is usually mid way through the flight that ATC calls for an altitude higher than aircraft specs. One thing I need to check is that I set the Co-Pilot to handle all communications so I will deselect that and see if that makes a difference.
MODERATOR EDIT: This post merged into this topic.
How come ATC tells me to climb to FL250 in my C172? Impossible! Is ATC that dumb or is it broken code?
Looking at my IFR flight plans, the cruising altitude is set at 38,000 ft. Sending this flight plan to ATC, I am telling ATC that my C172 will be cruising at 38,000 ft. ATC uses the information I sent them, figures I know what I am doing and instructs me to climb above the aircraft service ceiling. If the same flight plan is used for an airliner, there is no problem following ATC climb instructions.
Is there a bug with the ATC allowing me to provide wrong information about my aircraft?
I created a new IFR flight plan with the cruising altitude of 7,000 ft. When using this flight plan in the C172, ATC NEVER gave me instructions to climb above 7,000 ft! ATC never instructed me to climb to 10,000 ft followed immediately by a command to descend to 9,000 ft. I submitted the same flight plan using an airliner. Again, ATC never gave instructions for the airliner to climb above 7,000 ft!
It appears that the flight plan cruising altitude is a hard ceiling for ATC commands. MSFS doesnât do any checking of flight plans to verify it confirms to aircraft limitations. ATC commands conform to the cruising altitude information submitted by the pilot.
**MODERATOR EDIT: This post merged into this topic.**
Many posts here have described the frustration of receiving an ATC command when approaching an airport to âClimb to 10,000 ftâ. It makes it impossible to descend properly for a landing. Sometimes ATC gives seemingly random climb or descend instructions that donât make sense. ATC alternatives are used because of the very high frustration with the âbrokenâ ATC.
I looked at and created various flight plans researching the issue with cruising altitudes. (See Part 1) I created IFR flight plans using MSFS World Map, Navigraph, SimBrief, and Little Nav Map (LNM) using the same departure, destination, SID, STAR, and waypoints. My initial assumption is that all of the created flight plans should be identical and would be flown identically.
I discovered that all of these flight plans were different in minor but important ways. The MSFS World Map flight plan added altitude restrictions (at or above, at or below, in between) and altitudes according to the SID or STAR information. The other flight plans did not contain altitude restrictions although they may have been documented in the detailed flight plan information not sent to ATC.
What about ATC and these flight plans? I used an airliner to fly these flight plans using the default cruising altitude of 38,000 ft. When the Navigraph, SimBrief, and LNM flight plans were used, ATC issued many strange climb or descend commands to random altitudes. This is matches the current âbrokenâ ATC.
When I flew the flight plan generated by the World Map flight planner, ATC gave correct altitude instructions according to the altitude restrictions in the flight plan. ATC did not send random altitude climb or descend instructions. The flight was successfully guided by ATC through the arrival and approach phases to landing.
It appears that using flight plan altitude restrictions âfixesâ the problem with random altitude climb or descend instructions issued by ATC.
Many users do not use the World Map flight planner but load their FMS from their SimBrief flight plan or prefer to enter all the flight plan information manually. I do not know if these FMS flight plans are communicated correctly to ATC.
Apparently the ATC issue of random ATC altitude instructions is fixed if the World Map flight planner is used. ATC remains âbrokenâ if other flight plans do not contain the altitude restrictions needed by ATC.
I will now be using only the World Map flight planner to create my IFR flight plans. The other flight planners continue to be valuable tools for flight planning but their flight plan exports need to be fixed to be usable.
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I gave up months ago. Iâm sure the ATC issues will get fixed some day, but I wasnât interested in waiting.
I bought Pilot2ATC. Itâs fantastic. Route planning and ATC that works like its supposed to. Build a plan and export to the sim. Thatâs it.
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I can confirm this method. Thats how the ATC works quite good. Would be lovely if Asobo would make the ATC read the FMS flightplan instead.
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I pretty much ignore ATC. Land on the wrong runway; keep descending (or climbing) to the altitude I need. Bust right through Class B airspace squawking 1200. I think itâs the rebel in me⊠
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Found this on Reddit
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Even when you set the altitude on the world map, ATC wants you to climb very high. I dont see how a low alt IFR ist possible.
For an IFR flight plan if the cruising altitude is set at 6,000 ft on the World Map Nav Log then ATC will not issue climb commands over 6,000 ft. The exception to this is if there is either a SID and/or a STAR in the flight plan with waypoint altitude restrictions. ATC will issue climb or descend commands for the aircraft to meet the restrictions. SID and STAR waypoint altitude and speed restrictions are printed in the appropriate SID or STAR plate.
For example, an IFR flight plan is created for a C172 using a cruising altitude of 8,000 ft. However the flight plan has a STAR and one waypoint has an altitude restriction of 18,000 ft. ATC will issue a climb to 18,000 ft instruction even though the aircraft is a C172. The STAR contains a note stating, âFor Jets Onlyâ. In other words, a flight plan with this STAR cannot be used flying a C172. There is no automatic checking of the flight plan for feasibility since a flight plan can be used by a C172 or a B747. It is up to the pilot to check the aircraftâs specs with the flight planâs SIDs, STARs, and approaches.
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On my last few flights, when I asked for an altitude increase of a few thousand feet, ATC came up with fantasy numbers such as FL670. I know that ATC in MSFS is far from perfect but this is just ridiculous.
That exactly what happened to me last flight 
i just rage quit 
MSFS has all these different systems in place, but it seems they donât communicate to each other that well. The altitudes that are automatically loaded into a plane (where applicable) are more or less representative. But ATC lives its own life and ignores those, it ignores altitudes set in the Nav Log window, it ignores a plane max altitude, and so on.
There seems to be a lot of miss-communications like this in the sim:
- copilot flying the plane, flies its own altitude, while ATC is begging for another altitude
- copilot flying the plane, ignores most of the time arrival and approach procedures, while in this case, ATC and flight plan in the FMC are correct
- ATC sometimes overrules departing runways, choosing sometimes downwind departures, while wind is shown correct
The same happened with the weather engine (seem more or less fixed now). Weather and Metars were âcorrect in the title screen. Then the flight loads and, boom, no clouds, no altimeter, ⊠Why? The data was there a minute before.
So different systems seems to have different (or no) data sources. Strange for such a masterpiece at other levels.
In any circumstances for ifr I just follow my flight plan with Garmin g1000, shut off the atc in the game options and reactivate atc audio when Iâm on approach, like this I avoid the please climb to fl220 every 30 sec all along the trip when my flight plan require 6500ft, the max alt of my g58 baron is 20600 ft so 22000 ft is impossible, hope ms Asobo will consider this problem seriously but who knowâŠ
While ATC asking for higher than your planeâs ceiling may seem like a bug, itâs not. ATCs job is not to keep track of your aircraftâs ceiling, itâs yours. What MSFS ATC needs though is a way to communicate that you can not comply with those instructions.
What is a bug is ATC asking you to climb higher than your flight plan limits. Low Altitude airways are limited in just about every Country that has them (in the US itâs below 18000 ft.). ATC should not be instructing you higher on a filed low altitude airway flightplan. That is a bugged ATC.
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I get that when I plan a VOR-to-VOR flight in the Baron. Planned altitude is 10000 but ATC tells me to climb to FL260.
Low Altitude charts can be used at any altitude just like High Altitude charts. High Altitude charts are designed for high speed jets and airliners. Low Altitude charts are designed primarily for GA aircraft. ATC will have an aircraft climb to meet waypoint altitude crossing restrictions including those on SIDs and STARs. Note that SIDs and STARs are not on the Low and High Altitude charts.
I think there may be a bug where altitude restrictions in STARs are not shown on the World Map Nav Log, and thatâs one reason pilots are surprised when they receive instructions to climb to altitudes they were not expecting.
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2024 and still having this bug of ATC asking for FL180 with aircraft not able to do that and asking for higher altitude than flight plan.
Boring.