one thing I don’t understand with the explanations given:
let’s say I keep the new ATC assistance option ‘active’ (so ATC should use the runways assigned with the world map / flightplan). And I still don’t set any approach / runway in the world map for the arrival (set the two dropdowns to ‘automatic’).
What does ATC do then? Does it stay with the runway according to wind conditions when planning in the world map? Or does it use the wind conditions when actually arriving at the destination to chose the runway to land on? (as if the assistance setting is deacitivated)
Seems so. But then I wonder why the extra setting in the assistance options? They could have used the world map dropdowns. If it is set to ‘automatic’ (which is still there in the dropdown), ATC would use the runway according to actual weather when arriving. If a specific runway is set in there, ATC would use that one.
(I think that was the intended use of that dropdown in the first place. It just didn’t work until now)
This would be highly unrealistic though and might upset quite a lot of players - including myself - if ATC pops this question…
You might still be able to achieve this by changing the settings. But i am not sure if this works in flight or if the setting is only relevant when the flight is initialized.
Worth a tey though…
No, I don’t think that’s how it works previously. The Automatic would mean the flight plan gets automatically assigned with the approach and current active runway based on the weather “at the moment you create the flight plan”. After that flight plan is saved and used in your flight session, it’s locked based on that automatic choice. When you do your 3 hour flight for example, the weather changes and the active runway changes. But your flightplan stays as is, even when you set the approach and runway to automatic, it’s already assigned the runway to the flight plan based on the active runway at the time you created the flight plan. And the ATC will guide you through the runway from the flight plan, while the other traffic will be assigned the current active runway, potentially causing issues such as head on collissions on the runway.
I don’t think this feature is updated; the Automatic choice would still work the way they always have been. Automatically assigning you the runway at the time of you generating the flight plan, but with the assistance off, the ATC can now reassign you with another approach to another runway based on the currently active runway so that you’ll need to adjust your flight plan en-route to cater for those changes.
Yes this is the understanding I was left with after watching the dev livestream as well. Martial said clearly that runways were always assigned with the flightplan even if you don’t choose them.
Now why they introduced a new option rather than fixing the existing automatic option in the world map to leave it unassigned for ATC to choose later I have no idea. Surely this is what everyone already thought this option was for and fixing it would have made lots of sense and been more intuitive, plus it would have given the user more options, such as pre-selecting for very short flights and leaving on automatic for longer flights where there is more time to review the charts and brief alternate approaches.
Normally I choose my departure runway and SID by myself (part of the flightplan) and would like to get whatever destination runway and STAR for the conditions at the time of arrival by ATC (not part of the flightplan).
So, yes, having it separated in the dropdown would have been more handy.
Thought I’d test this out last night on an EIDW to EGCC. I left out the STAR until ATC gave me the approach, unfortunately though, they didn’t give me this until WAL and I was still at 19,000ft, too high for a 05L approach. I held at WAL until I was at a satisfactory height, then started my approach. The METAR in Sim and RL showed a wind of 150/07kts so was definitely a crosswind, in favour of a 23R approach. Even FR24 showed aircraft using 24R.
Oddly though, as I approached 05L, the wind went in my favour…
ATC should follow real world arriving and departing runways. Many times I see the ai planes land and takeoff opposite of each other during the day time. I know this happens in real world at lax before or around sunrise but never during the day time.
ATC will give you the arrival/approach at your last waypoint from the flightplan. So try to plan your flight with your last waypoint (before approach or STAR) at least 30NM (even a bit more) before destination.
And also: really nice that ATC now gives new alts around 2000ft before reaching the previously approved alt.
But: only in climb. Not on descent. Still 200ft before.
