I’m flying IFR flight plans and noticed during the descent stage, the ATC always announces the descent instructions past the waypoint that I should be at that attitude for. This creates the issue that I am always not low enough on final approach.
I have tried following my flight plan manually, and aim for each each attitudes waypoint to alleviate this issue.
Is anyone else having issues with descent and ATC?
I have a similar problem (I am on XBOX SERIES X). Mostly the ATC let me descent too low compared to constraints. But there is also the probability that I am approaching too high exactly as you described it.
At the moment on SU10 beta and it hasn’t been improved since the beginning of the XBOX release.
It’s common with in game ATC. I get around this by knowing where my TOD is and requesting my descent ahead of this point.
So say if I’m at FL350, just ahead of TOD I will request FL250, and ATC will usually authorise me to descend to say FL290 then once I get there down to FL250 etc.
Just manually request the drops though as waiting for ATC to tell you as you have found out is often a frustrating exercise and will lead you to miss the correct TOD.
Sometimes ATC gets it right and I don’t have to manually request a descent, but more often than not they miss it until it’s too late.
If you do a “search” in the forum you’ll find hundreds of post on this regardsThis is a well known issue with the sim ATC .I have learned to cope with it : 1) Ignore it and follow your flight plan manually. I’ll do this every now and then.
2) Most of the time I just follow the ATC altitude change requests even if they are late on descent.If you set a VS of about -3000ft and, when necessary ,use the airbrakes too, you will be on final without problems most of the time.
Personal Comments
ATC “sync” to Top of Descent works if you perform flight planning outside of the sim, and import it back into the sim at the Globe Planner Screen as a .PLN file.
For that, there are many options. I use Little Nav Map myself - it’s a very robust flight planner that doubles as a Moving Map Display as well. There’s tons of threads about it the #third-party-addon-discussion:tools-utilities subforum.
I have ATC turned off. No problems! 
Seriously, I’ve been flight simming on and off going back 30 years. ATC has been a work in progress for the same amount of time. It’s getting better than it was, but if you really think about what we are asking the developers to replicate, it’s extremely complex.
This has been and still is a bug, since release, it’s better than it used to be, since at release you just flew past your airport, ATC did not know where it was in relation to you. Doing you own descent plan and ignoring ATC is what you have to do. Just plan on starting at your Top of Climb to descend.
Although I’ve often experienced this “late descent” problem, I’ve also recently been experiencing early descent instructions from ATC, usually in USA, Europe not so much. Generally I go with them and just reduce my rate of descent, always keeping in mind any restrictions (altitude & speed) in my flight plan, which then usually results in a nice approach.
If I do get a late descent, i.e. after the ideal ToD, I reduce speed and if necessary increase rate of descent so that I’m ready for any procedure restrictions in good time. My flight instructor always said a good landing needs a good approach first.
For IFR I plan in Simbrief, export it to LNM and make any changes, such as parking stand departure, then re-export from LNM to the sim. I rarely use the sims own flight planner, usually just for local VFR hops.
SimBrief and LNM flight plans do not have waypoint altitude and speed restrictions in them. MSFS ATC does not provide any climb or descent instructions except to the cruising altitude.
Thanks, I’ve completed a couple of flights by importing the Little Nav Map flight plans into FS2020.
The ATC will now announce the target altitude at one waypoint prior which gives me time to descend.
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