If I follow ATC’s instructions I find myself far too high for the approach. For example, at 10,000 feet when I’m just 20 miles from the destination airport.
I also find that for short flights (e.g. less than 250 miles) ATC wants sometimes wants me to climb to 38,000 feet. This causes me problems descending quickly enough for the approach.
Is this a known issue?
This is not issue. ATC follows your plan.
You your cruising altitude is set when you set up your flight plan.
Re descent, don’t wait for ATC to descend you, calculate your top of descent and request an altitude decrease, they will usually approve it. Another tip, ignore any ATC requests to climb in last 30 miles they are usually due to a ATC bug. Aim as a ballpark to be 3000ft at 10miles out from runway. If you want to see target approach altitudes, toggle on constraints visibility in PFD2. They are mostly sensible although can sometimes be too sudden a change eg 7000ft->2000ft in a short distance. Just use your judgement and tweak your approach descent accordingly. If in doubt, worth checking out approach charts.
Thanks! I’ll try that out. I’ll also take a closer look at my flight plan (generated either on Simbrief or in the World Map) to see the altitude profile. It just looked weird when I was obeying ATC instructions, but I now understand that ATC instructs the altitudes based on my flight plan.
Yeah some planners will have you at cruise alt for <10 minutes. Better off setting a lower cruise altitude to begin with and spending longer there. In world map you have to click on navlog I think to see the cruise altitude and change it. Not sure how simbrief does it but it should be changeable there.
You can of course if you are too high request a cruise altitude decrease from ATC at any time.
The secret with FS2020 ATC is knowing when to ignore it.
Honestly in my experience it’s about 50/50 if they do/don’t. Expedite function does work in the A320NX, but I doubt it’s SOP, there wouldn’t be too many happy passengers if it was. Better to descend when you think you should in a controlled manner rather than take a 50/50 odds (or whatever it is) that ATC does it on time and end up in a race to descend. ATCs job is to approve altitude changes rather than designate them if I understand things correctly.
The default cruise altitude is often set to 38,000 ft for longer flights no matter which aircraft is used. That is why it is important to check it for every flight. It is possible to fly the B747 at a cruise altitude of 10,000 ft.! ATC will honor a lower cruise altitude unless there is a waypoint with a higher altitude restriction.
I set up a flight from Wilmington NC to Myrtle Beach in a C172. I set it up as VFR but when it got cloudy and I asked for IFR routing they told me to climb and maintain 12,000. The whole flight is around 75 Miles and takes about 45 minutes at a speed of 110 Kph. Climbing at 500 ft per minute in a C172 would take me 24 Minutes to reach 12,000 and then I would have to descend. Not sure why ATC gave me that altitude. I have not seen how to establish a cruising altitude when creating a flight plan in the World Map.
When you have your route set, click the Nav Log button just under Flight Conditions. In the next screen, you can change your cruise altitude at the top-right.
The big secret is knowing it’s just expecting you to follow the flight plan you filed, which might suck.
And also knowing that it has stupid coding bugs, and it will expect you to DESCEND from 10K to 8K so you can re-ascend to FL 130, which is stupid, nobody would do that unless there were airspace ceilings and you needed to vnav up down up down to follow the rules.
Pain points:
The joys of ATC. I’m sure there is many bugs for me still to encounter, I’ve not had the wrong airport yet! But I recognise a few there. ATC was desperate to have me at FL210 today on approach to Gatwick EGKK. It seems to be something to do with the transition between the FLs in the flight plan and the STAR, it’s like ATC doesn’t always see the STAR or constraints of the STAR to vector you down to it until you are right on top of it. I just ask for descents then when ATC assigns my runway and I can’t ask for descents any more I just do my own descending to the constraints of the STAR whilst getting nagged by ATC until they eventually agree with me. Definitely bugged.
How do you ask ATC for approval to descend or climb to a new flight level? I could not find such an option. I only seem to get the nearest airport list as an option.
You have to be under ATC IFR control. If you’re seeing the Nearest Airport option, I believe you’re still under VFR flight - but I could be wrong.
This is how I understand it too. Also if you lose your ATC flight following in IFR you start to see nearest airport list appear.
There is no reliable way to get back to VFR flight after IFR is terminated (by ATC because you didn’t respond) or cancelled (by you).
If you start your flight IFR, sometimes you can request VFR, but that never works for me.
Okay, I’ve done a bit more troubleshooting on this issue. It does seem like I don’t have IFR.
Here are a couple of scenarios:
MSFS A320 + World Map full IFR flight plan = Everything works okay
FBW A320 + Simbrief flight plan = No ATC IFR
The reason (I think) is the FBW A320 documentation states not to use a destination aiport in the World Map. So, I’m only using the departure airport and, thus, cannot use the IFR selection.
Using the A32NX development version, the correct procedure is to start at the gate at your origin airport. Do not set a destination or plan.
Start up the flight and power on the plane. On the FlyPad use the From Simbrief button to import your plan. Then program the MCDU using the Simbrief procedure (on the FlyByWire web site). You should be able to import the plan automatically to the MCDU and then add your SID and STAR.
Once the MCDU is programmed you should be able to use the MSFS ATC menu to request clearance for your instrument flight plan. Thereafter ATC should be able to direct you on your plan.
It can be slow to clear you to cruising altitude and also slow to descend at TOD. You can force the issue to some extent using the ATC request increase/decrease FL options. If it is being really unhelpful just ignore it and fly the plan and ATC will catch up after a while.
Many thanks. I will try this approach.