Hello everyone,
I start at the gate cold and dark. After I have the aircraft ready for take-off and have programmed the MCDU, it is unfortunately not possible for me to get the IFR approval with the ATC because this selection is not available in the standard answers.
I have chosen several airports and parking positions both gates and aprons, but to no avail.
Why is that?
I had some peculiar behaviour from ATC yesterday along these lines too. I managed to set up an IFR flight but it changed as I was taxiing along to the runway and weirdly the taxi arrows disappeared suddenly and the atc instruction messages became VFR., I had to close the sim and re-boot it and start the flight again. Occasionally ATC and/or the Sim glitches I think.
Did you load an IFR plan into the World Map?
No, then it’s because of it.
I believe you have to take off first and then request IFR based on current flight plan.
I don’t think it was always this way.
This is likely the problem.
You need to create an IFR plan in the world map so the simulator has that info (unless you fly a plane like the FBW A32NX that has a feature to sync your plan back to the simulator).
If you don’t have an IFR plan filed, you won’t have the option to request clearance from ATC.
I have done this many times on Xbox without problems. Just selecting the airport and gate on the world maps. Then loading the FP on the MCDU, I have contacted ATC and the FP was cleared.
Time to time, they change my previously departure runway, but that’s it.
Yes, there is sometimes an option “Request clearance for [aircraft?] FP from ATC” or something like that. I believe I have seen it on the ground in the past.
Unfortunately, you can’t do cold/dark start and enter the flight plan manually and get a clearance option. Hopefully they will have this option someday. You have to enter the plan in the World Map area first and it auto-populates your navigation system when you start up your aircraft. You can, however, take off VFR and then sometimes get an option airborne to request clearance. It’s kind of random and I’m not sure what triggers this option in the air, but I have entered a route manually and successfully filed a plan from the air.