I was flying from KSLC to KDEN at FL370 and ATC waited until I was just 30 miles away to tell me to descend. Anyone else have this problem?
Have you experienced this issue prior to SU11 Beta?
I never have
I’ve absolutely experienced this before SU11 beta. Not often, but it does happen.
I would even go that far to call this normal behaviour of MSFS 2020 standard ATC. I always needed to ask manual for lower flight level based on my TOD. Therefore I switched to 3rd party ATC.
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This happens with at least 30% of my flights as well.
I just did another flight to KSAN and it did the exact same thing. It wouldn’t tell me to descend at all until I selected “Request IFR clearance for instrument FP”
Why does that option always show up in the ATC window anyways? It always has you descend to like 10,000 ft
Yes, pretty common behaviour in MSFS2020 I’m afraid.
However I have been able to mitigate this to an extent in IFR; first off prepare the f/plan in SimBrief then export it to Little Navmap using the SimBrief Downloader. Next, tweak the LNM F/P to show departure gate/stand plus your final maximum cruising level and export it to the sim. In the sim itself use this F/P from LNM in the world map as is, so that the sim “knows” what you are planning to do. A bit fiddly I know but only takes 30 seconds. Incidentally if the aircraft I’m using can import direct from SimBrief I do that rather than using the sim F/P.
Using this method I almost always get acceptable instructions from ATC. I occasionally have to “remind” ATC but so far no more death dives to the runway!
Turn ATC off. Problem solved. It’s actually very cleansing and I enjoy the sim much more!
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I enjoy ATC personally. I manually change the radio frequencies too to keep myself busy on longer flights.
Begin your descent according to your briefed Flight Plan’s ToD marker. ATC will hound you until you’re assigned an approach, then it synchs together again.
Part of this problem occurs if you’ve selected a STAR. At the moment, ATC syncs better if you don’t use a STAR, either pre-filed or selected in-flight.
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Yes, I get to 30 miles and still at 29000. Also when it does work and I am on final approach at 3000, it tells me to go up to 7000.
The opposite happens some times as well. On some approaches, ATC tells me to descend to 5000ft and it happens that i reach that altitude 40 miles away.
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I have experienced this issues pretty much since the release of FS2020.
Does not happen all the time and of late seems to be less frequent but, at least from my experience, it is a long standing issue with the core ATC.
Perhaps now that they at least appear to be working on the ATC/AI it might get some attention along with the other core issues.
It may have been a one-off of course but a few days ago I was monitoring a flight on FlightRadar24 with friends on board as I was trying to follow it in the game. The real life flight got their descents in positions quite close to what the sim ATC was giving me! Was into EGPH TUNSO1E to ILS R24.
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I’ve had that happen as well as the late descents.
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I seem to get that a lot if I request and altitude change at some point during the flight. It will tell me to go back up to the original filed alt. then a short time later drop me to the approach alt.
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This seems to happen mostly on flight plans that include Sids and stars. Use direct and you won’t see this problem. I never put approaches or landing runways into a flight plan. Weather can change during a flight. Best wait till atc tells you what approach to do then feed that info into the mcdu. Or look at the destination airport in the vfr map to get atis and plan your approach during flight like the real boys do. Atc has limitations. You need to find what works for you.
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This is what I do, leave approach set to automatic and let atc tell me what runway and approach and I then enter it into mcdu.
Worked very well for the most part and always get descent instructions at a very early stage.
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One thing I notice is atis in the vfr map never changes. Any idea how often weather gets updated and if this shows up in the vfr map?