ATC seems to be even worse now since SU9. Today I was 100% sure I set a cruising low altitude IFR flight altitude on 8000 feet but was instructed to climb to 260. I cancelled the flight thinking that I must have accidently his high altitude instead, carefully re-programmed the flight and took off only to be told yet again to climb to 260. This ATC is now so broken that its next to useless.
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For me it seems the ATC only respects the altitude if you enter it on the world map.
Whenever you change the route in the cockpit you’ll ask for a new IFR clearance, this results in some random cruise FL being assigned to you.
This has been the case since release.
The whole flight was entered on the world map because there is currently no way to program the flight in the G1000 and get atc to follow it.
ATC Badly Broken in “MSFS 2020”
Fixed that for you.
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The flight was via the world map EGNV to EGPF if anybody wants to see if they too find that ATC totally ignores the cruising altitude and assigns high altitude airway to a low altitude ifr flight.
Hi @anon69344611. I moved your post to the #self-service:atc-traffic-navaids forum where ATC issues are being discussed. I also added an “atc” tag to help with searchability. Hope this helps the discussion.
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If you are using the AGPE1D STAR for EGPF, the waypoint AGPED has a compulsory FL260 crossing altitude. ATC will have you climb (or descend) to that altitude before you can proceed no matter what your cruising altitude is. It doesn’t matter if you are using either Low Altitude or High Altitude charts.
ATC would be “broken” if it didn’t have you climb to FL260.
But if you program the flight in the World map, pick low altitude airways then click AGPED it says altitude 8000 feet so if what you say is true how on earth are we supposed to plan a flight with this sort of inconsistency?
We dont all have charts to plan our flights, we rely on the in game flight planning tool provided and if its going to allow us to plan a low altitude flight with a cruising altitude limit it should not be choosing paths that require a mandatory 26000 foot climb, quite obviously.
What I noticed is that if you set your cruise altitude below 10,000 ft, the ATC goes bonkers and sends you to impossible altitudes instead. This doesn’t apply only for approaches, on the contrary. I had a flight in a Cessna Caravan with 8000 ft cruise altitude. After takeoff, the ATC sent me to something like FL180, then he told me to climb to FL360. In a Caravan, thanks. Approaches are the same, I’m sent up and down, often just one thousand feet but still constantly changing.
However, if you set the cruise altitude above 10,000 ft, I noticed the ATC behaves. I replayed the above flight with 12,000 ft altitude and the ATC correctly instructed me and left me alone afterwards. I’m not sure 10,000 is the treshold but at least this is how it worked for me. I did several flights and all were ok above 10,000. As far as I recall, none of them worked out below that.
I always plan my flights on the World Map and always set my cruise altitude on the Navlog as well.
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Thanks, I will try that and see if it helps. Often ATC has me going up and down like a yoyo
I quickly developed this habit that I fly at 12,000 with GA aircraft, or if I insist on flying lower, I plan the flight but then just cancel IFR with the ATC. I don’t need them telling me dumb things. That way I have my flight path and I fly however high or low I want. I can still use the desired approach, ILS or anything.
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When I installed MSFS2020 (I did have an earlier version for a while and remember the very first iteration of FS) one of my intentions was to recreate the real-life flying that I used to enjoy, and perhaps develop some skills that I had no hope of achieving IRL On the whole, by observing real-life rules about correct procedures, keeping clear of danger areas, filing flight plans and generally behaving in a safe and organised fashion etc, I have been moderately successful. Indeed I’m enjoying “flying” to and around places I can never hope to visit IRL. In this respect MSFS2020 is awesome.
However the one thing that has been a bit disappointing, especially as I used to help operate an air/ground radio facility at weekends and was an R/T instructor, is the shortcomings of ATC. Okay, there are too many variables for it to be entirely accurate unless you use something like VATSIM, but even that has it’s drawbacks, not being universally available at “normal” published times (no criticism intended by the way).
I can see why folk do it, I’ve done it myself, but just “cancel IFR with ATC” would have been a strict no-no IRL, leading quickly to losing the hard worked for and expensive licence, not to mention the safety ramifications. For me it just goes against everything I learned and respected in my time involved in avaition.
But of course it’s only a game, isn’t it? And the current state of “ATC” is just making it a complete mockery of what real life flying is all about. I could just about get away with what it was before SU9 but now? As it happens I’ll shortly be taking a month break from the sim to enjoy another hobby so I’m hoping that when I come back to it, as I surely will, things will have improved.
So come on MS/Asobo, get your act together. And everyone else try to enjoy the better aspects of the sim.
The inconsistency is due to creating an IFR flight plan using a SID with AGPED instead of creating a flight with AGPED.
There are a number of free websites that provide the necessary IFR charts that can be used in MSFS. You don’t have to use any charts to plan your flights but they are very, very helpful.
When creating a flight plan, each pilot chooses between being in total control of where and how they fly (VFR flight plan) versus having ATC control just about every aspect of the flight (IFR flight plan). If a pilot creates an IFR flight plan, they have to follow the ATC instructions. Or cancel IFR.
Using a VFR flight plan, the pilot is in complete control. They don’t even have to follow the flight plan they created! You can create a VFR flight plan with the AGPED waypoint and fly it at whatever altitude you want. If you create an IFR flight plan with the AGPED waypoint, then you have to comply with all the IFR restrictions in the STAR. (Actually, MSFS gives pilots the freedom to do whatever they want at any time or any place…)
There is a misconception that a Low Altitude flight plan is used only at “lower” altitudes and a “High Altitude” flight plan is uses only at “higher” altitudes. This is incorrect. Low Altitude charts connect more airports than High Altitude charts. High Altitude charts have fewer airports than Low Altitude because airliners generally fly between larger cities with airports. There may be duplicate airways on each.
The inconsistency in my view is that it said 8000 feet at Agped, not 26000 feet. If there is a compulsory altitude for a given waypoint the sim should say so.
But I take on board what you say, thank you for the information and help.