I’ve recently been playing a lot of career mode, not as my own company, but just as a pilot trying to get to the airline transport missions, and while I do like the challenge of the VIP Charter missions and the occasional pop-up VIP airline Charter missions, I have been noticing a few issues or bugs. Maybe that pop up every now and then and cause me a lot of headaches.
It’s safe to say that one out of every five missions that I fly becomes a total snafu in tanks. My reputation score mainly because of in-game issues. Most pertinently, for example, is ATC compliance issues when I’m trying to fly IFR flight plans.
For example, I took a flight from Palm Beach, Florida to Nassau Grand Bahamas. This was a light cargo transport Mission. The weather was marginal VFR to IFR and the aircraft I would be flying was a Cessna 172 Skyhawk.
During the planning phase I set up a standard instrument departure out of Palm Beach and a ILS approach into Freeport seemingly this was the best idea to deal with the weather and also give me a little bit of a challenge as far as instrument flying goes which to me makes the missions a lot more fun and improves the flying.
However, on departure ATC gave me an altitude of 13,000 ft MSL in the Skyhawk this is doable but not ideal at all. In fact, once you get above 10,000 ft, the Skyhawks performance becomes extremely limited.
As I’m on my climb out and they realize that just as I approach 9000 the plane is starting to struggle but ATC is demanding. I expedite my climb to 13,000 even stranger. They want me to remain at 13,000 all the way to Freeport and then drop down at the very last minute which would make my approach problematic at best.
I had all this programmed into my flight plan and to my autopilot but I knew at this altitude restriction was not going to be ideal and was definitely going to cause some problems. My options were to cancel IFR which wasn’t ideal because of the weather or opened the in-game ATC communication window. Which by the way, I hate because of a bug that makes it impossible to close that window once it’s opened. But trying to keep the mission going smoothly. I open that ATC window and requested a lower altitude of 9,000 ft The in-game ATC responded back by saying climb and maintain 13,000 and expect 9000. Again, not ideal as the Cessna was struggling to break. 9 but I was able to climb eventually to to 12 ATC gave me the instructions to descend down to 5,000 ft for some reason. As soon as I made it to 5,000 ft ATC again told me to climb and maintain 13,000….
At this point I canceled the IFR clearance and remained VFR till I got close to Freeport which at that point I reactivated the the IFR flight plan so I can try to continue in on my ils approach to runway 6
The in-game ATC acknowledged this and approved my request to go back to IFR. However, again, it immediately prompted me to climb to 13,000 ft. Nearly 20 miles away from the airport but at the same time as it’s asking me to make this climb it’s instructing me. Also maintain present altitude and turn to heading 015 expect the iOS Zulu approach for runway 6 off of Bearing 146 from the VOR/DME.
So I continue as instructed. Maintaining the present altitude turning to heading 015 set up my instruments to intercept the VOR bearing 146 which would put me on a flight path to intercept the transition to the ILS approach.
Meanwhile, the in-game ATC is also yelling at me to expedite my climb to 13,000 ft even though it’s told me to maintain the present altitude and heading. So now it’s giving me conflicting instructions, and furthermore, when I make it to to VOR bearing intercept to the game then tells me to turn and go to the next checkpoint but the in-game ATC isn’t acknowledging this or giving me instructions to get on the approach. In fact, it’s still telling me to climb the 13,000 ft pretty much directly above the ■■■■ airport..
So now I’m getting pretty frustrated the game’s giving me conflicting ATC instructions trying to get me to climb to a ridiculous altitude. The in-game Mission prompts are giving me like five different instructions that do not make any sense based on my current position and I’m pretty much getting lost into the weather now.
As a last ditch effort to salvage this Mission I cancel IFR turn inbound to the airport using the ATC window. I request landing instructions and I’m given the left traffic for runway 6 and eventually make my way back to the airport and do a VFR landing on The runway.
Mission saved thankfully, but it is this kind of frustrating issues with the in-game ATC more often than not, totally destroys my reputation on a mission and sets me back. Like I said, one out of every five missions becomes a total bust or failure because of small in-game hiccups.
Has anyone else experience things like this and if so what are your workarounds? Should I just give up on going IFR when the ATC starts to boggle instructions or request something ridiculous like 13,000 ft in a Skyhawk?