Stock Atc Question

[Guest Doug Moldenhauer]

I was wondering if it is normal when ATC is stepping you up to your assigned altitude that they assign the next altitude when you are about 200 feet away from your current assigned altitude.I find it a pain in the &@($* when I get stepped up to 12000ft and I'm leveling out at 12000, and I get the next step up to like 21000ft. Isn't it normal to get the next step upbefore you begin leveling out. Seems I spend alot of time leveling out and setting throttles to maintain speed and altitude to just get another step when I'm almost level.Is there something I'm doing wrong or something I can change to solve this problem?

[Guest dougwells]

Sure would be nice if ATC did step you up while your climbing. My experience is similar to yours.

[Guest RonB49]

I was wondering if it is normal when ATC is stepping you up to your assigned altitude that they assign the next altitude when you are about 200 feet away from your current assigned altitude.I find it a pain in the &@($* when I get stepped up to 12000ft and I'm leveling out at 12000, and I get the next step up to like 21000ft. Isn't it normal to get the next step upbefore you begin leveling out. Seems I spend alot of time leveling out and setting throttles to maintain speed and altitude to just get another step when I'm almost level.Is there something I'm doing wrong or something I can change to solve this problem?

I use the autopilot to climb and (using your example) set my taget altitude to 12300 or so. In most cases, as I climb through 11800, ATC issues my new altitude and I continue my climb uninterupted. To be sure, there are times that I must quickly reset to 12000 and level off. Those times are usually because of a last-minute handoff and they don't happen too often. R-

[Guest Doug Moldenhauer]

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one having this issue. I wouldn't mind if they had you hold at the altitude you are assigned to for a min or so. Even that would be more real I guess. I was thinking that this might be a problem in sim data as I've even seen this behaviour with other ATC products.