I know that we are still getting a better and better sim every month but I’ve noticed when we pick up our IFR flight plans we are given no “climb and maintain x,xxx expect x,xxx 10 minutes after departure”. On top of that when we are ready at the runway we are cleared for take off and not given a heading during take off, just direct on course. Would this be a simple coding fix of extensive reprograming job. I don’t have the skills to mod but I am curious.
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This change can only be done by Asobo, or a REALLY extensive programming job. It’s not a simple “mod”.
But, I 100% agree we need that feature.
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Interesting thank you! hopefully we can get this eventually, I mean x plane 11 has this feature and that is generous given how terrible x plane 11 atc is
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That’s normal FAA ATC instructions for either IFR or VFR out of a Class Charlie or Bravo airport. I’d also like to be able to get a squawk code when starting cold and dark at Class Charlie or Bravo VFR, as would be required.
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True but saddly i think all we can do now is wait and hope
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But why do you need ATC to tell you the heading on an IFR flight plan? You Already have the flight path loaded. So you just need to take off and follow the NAV flight path after take off.
I find giving you the heading is redundant given that you already have a flight path loaded and you just need to follow it.
Nope. Your IFR flight plan is just an outline of what you want. Your actual flight plan will be created on the fly by ATC.
Not only that, but, under IFR, you are under complete control of ATC. You do not follow your flight plan, you do what ATC tells you to do, and they tell you every step along the way.
Even when flying VFR out of a Class Charlie or Bravo airport, They are going to give you a squawk code when you first contact ground to request permission to taxi, and they are going to tell you what route to follow on takeoff and to what altitude(s), until you are out of the airspace, then they’ll tell you to switch to VFR, or you’ll stay with them if you are retaining flight following (often times they switch you to Center soon after takeoff, so you’ll already be with Departure/Center control).
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Ahh okay… I thought that ATC instructions for heading and specific altitude is just for certain emergency situations or deviations like there’s an oncoming traffic or hazards or something like that. I always assumed that if everything is according to plan, they just let the aircraft fly their published route.
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In these new days of GPS and ADS/B it may be different, but, up till now, you rarely flew your published route, depending on the airspaces you traverse.
Not very common in Europe, in most places the IFR en-route clearance consists of:
- Standard instrument departure
- Altitude / flight level (only if different from SID)
- Squawk code
When there is no SID the clearance might include a routing. At the runway its therefore just wind - runway - “cleared for take-off”. If deviation from the previous en-route clearance is required, tower might give a heading instruction before take-off but it is by no means standard.
It is, at least in Europe. You get the standard instrument departure during IFR en-route clearance and 99% of the time you fly at least the initial part of the SID to a safe altitude and then receive a direct to somewhere.
Sometimes it happens that tower re-clears you to maintain runway heading, or a specific heading to fly after departure but most of the time you’ll fly according to the en-route clearance without amendments, at least initially. The en-route clearance is based on the filled flightplan so you can at least expect a SID to the first waypoint of your filled flightplan, when not having received any direct before end of SID you just continue in accordance with the filled flightplan.
Its very rare to fly the filled flight plan 100% from A to B, you’ll always receive some directs. Airways are a thing of the past, some European countries have free route airspace already where if you look on an IFR chart, there aren’t any airways anymore, just the waypoints. The weird empty spots is free route airspace where you just file direct to waypoints:
Standard instrument departures and arrivals are still a thing of course but traffic permitting also often cut short by receiving directs or vectors. The only time you really need to fly the filled flightplan (current flightplan officially) is when experiencing a comm failure.
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