I wanted to just discuss for developers to look at what are the top issues specifically with ATC. To be honest it has to do with a frustrating flight I had the other day but this way I can turn it around into something productive.
ATC juggles you from center to center to tower to etc. etc. etc.
Pushback controls are tied into ATC. Making Vatsim flight very frustrating and hard to control.
I cannot turn off ATC mid flight easily (which is only a problem because I have to work around the problems listed above).
The accuracy of ATC in terms of flight levels and my flight plan are completely different.
When ATC gives you a visual approach they tell you to maintain current heading and altitude but really they mean to say follow your current flight plan and also the previous altitude change I just gave you.
Cannot queue transmissions
Delegating ATC to a copilot is likely to have them push you into a building
That can happen at times and depends on if your flight path is directly on the border of two centers. You can pre-check it if you have airspace filter on on whatever map u use. However, Iâm pretty sure ATC doesnât juggle from tower to tower.
Yup, thatâs kind of a bummer. Ground crew radio should be separated from ground radio and I believe this has been requested several times for obvious reasons. Not sure if theyâre working on this.
You could cancel IFR and use VFR only even though I wouldnât recommend it.
That depends on how you file the flightplan. I figured that if you make a plan on e. g. SimBrief and load it into the sim, ATC will use the flight levels from the plan. Of course, that takes some of the joy of typing everything into the MCDU but in real life flightplans would be pre-filed long before the flight anyway.
And after all it doesnât really matter whatâs in your flightplan as ATC can override your planning at any time.
It happens often to me being handed over back and forth between center and approach. At first i was guessing the same that my flight path must be boardering two airspaces but then i wanted to test it out on another flight by flying straight for several minutes and then altering the heading for several minutes etc. and i was just stuck in an endless loop approach->center->approach->center. I wasnt even able to ascape, only had a split second at the right moment to hit âcancel IFRâ otherwise i could only âsay againâ or âaknowledge last transmissionâ.
ATC AI in 2020 got the same IQ as in 2004, i think it might as well be the same lines of code!?
ATC will at times give you horrible altitude instructions, particularly in mountainous terrain. Following them will have you lawn dart into the side of a mountain.
ATC will âforgetâ about you at flight levels while youâre within sight of the airport, then give you a ridiculous order to drop to 1700 ft from FL270 to make your approach and then incessantly â â â â â for you to expedite your descent.
No way to issue a âcannot complyâ reply to ATC.
The only way out of the above bad instructions is to cancel your IFR and get clearance again. This typically ends up messing up your flight plan or perhaps entire flight since the selection of legs in the various FMS only seem to work right sporadically and can sometimes cause a CTD when it tries to recalculate your route from your current position.
you can get bounced around from Center to Approach to Tower and back and forth multiple times for no logical reason when coming in for an approach
the annoying spelling out of the number â1â. ATC: âContact approach on O-N-E two tree decimal fiveâ or âRunway O-N-E nineâ
The use of the word âdecimalâ in frequency instructions.
ATC spelling out entire names of airports. This is infuriating when itâs a long name like at CYOW - MACDONALD-CARTIER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT or CYUL - PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. ATC: âMike-Alpha-Charlie-Delta-Oscar-November-Alpha-LimaâŠâ
Requests for alternate approaches when assigned a bad cross/tailwind approach are ignored vs being accepted or denied.
Youâre told to âexpect vectorsâ on an arrival or departure, but you never actually get them unless you request them. And typically when you do, they donât point you where youâre supposed to be going. Just had this flying to Nassau. Was assigned a visual approach expecting vectors. Flew on and on, no vectors. Requested one, it turned me back around towards Florida. Kept flying to test it, and no change. Kept vectoring me back to Florida when I was less than 100 nm from Nassau.
There are likely more I just canât think of atm. This list will grow as I encounter issues I havenât already thought of.
Try a TBM IFR flight Cruse level 280 from Insbruck to Geneva FL280 .
Itâs funny
when approching LSGG, ( 90 Nm) ATC gives you instructions to contact
Milan
Zurich
Geneva App
Marseille
Zurich
Marseille
Geneva App
and so on
I was on a low-level flight from Heathrow to Birmingham came in on ils approach to the South was over the run way when atc said I was 3 miles out, go figure
This is because the ATC only looks at every edge of the airspace, and doesnât take your route (if it is preplanned) or local procedures into account.
E.g. during my flight in the screenshot below, I flew the dashed line from bottom right to top left. Brussels Control (blue airspace) sent me to Amsterdam Radar (red airspace), who returned me to Brussels Control less than a minute later. Another 20 miles further, I was sent back to Amsterdam Radar, before I ended up on London Controlâs frequency another 3-5 minutes later.
In real life, that airspace is entirely delegated to Brussels Control, all the way to the London ACC boundary, precisely to avoid unnecessary frequency changes and overloading Amsterdam Radar.
ATC does not recognise the existence of any other player flown aircraft. This results in aircraft attempting to land and take off on the same runway at the same time and kills the immersion when flying online as you have no idea of the intention of any other aircraft. This is particularly immersion killing when flying in a group with friends.
In all honesty, itâs typically better to just turn off multiplayer unless youâre grouping up with someone for a flight or on VATSIM or similar network.
While you can see each other, itâs pretty much like others donât exist. Each player has their own unique ATC that doesnât interact with other players. Thereâs nothing they do that has any impact on your flight other than you see them.
Honestly, MP is kind of a waste of time in this sim unless youâre on VATSIM or something. It does absolutely nothing.
It would if ATC worked. Hence why I say thatâs something else thatâs wrong with it.
And yes, VATSIM would solve all the problems if it werenât for 2 issues: 1) The weather in game can be completely different to what a VATSIM controller tells me. 2) For full coverage, every ATC in the world would be manned 24x7âŠthereâs usually about a dozen.
They suddenly ask you to climb to 10000ft on short final.
I also think an issue that may technically not be directly an issue with the ATC as such is that the METAR information still isnât correct at airports therefore planned flights using SimBrief etc become invalid as the game has different weather and therefore different active runways making the process scuffed right from the start.
Even if ATC worked right, youâd still have no interaction in your world with other real players other than seeing them visually. You have your own independent ATC that belongs just to you and the AI / Live traffic. Your session and another playerâs session are not connected at all. You see each other. Thatâs it. Theyâre there to add more visual traffic and nothing else. Thatâs the way MSFS is designed. Itâs not a byproduct of bad ATC.
Iâve had that as well. Coming in on short final on an instrument approach, all lined up, perfect sight of the runway, no other traffic then get called to climb and maintain some ridiculous altitude.
It surely wouldnât be that hard to have some server side ATC in multiplayer. The server already knows where every plane is, cos itâs sending updates to me. Multiplayer isnât peer to peer.
Could it be that ATC is not currently very high on ASOBOâs radar because there are many other issues, Cloud pixilation, Live weather, etc. Also as a very long time simmer that has used all other Simâs the ATC has never been real world. Most times I do not even interact with ATC other than Take off or Landing (VFR). But when using IFR then thatâs mosty when you get the " Huh you want to do what!" stuff.
So it will most likely be a Third party add on that will make it better, because ASOBO has bigger fish to fry right now. Just sayin
I supposed that depends on your definition of âradarâ. The team that works on visual aspects of the sim, like weather, are unlikely to work on things like ATC. But it could well be that they are attempting to schedule in certain fixes to certain updates, and in that respect you may be right. For example, Update 9 is supposed to include Garmin avionics improvements, hopefully.
My only issue with ATC - apart from the lack of general chatter - is that occasionally when I receive
my âtaxi toâŠâ instructions after clearing the runway, I cannot confirm them back. This leaves me in an
ATC loop where ATC keeps asking if I have received my instructions!
Not to be negative, but everything! Sounds bad, terrible descent information (like crash into mountain), doesnât follow your flight plan, constant chatter to other AI planes to change altitude, etc.
