Does anyone know how to get IFR Clearance via FS2020 own ATC when i load a flightplan from Simbrief using FBW a32NX MDCU. Thanks
1 Like
Are you loading the flight plan into the sim directly as well? (via the world map)?.
Use Simbrief downloader to download the flight plan, then in world map hit space bar and load it.
I haven’t used in-sim ATC in forever so maybe there’s another way around it but from what I recall it can only know about a plan you load into the sim itself.
I do it like this;
- Setup your SimBrief flight as normal
- In the world map set up your departure and arrival airports including a departure gate if you want one
- Once the above is done change the navigation method from ‘Direct(GPS)’ to ‘High-Altitude Airways’
- You can, if you wish, match your runway(s) and SID / STARS to your SimBrief profile. Doing the arrival seems to get a more sensible descent clearance from ATC
- Finally, set your cruise level under the Navlog tab to correspond with your SimBrief profile.
Once in game you will be able to get an IFR clearance, it doesn’t matter that the SimBrief plan doesn’t match the waypoints in the World Map.
What we need are aircraft & navigation providers to implement the same system as FlyByWire such that the aircraft saves the SimBrief plan back into the sim’s flight planning system once imported. Even better, the game ought to be able to take a SimBrief plan and import it into the world map automatically as well. Either way, the method above works as an interim process.
1 Like
Sorry for delay but thanks for all those who have replied. I mostly use Simbrief for all flight plans and still can’t get my head round using the MDCU. However, will try again in the next few days when i am free.
Thank you again
SimBrief has instructions on how to import a SimBrief flight plan into MSFS and have it work correctly with MSFS ATC. Basically after importing the flight plan, reselect the same approach, STAR, and SID from the drop down. This triggers MSFS to add the altitude information for ATC. I’ve done this several times with success. There was one time when MSFS I think dropped a waypoint because MSFS hadn’t downloaded the latest AIRAC.
There is definitely a need to download/upload between MSFS and the aircraft’s FMS.
Interesting. I’ve found that the departure and arrival needs to match, the rest of it can be anything. I do it this way everyday and don’t have an issue with it.
From the documentation it says to ONLY SELECT DPARTING airport no arrival airport.
My workflow for the PMDG 737 is the following:
- generate the Simbrief flightplan
- download the FP in Simbrief as MSFS .pln file
- download the FP in Simbrief as PMDG .rte file (that can be skipped for the FBW as it has the Simbrief integration)
- in MSFS world map load the .pln file
- change in the dropdown of the departure runway to the gate (I use the dropdown there as I heard the Nav log is recalculated when choosing the departure gate from the map)
- the STAR will be in the world map flight plan, the approach ist on Automatic in this case. I leave it here as it is.
- start flight
- load the .rte flight plan to the FMS (for the FBW again skip this as Simbrief is integrated, load it in there)
- enjoy flight
- When reaching the approach (like ILS) and the ATC gives you an approach clearance that you don‘t want, choose „Standby -[Choose different approach]“ or something like that and select the approach you want. Request it and you will most likely get cleared for your selection.
You‘ll be able to get the IFR clearance with that.
A very critical point in every flight is to get the descent instruction on time, most likely somewhere near the TOD that FMS calculates.
For the 737 it matches pretty well, I mostly get the descent instruction by ATC shortly after TOD in the FMS. I‘m then mostly like up to 4000ft above the planned VNAV path.
It‘s manageable to get back on VNAV profile.
It‘s now some weeks back that I used the FBW but there it also worked pretty well with that workflow.
In case the descent clearance comes to late and you think you cannot manage to get back on path if waiting longer: request a 10k ft lower altitude. Getting that, you can start your descent.
You can also do that a few miles prior to reaching your FMS TOD in case you like to comply to FMS more.
This is regarding the 737 but maybe you can adapt some things to the Airbus too when it comes to being high on profile during descent and approach.
You can download the Simbrief flight plan as an .pln file locally and then load it into MSFS - I use simbrief downloader to automate this. You can then just select your departure gate from the drop down menu (don’t do it from the map as it alters the flight plan - bug).
I follow close to this approach for 738 
I always manually request cruise altitude reduction from ATC at TOD marker.
For FBW you can do similar by using the descent calculator in EFB to hit correct altitude at first waypoint on STAR - I then add a fix radius that tells me when to request descent.
Sometimes ATC gets it right, but mostly I manually request cruise descent.
1 Like
Yeah, that‘s the easier way as you can just follow what FMS calculated.
I started to wait for ATC to give me the descent clearance. As I said this is mostly short after the TOD. That adds a little workload for the descent and makes it slightly more challenging and rewarding. Plus you might save a minute as you are a little bit longer in cruise and descent from there with mostly 10, 20, 30 kts more IAS compared with the standard FMS profile.
I also like that you get a feeling for energy management. E.g. Malaga LEMG, ILS Z Rwy 12 requests to keep 180kts up to D8.0 and 160kts up to D4.0. Especially the second one is tough, that‘s only like 1300ft above the ground and then you have to slow down to stabilize asap for the landing, things are going pretty fast in this phase of flight. Getting self-confident with energy management and a better feeling for the plane helps a lot to approach that kind of instructions unagitatedly (hope that‘s the right word in this context).
But that‘s personal perference I would say, at least as long as we are not dealing with „real“ ATC like Vatsim. Both ways lead to a successful landing at the end 
1 Like