Career mode is just a glorified random mission generator

I fully agree with your premise. I found some workarounds to the above that make these shallow, randomly generated missions a bit more playable:

  • Just don’t use the ATC. File VFR or cancel your IFR as soon as possible. IRL, you’d tell ATC unable, or declare an emergency, and just descend (or climb) out of the icing. IRL, ATC is a necessity and a valuable resource. In Career Mode, it is a lifeless facade. There is no other traffic and there is no one on the other end of the line. You’re talking to a robot in an empty room. Other than mindlessly going through some procedural routine, it’s utterly pointless to use it at all.

  • You’re a bush pilot on your own. Given the airfields it throws at you, the sheer loneliness of it, and the futility of ATC, I’ve approached these missions as back country bush missions. And it’s gotten quite a bit more fun as a result. Especially if you actually fly in rural and rugged areas where this is plausible.

  • Setup vectors to final. If you’re in the mountains and there’s an RNAV approach that helps with terrain, great. Otherwise, I always just program in the automatically generated vectors to final, and fly direct to the Final faf. It sets you right up to land every time. If you find yourself in IMC, you can even track the glidepath down to the runway. No need to abort unless the terrain is really hairy or the airfield is way too small to be usable.

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