I would very much like to fly using MFS’s ATC. It has a lot of (training) potential. However, at the moment, there are several major bugs that make flying with ATC annoying, and at times even, very frustrating.
Please fix soon:
Ground services:
- We should be able to call-up the Fuel Truck and the GPU unit without aircraft electrical power (the radio);
- In some cases, the Fuel Truck approaches the aircraft extremely slow. For example, see: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zmmi4yG-YlE
- In the case of the TBM, no GPU services are available in the menu, despite of the fact that the aircraft does offer GPU connectivity. Please add.
- When requesting pushback for the TBM, the ground personnel have trouble finding the connection point; walking up to the side windows and back. For example, see https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tay8T95rHFE
- Pushback for smaller GA is often not needed. However, the pushback cart and workers stand very close to the nose of the aircraft in any case; so close in fact, that a normal/non-pushback taxi away from the parking position cannot be executed without hitting the workers. The distance between the workers and the plane should thus be more than doubled.
- Controls during pushback are a handful, as instructions given by the pilot to the driver only process AFTER the instruction is spoken, which forces us to anticipate our parking position to not overshoot it. Moreover, in real-life, such conversations between pilots and the driver do not happen. Instead, perhaps, create a ‘straight out’, ‘left’ or ‘right’ pushback-command onto the nearest taxiway behind the aircraft.
- Also, once the pushback car connects, the driver should instruct the pilot to release the parking brake if still applied. Currently, the driver just continues to push back regardless, going quite slow.
- At big airports, requested Fuel Trucks spawn far away from the aircraft, thus taking too much time to arrive.
Flight:
- Aircraft type of the TBM should not be pronounced ‘Daher’ but ‘T-B-M’.
- The vocalization of many ATC instructions is far too fast to understand without relying on the textual transcripts (for realism/training purposes). A big improvement would be to implement ‘brief pausing’ after sentences, and after comma’s. In addition, in the case of taxi instructions, brief pausing should also be implemented in between the mentioned taxiway identifiers (the ‘spaces’ in the textual transcript).
- At conflicting taxi routes of us simmers and AI ground traffic, ATC instructs us to stop, but does not solve the situation; thus making the (inexperienced) simmer wait indefinately for new instructions by ATC. Instead (for now), ATC could perhaps stop the AI, and instruct us simmers to ‘continue taxi where possible’ in order to get the taxi flow going again and for us to complete the flight. Or despawn the conflicting AI plane altogether.
- Traffic pattern flying in MFS provides great flying practice. However, the associated ATC takeoff and pattern instructions are off. Should be: at hold short line, pilots receive instructions to fly left or right handed patterns, and to report midfield each lap. At midfield, once reported by the pilot, the Tower simply responds by clearing the pilot ‘for the option’ so as to allow touch-and-go’s for additional laps (as opposed to cleared to land, if traffic allows). Example: ‘PH-TIM, Palm Springs Tower, make right traffic, report midfield each pass, cleared for takeoff runway 31R’
- Flight Following ATC phraseology is incorrect. See details at other forum post ATC Incorrect Phraseology
- For short flights, ATC assigns far too high cruise altitudes. This results in extreme climb and descend rates, which make short flights a pain. For example see https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tay8T95rHFE Best would be if we could ‘file’ our own VFR/IFR cruising altitudes in the Flight Planner.
- The instruction ‘Fly present heading and altitude’ by Departure does not mean what ATC intends it to be, thereby resulting in unfair violations. Given this instruction, I disregard my planned course and fly present heading and present altitude at the moment of receiving the instruction (which turns out to be incorrect). Instead ATC should say something along the lines of ‘Resume own navigation’ or ‘Proceed on course’ (this phraseology can also replace ‘Continue as planned’).
- Once initially contacted Socal Departure at KPSP, Departure often instructs me to contact the same Departure on the same frequency again soon after (because of overlapping TRSAs?). Should be merged. For example see: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tIhpQW3zrj4
- ATC TRACON/ARTCC should mention the current altimeter setting at initial contact every time we switch stations, also under Flight Following
- ATC should always explicitly instruct pilots to switch over to another station. Except for takeoff clearance, pilots are not allowed to switch stations on their own accord. This mechanic does not seem to apply yet when approaching uncontrolled airports; where pilots need to ‘notice’ themselves to switch to CTAF (instead of approach instructing to switch over). For example see: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tIhpQW3zrj4
Feature request (for consolidation purposes): Please add a sound volume slider for the Pilot voice in Settings. This allows us to mute the pilot AI voice so we can vocally practice ATC phraseology on our ends as pilots while still hearing ATC. It also enhances immersion, as it feels as if we were actually talking to ATC ourselves.
Thank you for this amazing sim!
