the ATC is an absolute joke in the xbox version, just doing a flight from egll to lowi with a cruise level of 39000, but atc is taking its sweet time getting upto that altitude, from egll till i got over the english channel i was at 9000ft then i was told to go to 25000ft then i was told to descend to 9000ft while over france and thats the current flight level i am at, ■■■ this is so messed up its on real WHAT A JOKE, this needs to sorted ASAP, is anyone else having issues with ATC
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A better question might be, does anyone trust default ATC instructions? I make my own vnav decisions and get shouted at most flights… it’s a rollercoaster of frustration otherwise - fully agree with you.
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i have had to request flight level change a few times to get me upto my cruise level, what a joke, i dont trust the ATC as far as i could throw them, for me its a game killer for the XBOX
I pretty much ignore ATC for now. I create the flightplan, ask for clearances (so I can feel legal) but after that, I just do my own thing and follow the altitudes in the FMS.
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I can’t remember one flight when ATC was correct. The repetitive please expedite your climb call out when you’re at the correct altitude is so annoying along with trying to place me something crazy like FL150 soo close to the airport when I should be getting ready to intercept the localiser and catch the GS. Crazy
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I don’t think Xbox make a difference. ATC is terrible.
As well as all you describe, it’ll suddenly tell a c172 to climb to 17,000ft just before it starts its descent.
The only difference Xbox makes is that maybe you have fewer alternatives (unless you include the alternative of buying a PC)
i live in hope that one day we will get vatsim, but not going to hold my breath as i can’t see microsoft on locking the xbox so that it can communicate with 3rd part stuff 
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They want me at 10,000 feet in an Airbus and they want me at FL150 after filing IFR in my non-pressurized turboprops 
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there is some mega issues with ATC and autopilot today, i am currently cruising at FL380 yet i keep dropping and climbing a 1000ft every no and then to achieve fl380, have not had it this bad for a while now
It’s identical on PC as well. It’s had certain parts improved over the last 2 years, but it’s still basically screen door on a submarine-grade useless IMHO.
Every couple of sim updates, I revisit the default ATC (normally I use Pilot2ATC) to see if it’s gotten any better. It takes all of 1 flight to realize it hasn’t, and I mute it again in favour of using P2A.
ATC goes crazy especially when you’re approaching an airport surrounded by mountains. ATC designated altitude is often too low and I fly just a few feet over mountains with big airliners. Very uncomfortable…
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I’m adopting this as my new phrase for useless things. Do you accept royalties via PayPal?
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I typically have more colourful analogies, but can’t really post them here without getting in trouble, even with the auto-censoring. lol
At one time, I thought this was identified as a change (bug fix) on the development updates. Does anyone remember that or is it just my imagination? I checked the December update and don’t see it listed for either PC or XBox.
After learning about transition level and biometrics I no longer have problems with ATC. You must have the correct QNH set before reaching at the altitude ATC assigns you to be, not having the correct QNH would have you flying at the wrong altitude resulting in the endless ATC bother. The transition level in the sim is 18000FT for the whole world, usually, different countries and regions have different altitudes some as low as 3000FT.
No, that’s not really the problem. Over mountain terrain, ATC during IFR will sometimes order you back and forth between two control sector altitude bands. Additionally, the calculated ToD and BoD can be very aggressive. Assuming a descent angle of around 3.3 degrees and under 190 knots to avoid Overspeed, the lateral separation from current altitude to required altitude at the next fix can result in an overshoot of the waypoint and subsequent go-around because you’re too high at the middle point and FAF on the approach.
The survival technique I use is track the flight progress using a utility that has a vertical profile like Little Nav Map. When LNM’s calculated ToD from cruise arrives, I request a descent manually from ATC, and at each fix until the IAF, I note the planned altitude and request the nearest whole number from ATC.
The result is I am at the correct IAF altitude by the time the waypoint is passed. ATC may spam me to get back up to cruise altitude for a couple of NM until then, but that’s better than blowing the approach waiting for ATC to prompt me.
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I live in Colorado, so I tend to do a lot of sim flying here. Every time I try to climb high enough to cross the many 14,000’+ mountains around here, ATC screams at me to descend to an altitude that will ensure I fly right into the side of one of them. The sim’s controllers appear to be bloodthirsty killers just waiting to send you to your death.
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That’s well put - i thought I’d had it bad…
Imagine being about 30miles out of KSEA setting up to try and fly into the landing pattern and the atc telling you to go to FL180, then back to FL80 where you currently are descending to 6000 and then to 4. The atc litterally told me in about 30 second to 1 minute intervals to go to 18000 feet, then to 9000ft, then back to 18000 then to 11000 then handed me off to Seattle approach finally and they told me to go to 16L to land and where the pattern opening for then landing was and to navigate as necessary.
But then on landing there’s a 3/5 chance you’ll get told to go around (for no reason at all, no double landings, no one on runway, just the atc is overloaded with landing requests so if you’re on final and some other aircraft gets in landing que and it’s too much, atc will bounce you out of the landing order and request a go around. Even when you are less than 100ft from landing (last night I got a go around call as my aircraft barked “50” and I was seconds away from landing.
I read about the bug and all users just posted to ignore atc and land anyways as a lot of the time if you dongo around you still have like a 50% chance of being told to go around again.
At first I thought maybe I wasn’t in the glideslope correctly or the crosswind blew me off a bit and the 4 red lights gave some indication to the tower it was a bad landing attempt (even tho I always made corrections down to wheels down and always landed and landed well) but after reading up on atc and it’s issues, just realized it’s best to land if you “have the ball” and are gonna land well. Only time I go around now is when I crank up the weather and it’s like zero vis and crosswind is just blowing me way off and it’s a new airstrip I’m landing at.
But that’s rare and I haven’t done a go around in my last like 80hrs of flight time even if the tower scolds me for landing after I land.
But after I get off the clear runway they are nice and politely direct me to the gates for parking/offload/baggage/fuel and catering.
Just wish the ground services acheivement wasn’t broken. I’ve requested every service successfully as required to earn the acheivement but I never get it and it shows 85% complete so I’m wondering if there some service I’m missing (maybe in bad snow weather airports I can request a deicing truck or stop? I really dunno
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Its the same on PC ATC is a joke more so while decending, On final they tell me to climg to 15000ft lol