I created an IFR flightplan last night that took me from VOR to VOR -- but ATC just seems to want to vector me wherever they want , even for the initial part of the trip.Can anybody advise how to get around this and have ATC only vector me for the arrival.Thanks Barry

Hi Well, if you do very short hops ATC will be going staight from the departure to the approach mode. But you (almost) always have the option of selecting the IFR approach that you want. Thus if you planned on setting up final approach via a specific NDB or VOR, simply ask ATC to standby and select the appropriate approach eg. "KAS transition", meaning you fly direct to KAS VOR and shoot the published approach from that VOR. This way you won't be sent halfway to the moon.I fly many out-of-the-way approaches with unusual (unpublished) procedures, thus I'll cancel IFR just before descending, this way I'll have ATC but I'll be able to shoot the unusual approach the way its supposed to be.Hope this helps,halabraham

In Fligth Sim, as in real life, ATC will issue radar vectors for several reasons. Among them are collision avoidance, terrain, route delays, sequencing, adverse weather, and vectoring on course. It is not uncommon to receive radar vectors in both the departure and arrival phases. Some published terminal arrival and departure procedures actually REQUIRE radar. If your departure and arrival airports are relatively close to one-another, you might get vectored "direct" all the way to your destination. I'm sure that, in FS, if you file a plan with greater distances, that you can expect plenty of pilot nav. :) But, it is definitely not unrealistic to be vectored during the departure phase.

>But, it is definitely not>unrealistic to be vectored during the departure phase.Maybe this is what happened to me -- the flight WAS relatively short - less than an hours duration. The only reason I filed IFR was because I was expecting low cloud at the arrival airport - but ATC vectored me all the way and cleared me for a visual landing.Maybe the ATC is quite realistic?Barry

Barry, if you create a much longer flight, ATC will follow it after the departure phase is over and up to the approach phase. However, the approaches don't follow real world STARs etc. As mentioned above you can select real world runway procedures, but not STARs. For that, you'd have to get Radar Contact or fly on VATSIM.