The phrase “TO” is used only in relation to altitudes immediately followed by the phrase “altitude”, with flight levels “TO” is omitted, the first zero with flight levels is also omitted to prevent confusion with headings.
Yes, very big differences. Units might be technically required but are usually ignored in practice.
ATC in US always gives turns before altitude changes.
“Lufthansa 12 Heavy, turn right heading 230 for weather, descend and maintain FL190. Expect ILS PRM 28C.”
I can see that the ICAO customs can be more clear. Very helpful indeed when a large number of pilots may be speaking English as a second, third or fourth language.
Obviously another big one is Flight Levels begin at 180 here for departure and arrival. 17,999 and below is given in altitude.
One of the biggest Mistakes in MSFS that really bugs me, is the Tower Controller, Radar Vectoring me, and clearing me, onto the ILS, when I am 20+ miles out from the airport, and the Approach Controller has handed me over to Tower far too soon .
You can see how important proper phraseology is, would help if the whole world would ditch their own and just adopt ICAO phraseology, most of the world does use ICAO phraseology luckily, the US is an unfortunate exception. Although it seems weird to me that the phrase “Confirm” is “Understand” is FAA phraseology, seems more like they’ve used plain language which was misunderstood by the controller.
There are few other FT in the list that also need to be changed to “Fort” in the TSS.
Also for the TSS
Then there are AB —> “Air Base” ?
and AFB ----> “Airforce Base” ie ROAH
I did these changes, and tried ROAH – (Us-English) Sounds for much better.
It’s probably a pretty low Priority for ASOBO to go through and make these changes, especially when there are other case in other language files, and SO MANY OTHER MORE IMPORTANT THINGS that are a higher priority to address.
But is seems to be something the user can do quite easily, with the warning that those changes may be overwritten in any ASOBO Update.
Suggest keep a copy of Original, and a copy of any changes, outside of the MSFS folder structure.
For many, making such changes is not something they care about, but if you do it yourself, it does strike home, just how time consuming even the most seemingly simple update can be to do.
Posted this in another thread, but once I thought of it, decided to re-post here in case any ASOBO product managers or developers were watching this thread.
Step 1
They should create a new data tag / attribute to represent the “owner” of each ATC facility.
Chicago Approach - FAA
London Radar - ICAO
Moscow Radar - RUS
Step 2
FAA logic is already mostly built out, even though it’s 1/4 wrong.
Copy/paste the logic for RUS and ICAO
Step 3
Create an evaluation of ATC facility “owner” during callup to select logic branch and phraseology.
Step 4
Fix the phraseology as required within each logic branch.
Steps 1 & 2 can take place during a sim or world update. Step 3 can happen during the following sim or world update. Step 4 can happen as a hot fix.
This way, once the whole user epic is released from steps 1-4, Speedbird 6B crossing the Atlantic would get ICAO ATC over Europe and FAA " ground point niners" and “good days” over US.
Agree with the original post. ATC is useless at the moment. I just fly my own thing and (as the original poster says) refer to it occasionally for altimeter settings etc. With all due respect to the developers for their efforts regarding “realism”, I believe most of us are looking for realistic airplane performance, ATC instructions, etc, in short, everything that makes a FLIGHT real, rather than the WORLD. The graphics and “real world” features are great, but I wish they’d put an equal amount of development into the flight experience itself, rather than showing just another log cabin in Siberia. I don’t want a “world simulator”, I want a flight simulator.
Also, whether a controller says God day or Good morning is totally irrelevant. I once had one handing me off to Las Vegas Appr with Have fun. So what. But the simulator gets things all wrong in terms of timing, altitudes etc., as well as sending you back to the last waypoint.
Actually in the rather busy SoCal airspace where I got my ratings “with you” will get you a slap on the back of the head from your CFI if he/she is rather old school
Or you buy the burger at the restaurant if he/she is more modern in mindset (and low on funds )
The same goes for “Checking In” and a few other colloquial terms more at home in the ridiculous “radio chatter of Top Gun”
Basically anything that can be left out of the call is left out to keep congestion to a minimum. IF there is anything unclear ATC will ask specifically for what ever it is they need to confirm.
The altitude read back at least in the Western US with rather stems from substantial mountains, which for the longest time meant that wide areas did not have (good) radar coverage and it also immediately points out if your barometer is set correctly.
Again a flight leaving Phoenix and going to San Francisco is flying through some rather varied terrain which will affect the barometer more than a more uniform terrain elsewhere in the US.
This I have mentioned elsewhere in this thread is one of my biggest gripes, at least based on US-ATC standards…because IF I do what that ATC instruction means to me, I never get close to my destination in many cases. And often I would hit terrain as well.
Because “maintain present heading and altitude” means just that … if I am climbing out on a 090 heading, passing through 1500ft" when that call comes…I level off at 1500ft and maintain HDG 090.
My destination may be behind me on a 270 heading and a mountain of 4000ft in between as well.
Since I fly mostly in the Canary Islands, most of my flights are relatively short distances so that Instruction is quite often what I get.
" , you are x miles from y (IAF), fly heading xxx, maintain yy thousand (feet) till Established ,
(1) cleared ILS approach RR >
or
(2) report established ILS approach RR
1 = you are cleared to descend on the GS
2 = wait for clearance to descend
(Please correct me if I am wrong - have not flow since Covid !! )
Yeah even basic terminology like the frequency where a frequency change to 119.0 should be spoken as “119 point zero” not “decimal” as the sim now uses. The FAA phraseology in the US is for civilians to use “point” unless required by military or other regulations.
I never understood this one, in Europe it is assumed the pilot knows not to start descent until established. In the UK they do something similar, I don’t remember the exact phraseology but it goes something like “left / right heading …, cleared ILS approach runway …, maintain altitude … ft, further descent with the glide” or something like that.
You are told what ATC sees your position wrt the IAF, and given vectors to it (I assume so ATC can predict your path, which gives you an overriding instruction to your last altitude/heading instruction)
Then its either cleared for the ILS, which measns you are cleared to fly the ILS, and decent on the glideslope & localizer
or
You are to fly to the IAF, turn onto the localizer, and then report established on the localizer, at the last instructed altitude, and expect CLEARANCE to continue flying the ILS and descend.
ie If instructed to REPORT ESTABLISHED ON THE LOCALIZER, and not specifically CLEARED from the ILS, you cannot start your descent, until you get the CLEARANCE.
90% of all aircraft in the world are produced by either Boeing or Airbus, using the same logic we shouldn’t have a Cessna, TBM and Kingair in the sim. You might get disappointed when looking up the actual numbers, the US only accounts for 21% of the total passengers carried by air in 2019.
Not that is matters, its completely irrelevant how big the US aviation industry is, there is loads of players from all over the world, the US is not more important. Besides the Americans decided to deviate from ICAO standard phraseology and standard units of measurement. Pretty much everywhere else ICAO phraseology is adopted and overall deviations are minor.
and just adopt ICAO phraseology, most of the world does use ICAO phraseology luckily, the US is an unfortunate exception. Although it seems weird to me that the phrase “Confirm” is “Understand” is FAA phraseology, seems more like they’ve used plain language which was misunderstood by the controller.
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