No Option to File for IFR Clearance at Uncontrolled Airports

Bug Reporting Hub ATC, Traffic & NAVAIDs
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Brief description of the issue:

There is no option to file for IFR clearance when at an uncontrolled airport.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

Without assembling a flight plan on the World Map, load C&D into an uncontrolled airport with an appropriate IFR-rated aircraft, such as one with a G1000 or GNS, for example. Program a flight plan. Open the ATC window and note there is no option to contact clearance. Even if you know the local frequency for clearance and tune the COM to said frequency, there will still be no option.

Contrast this to a controlled airport by doing the same steps and note there will be an option to file for clearance.

PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:

n/a

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

Many versions ago. Was surprised to see this wasn’t already filed as a bug.

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Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

2

Is that issue not the same as this one you reported ?:

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Nope. Not in the slightest.

That is regarding how AI behave. This is about filing your own IFR flight plan with clearance.

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Well, looks like in a way they are both related: the AI as well as your own flight having an IFR flight plan cannot take off because you’ll never receive a clearance.

5

Mmm… perhaps.

The AI issue is the pilot of the aircraft is asking a tower (that doesn’t exist) for take-off clearance.

The issue here, is an inability to request to file an IFR flight plan prior to even starting the aircraft.

In the uncontrolled airport, such as the one I fly from regularly and which I presented in the other bug as the sample airfield where I see the issue happen repeatedly, you’d contact Hawthorne Clearance on 122.400.

In the case of the AI, they are not on 122.400 requesting clearance, they are on 123.00, the UNICOM channel, requesting take-off clearance.

Possibly related, but very different manifestations of the issue, if so.

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Are these stock or third party airports?

7

Stock auto-generated.

There are a number of conversations regarding the issue in a few threads dating back at least as far as last winter.

I just wasn’t able to find if the issue had ever been written up as a bug, hence my doing so now.

The discussion during the beta with @Bishop398 in this thread got me exploring the ATC WT avionics relationship and it was clear why I have been using the World Map pretty much exclusively to ensure ATC functions on IFR flights — because I am very, very, frequently departing from uncontrolled airports and have no option to file IFR from the cockpit.

SU14 Beta discussion:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/atc-what-has-changed/619819/11?u=nixonredgrave

Past references:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/ifr-clearence/563954/18?u=nixonredgrave

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Does the same thing happen if you build the IFR flight plan from the main map, rather than the cockpit?

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No.

The whole point here was the discussion I linked with Matt at WT was around how their Garmin avionics and changes to the CJ4/747/787 allow for ATC integration without the World Map.

We had a whole discussion about JavaScript vs WASM aircraft and how the sim has a current limitation where WASM and ATC integration needs the World Map. So, the ATR (WASM), for example, needs a flight plan created on the World Map to have integrated ATC, but the CJ4 (JS) for example, can have the flight plan created in the cockpit and then IFR clearance filed via COM and will have integrated ATC.

This can’t be done at uncontrolled airports. You have to use the World Map to pre-plan your flight plan or you won’t be prompted to file for IFR clearance via COM.

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As I remember there wasn’t a way to break out of that “ground” ATC menu to access anywhere else, like another nearby airport, or centre.

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Precisely, all you have are ATIS/ASOS (if available for the airport) and UNCOM/CTAF.

If you plan a flight plan via the World Map, you’ll have a clearance option with a 3rd (or 2nd) frequency.

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12

This now makes me curious enough to test something. I wonder what would happen if I spawn at an uncontrolled strip, build a flight plan in the GPS, then use slew to plonk myself on the ramp at a nearby controlled airport.

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13

I love this aspect of your thinking!

You employ these kinds of methods throughout the forum and it always produces such interesting results.

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And in the Air !!!

Even if you get an IFR flight plan into the MSFS ATC system

  • Vectors to next waypoint are not vectors from your current Aircraft position, they are from waypoint to waypoint, an incorrect vector if you are off course

  • At the destinations, there are no Vectors or correct clearance by ATC “Approach”, to get you to the ILS.
    (Tower should NOT be attempting to do this - no wonder Tower fails !!-- at least that is realistic)

  • ATC tell you to climb to ridiculously high altitude, as you approach the airport.
    ----- Strangely enough, ATC does a better job with a Rnav approach, than an IS approach,
    (Might be better if you are on a STAR… yet to go there !! )

So bottom line is, you end up disregarding ATC, and have to act as your own more realistic ATC, to stand any chance of completing your flight… ( or are forced to cancel IFR !!)

The ATC menu options are far too limited, and even without trying to cater to EVERY possibility, they end up catering for very few, making for a very limited experience.

It also seem to be getting worse, with each SU - the above worked better in earlier SUs, which is most discouraging.

Maybe its about time that a professional (retired) ATC controller was brought on as a consultant, to help the Devs get some of this stuff designed correctly.

BTW Good luck in trying to find someone with BOTH Professional ATC knowledge & Coding knowledge, to join a consumer Game Company , when such an individual have the potential to a far more advancing career elsewhere in the Aero-Space Industry.

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Thank you very much! :slight_smile:

I think it’s called lateral thinking.

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Or maybe even “Thinking Outside the BOX” — where BOX could refer to so many things !! :stuck_out_tongue:

I can think of at least 5 –

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For sure.

I was thinking “baby steps” here. The functionality for filling for clearance without a World Map flight plan exists in the sim for controlled airports, so, you know, “just” (haha coding isn’t easy) tap into that same functionality for uncontrolled airports.

We will, hopefully, get the rest of the needed improvements in the future!

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18

There is always the airport FBO telephone, or a public phone box, !!! (or cell phone these days)

Would be easy to add a “Call Clearance by Phone” option !

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This is how it is normally done in real life How to get an IFR clearance at a non-towered airport

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I tested a very simple plan. The working was from TNCM to TAPA, RNAV 07 via ELOPO.

As expected, opening the ATC menu I get the following options:

image

Pressing 3:

image

Spawning at nearby Grand Case, building the same plan, and then slewing over to TNCM, all I saw were Ground, ATIS, and Ground Services. Drilling down into Ground I see this:

image

Pressing 2 just takes you to the top menu again, with the original three options.

If I go via that menu i.e. ground to clearance, spawning at a towered field then I do see the option to request IFR clearance.

It looks like there is some faulty logic here when that second route to Clearance is used. Both exist, and work at towered, only the second one is there, but it doesn’t generate the required option.

Tantalisingly close.

1 Like