I guess times are mature enough to have at least some basic ATC functionality.
I play flight sim games since Flight Simulator 4.0 (yeah, I’m old) and through all time I’ve seen some simulators have some very basic and simple functions that could be probably a quick win to implement.
Functionalities that, unfortunately, we don’t have at the moment.
Improvement #1
A simple way to ask vectors to an airport, just like we had in Flight Unlimited 2 (that was 1997).
It would be enough to open a comm window with a textfield where we can type the ICAO of the airport and contextually select “Vectors To Airport”.
Improvement #2
In the sim we already have C and B class airspaces. It would be nice to have ATC contacting us on guard frequency (121.50) with something like “Unidentified pilot, you’re in controlled airspace, please come over to my frequency at 128.75” and then we can contact the ATC or airport tower to ask for C/B airspace clearance
Improvement #3
Let tower control handle circuit priority. I was used to hear “Cessna two lima bravo, you’re number two for landing, traffic is piper on final, report when on base”
Improvement #4
It is absolutely a must to be able to ask QNH to the airport tower and this is really something that could be very simple to implement.
I think you can kind of do this. While in the air, go to the nearest airports list. If you manually tune the radio to the airport you wish to land at, it will then bring up a dialogue for that ATC. That bit only works if you are on the nearest airport list (already ticketed). You then choose a full stop, or touch and go, landing. It will sometimes have on the list an option to ask where the airport is, as you are unfamiliar with the location. They will reply with something like them being 6 miles away at your 11 o’ clock. Not a heading, a rough direction.
I’ve heard something like that, but as someone in another thread pointed out, its only for AI traffic. I was on downwind at Tenerife, and I could see another plane at my 10 o’ clock on final. I was given clearance to land, and was told I was aircraft number 2.
being nearest to the airport I want to go to doesn’t sound a good solution to requesting vectors to an airport 20nm away, especially when the “nearist airport list” is 9 pages long and crowded with local airstrips
I was just pointing out that if you know the airport you want, and you know the tower frequency, you can manually tune to that, and it will bring it up. You don’t need to actually search the list of nearest airports. The part that fails on is un-towered airports, where multiple strips are covered by the one ATC/same frequency. If you manually tune those, you often don’t get the airstrip you want., and you have to manually select them from the list. I’ve not tested this but my assumption is it picks the nearest to you in that case, but I need to revisit that.
As I say, I logged this as a Zendesk ticket. I feel you should be able to manually tune to any ATC frequency you choose, and not have to visit the “Nearest airport list” to get it to trigger. But it absolutely works if you have that list open, then manually tune to the towered airport you wish to use, then ask for directions.
I must agree on all of this. I played as my first sim Flight unlimited 2 too and I really miss that “not that complex complexity” of the ATC interaction. It was simple but complete enough to take a bit of time to understand what was going on.
MSFS is a very scalable sim, from the ground up. I hope this gameplay feature gets transposed all across the sim and not just on physics realism or end user flying help
