I am wondering why when I set my route in my FMC that when I fly IFR, ATC takes me way off path. Do I need to fly VFR until I get close to my ARR airport and then make a IFR flight or what should I do? I am assuming the reason it takes me off course is because FSX has its own route in mind but what is the purpose of flying a real IFR flight and then being taken way off course by ATC?

What you need to do in order to have FSX emulate the real world as much as possible, is export your FMC flight to FS, and then load that up as your FSX flight plan as well as having it in your FMC, so that what FSX is doing tallies with what is in your FMC. You can do it the other way around too of course, i.e. create an FS flight plan and then import that into your FMC, either way is a good compromise.Nevertheless, FS ATC is not really completely realistic, and these days it is in fact a bit out of step with real-world practices in that nowadays, the accuracy of FMC navigation means that ATC trusts such flight plans and the accurate navigation capabilities of such modern systems enough to leave pilots to it a lot more until they are right on the point where they need to start talking to the approach controllers, which is possible when they know what an aircraft flight plan is. Some of that is geared toward better fuel consumption and aiding traffic flow in crowded skies, so you often get aircraft making continuous planned descents right up to an approach point providing they have the necessary required navigation capabilities to allow that, but all that sort of thing kicked in really big time in the real world after FSX was created, and FSX has never had a default FMC, so you can understand it being missing from FSX to some degree.Another solution is to use a third part ATC add-on, such as Radar Contact, since products like that tend to emulate real world practices a bit better. Alternatively, you could simply ignore ATC, fly your route and delay tuning the next ATC contact until you are ready to start talking about landing, which is in fact what many simmers do in lieu of the limitations of FSX's capabilities.Al

How do I export my flight plan to fsx? I saved my flight from simroutes and dragged it over into my PMDG flight folder. Is there a better or more effective way?