ATC automatic approach bugged?

Hey,

When i set ILS Flights and Automatic Approach ATC Tells me to fly away from the destination airport. is this bugged ?

Kind of, yeah. The easiest way around it is to make sure that the last waypoint in your flight plan is the initial approach fix (IAF) for the approach. The problem with that is predicting what approach is likely to be in use when you create the flight plan.

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thanks, another bug. This Sim is full of it when it comes to Autopilot and ATC…

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Why not add your approach to the flight plan directly instead? I always make a full gate-to-gate flight plan with SIDs, STARs, and Approach assigned in the flight plan. So that the ATC always gives me the right instructions.

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Except altitude.

Does that too, at least for me. When I fly the plan I filed in for clearance.

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Altitude works for me. I set cruising altitude for 39,000 ft in the flight plan, and ATC will give me the step climb gradually and assigns me a higher altitude as I reach the assigned ones until they assign me to the cruising altitude.

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One thing I’ve noticed though with the Simbrief plans is, that if I let SB plan the step climbs, sim’s ATC won’t tell them.

I fly at lower altitudes and if I’m at 12,000 feet (as my Flight Plan contains) trying to fly from the bay area to Reno, ATC is constantly telling me to “Expedite your descent to 11,000 feet” which would cause me to collide with local terrain.

If you are flying from the Bay area to Reno the direction of flight rules say you should be flying an odd altitude. Try filing for 13,000 and I bet the online ATC will leave you alone.

Understood.

But even if I’m at the wrong altitude, wouldn’t it be better to suggest a “climb to 13,000 feet” where the air is clear… instead of “Expedite your descent to 11,000 feet” where the ground is solid?

Just Sayin’

With real world ATC that’s what would happen. They would inform you of the MEA and/or MOCA of the segment you are on and tell you to climb. The in-game ATC isn’t intelligent enough for that. It doesn’t know if you are capable of climbing to a higher altitude than what you filed so it suggests the next lower altitude.

That is because the flight plans created by SimBrief are not the same as MSFS World Map flight plans. The MSFS World Map flight plans contain waypoint crossing restrictions altitudes and speeds. SimBrief does not. And the last time I checked LittleNavMap did not have waypoint crossing restrictions in their flight plans. They are listed in the flight plan notes but not inserted into the flight plan itself.

ATC acts “weird” giving climb instructions to 38,000 ft when an aircraft is starting the approach. This happens because ATC KNOWS the waypoint has crossing restrictions but there is no altitude specified in the flight plan. ATC has to issue instructions for the waypoint but the only altitude it has is the cruising altitude.

When ATC gives the correct waypoint restrictions, aircraft exit the arrival and enter the approach correctly. When ATC gives wrong altitudes, there is no guidance to enter an approach correctly unless the pilot manually flies the arrival according to the STAR waypoint crossing restrictions.

Is ATC broken? Yes because it doesn’t process non-MSFS flight plans correctly resulting in wrong climb instructions. ATC won’t work correctly until 3rd-party flight plans are changed.

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Yep, I nowadays always generate the SB OFPs without the step climbs. Not seeing any huge issues with the ATC.

I don’t really like using SimBrief OFP to be my main flight plan. Simply because it can’t make a Gate-to-Gate flight plan with approaches setup directly.

I use it for my third-party add-on integrations. But in the Sim I use the default flight plan from the world map. The ATC handles it much better than handling SimBrief imported flight plans.

I also don’t set the step climb altitude. I just went straight to either FL380/390 on my A32NX.

Well, which altitude did you setup in your flight plan? If you set it at 11,000 then the ATC will follow it regardless of the terrain.

You just need to check the flight plan altitude by pressing the Nav Log button just below the Flying conditions with the weather and live traffic options.

If you don’t like the altitude shown in there, just change it. And the flight plan will be loaded with the altitude that you set and the ATC will follow it.

Actually, I use Little NavMap to create my PLN files and then bring them into MSFS.
And I may or may not have chosen the correct cruise altitude, but it was definitely above ground level. I don’t want to keep on about it, but my point is… regardless of what my current flight plan says, the current ATC is not consistent. I can be told to descend and then seconds later told to climb, even if I have heeded their previous request. I can be on approach, and then be told to climb back to a whopping cruise altitude.

Regardless of the flight plan… ATC needs work.

All we are different. First I check my compass heading toward destination, rough number. Then I see what STAR approach keeps me as close to the ILS RW I want to land at in that general compass direction, why, so the buggy ATC dont fly me all over the world before allowing my ILS Landing. I choose that STAR, note, most of the time, MSFS Star names do not match perfectly the FAA/Authority who issued the STAR, so you gotta sort of figure out what convention was used in the sim so you match up. Then I choose the RW ILS I want and set all that up in world map. Please Note:90% of the time, the ATC bugs screw up my approach and ILS landing with some obscure "Ascend to 28000 feet, when I am 10 miles out. I have as well as others have bugged this in Zendesk to no avail. So, I have read, just choose a direct approach and only choose your ILS RW, and things will work better. I have not tested that process yet, just so tired of doing all this work, flying all those miles to have the ATC system cause me to crash because of some obscure call. If I want excellent ATC/ILS Experience, I go into FSX and fly there.

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