In addition, aren’t pilots supposed to say “ready for DEPARTURE” instead of “ready for take off”?
( I believe this was introduced after the Tenerife disaster 1977)
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Hey CptLucky8,
Very good thoughts about the product itself. Very interesting text. As an old simmer, I saw the Flightsim always as a FlightSIM, not as a game. I have the feeling (not knowing actually) that the PC customers will be the main customers. And for all addon devs: these will be the ones, spending the most money on addons. Saying, that the PC version is only a side product, kills me a bit (although it might be true), because I see console gamers per se as casual gamers.
I can’t imagine a Xbox player, ‘wasting’ much time in flight preparation alone (planning, weather, payload, fuel, etc.). I can’t see a Xbox player sitting on his sofa with a load of charts besides him. But that could be my prejudices. What I mean is, producing a Sim like this and planning the PC version as side product is a wrong move, in my opinion. This is a product meant for PC.
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This explains so much, I thought I was doing something wrong.
Anyone know how to unlock the permissions on the Microsoft Store version of MSFS? I can’t edit the en-US.locPak file no matter what Security permissions i try to throw at it. Thanks for the help!
I Agree. I’ve used a few ATC add-ons over the years and Pilot2ATC seems to be the best. Although, it’s difficult to stay away from the habit of “reading” the text or hitting the “say it” key when things get hairy at times. You don’t have that in the real world… obviously.
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Yes I agree as well, but I also wanted to add the fact that when ATC says something about “expect vectors for visual runway 27L”… it doesn’t give any vectors and just leaves you hanging. Also sometimes the buttons to interact with ATC doesn’t work. Once I wanted to request for IFR clearance and it just wouldn’t budge. And other time, i was given an instruction and the acknowledge button wasn’t there.
And apparently, if you set up your altitude in your flight plan for every waypoint. The ATC just disregards that. Idk if that’s how it works irl but yeah. That’s just pointless.
Just a question tho: as you must’ve all known by now, most buttons on the airbus 320 and many other planes are “inop”, will that be sorted soon? I mean I think it should but idk what the devs are planning.
That’s very interesting, thanks for this entire thread. In fact I had requested an open and editable system with the possibility of multiple variations per phrase, and it seems it’s been there right from the beginning and I did not know about it. Miracles do happen! 
I’d like to add some more insight on the topic being much less US-centric, as I fly in Europe I can confirm there are tons of difference in phraseology, beginning right there at the startup request. I won’t go through everything as detailed as you did, but just add a little information here and there.
Here, the initial call is never “ready to copy”, “ready for clearance” or anything like that. The correct way is to give the ATIS (again, not with stuff like “ on board”), but rather:
- “Airline 123, information [atis], request startup”.
That’s it. This will trigger activation of your flight plan and the most basic clearance you could expect (and that is mostly given) will be:
- “Airline 123, startup approved, cleared to [destination], [SID] departure, squawk 4321”.
Again, that’s it. Simple as that. No climb to, expect anything or other stuff. The climb clearance is part of the SID here. It’s that simple. Other instructions are optional and happen rarely if at all, and I wouldn’t expect them to be modelled (“reach 5000 feet latest 17 miles after departure end of runway due to glider activity…” you get the point).
If there is no separate clearance delivery, you’d request startup from ground. Again, if there is none, then from tower. Otherwise you’d continue with pushback on apron or ground. As explained above, apron seems to be the “ramp” equivalent, if it’s controlled by some airport company and not actual ATC controllers (which ground control is):
- “Airport Apron/Ground, Airline 123, request pushback.”
- "Airline 123, pushback approved facing [N/E/S/W].
Next thing is taxi, and the only ones I hear on the freq just calling for “taxi” or “taxi please” are usually Americans. Otherwise it would be:
- “Airline 123, request taxi.”
- “Airline 123, taxi to holding point runway 21L via A, B, C. Cross runway 21R.”
If you were calculating takeoff performance for an intersection less than full length, this would be a good time to tell the controller for his planning: “Request taxi, able B/able for intersection B/ …”.
As you can see, there is a lot less “ready” and a lot more “request” in the phraseology here.
Stuff that could happen on tower frequency:
- “Airline 123, ready for depature.”
Conditional clearances are possible and always begin and end with “behind”, like:
- “Airline 123, behind next landing A320 on short final line up and wait runway 21L behind.”
Or if you were to depart via an intersection less than full length:
- “Airline 123, in B line up and wait runway 21L.”
The most basic takeoff and landing clearances have exactly this format:
- “Airline 123, wind 240 degrees 8 knots, runway 21L, cleared for takeoff.”
Checking in with departure, or in fact, any radar controller except directors, would include altitude passing and cleared altitude.
- “Apple Radar, Airline 123, passing [altitude_passing], climbing [cleared_altitude].”
- “Airline 123, Apple Radar, radar contact (or “identified”). Climb [new_cleared_altitude].”
As discussed above, I personally find the “and maintain” totally pointless, especially since many do this enroute all the time. If you are cleared for a procedure you are expected to follow the restrictions. If the SID contains restrictions, those might be cancelled like:
- “Airline 123, climb unrestricted [new_cleared_level].” or
- “Airline 123, open climb [new_cleared_altitude].”
The correct phrase is actually “cancel level restrictions” if I’m not mistaken but I’ve never heard that one IIRC.
Again, if a STAR has a given profile and you were to descend adhering to the restrictions, there is a phrase
- “Airline 123, descend via the [cleared_star] arrival to [new_cleared_altitude].”
Again, this rarely every happens here. Controllers like to assign levels themselves and that’s what they do most of the time.
Some more useless stuff I hear all the time is when I check in like „Some Radar, Airline 123, FL390“ they’d say „Airline 123, Some Radar, identified, maintain FL390.“ Well, what else do they think would I do.
Typical approach clearances would be like:
- “Airline 123, turn left heading 240, descent to 4000 feet, cleared ILS runway 21L.”
In some contries the controllers add other unnecessary stuff like “final vector” etc.
Landing clearance is exactly like takeoff as explained above:
- “Airline 123, wind 180 degrees 15 knots gusting 25, runway 21L, cleared to land.”
I’m not saying all of this is exactly according to standard X or Y. It’s some of the “more correct” stuff you would typically hear on the radio, and tons of variations not included.
Thanks to the hints above I started editing the file (forgot to backup the original, of course…) and if anyone would be interested in a more Europe-biased version, let me know. I’m not exactly sure if all details can be incorporated as they should though. For my very personal realism I’m trying to add lots of variations that might not be 100% correct but commonly used.
Editing the other than English files should be a way bigger task… Those translations were unusable in the past, not we have the possibility to edit them at least.
Other than that, I found a bug in the original file, search for “BEECHCRAFT” and there is the .text line missing, only the .tts line seems to be there by default. Should anyone care.
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CAP 413 is the place to look for comms in the UK.
There’s also a quick guide by eurocontrol.
The poorly implemented US-centric ATC in this means I just ignore ATC altogether.
IRL airline pilot in the UK FWIW.
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It’s what I did. Just as I started to edit the file was when I reenabled ATC voices. Had them turned off since I installed the sim.
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Thank you cooljay113 for your efforts on this!
Has anyone tried this new file?
Do you think MS will consider making changes to the ATC?
I guess I’m asking should I give this a try or wait for the next update?
I’m afraid of breaking my sim lol.
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@Fedex11Denny They’ve announced they are going to be working on the ATC and even pointed to this thread so I would at least hold off and see what the next patch brings in the next 9 days. https://www.flightsimulator.com/september-10th-2020-development-update/ has the details and this thread is listed in the top voted issues and the patch notes for patch #2 has “ATC updates” so here is to hoping some improvements from this thread make it into the next patch.
Yeah - I agree. ATC don’t seem to give you the QNH (altimeter setting) where they should.
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No offence here but can you send KennedySteve a copy of such a book ?
Excellent controller that was 
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After retirement I emigrated to Asia so I am far away from ATC, AIPs, AIRACS, NOTAMs and PANSOPS.
But a few things are still hardwired in my brain. What do you need?
Good 'ol Kennedy Steve. Miss him but he has earned his retirement. I wish Asobo could hire him to do voice for the ATC system, that would be amazing haha.
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Would be awsome indeed 
We also have that annoying ATC controller who keeps on repeating himself to AI traffic because the AI cannot keep to its altitude and heading. It’s no different than the ATC in the former Flight Simulator X.
Ah! that whole debate about ICAO vs FAA phraseology. That just makes me cringe.
There are so many variations in phraseology and procedures around the world and I doubt we will be able to please everyone, unless FS2020 permits different sound packs / phraseology per regions. That would be very cool to see.
Thanks to cooljay113 for the work done on this issue that is effectively lowering the immersive aspect of the software.
on a end note, it is not “point six five” but “decimal six fife” for the rest (majority) of the world. Sorry, couldn’t resist 
ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/ATC/comments/50fi8t/icao_vs_faa_differences/
ref: https://www.atac.ca/web/images/Documents/Phraseology%20Guide%20for%20GA%20Pilot%20in%20Europe.pdf
Happy flying!
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I was wondering isn’t the ground traffic supposed to hold/stop for the aircraft not the other way around? crossing a runway Speed bird cut short your landing because Car 34 is crossing the runway. Come on these planes weigh thousands of tons they should be stopping not the other way around