Hi,Just recently did a flight of about 150nm in the caribbean IFR to St. Maarten. The airway I was filed onto was via an NDB on St. Kitts (about 60nm before destination). Was pretty careful to stay pretty close to the track (even checked it later in map view?!) but just before the NDB atc started vectoring me to like 010degrees which was way off my filed 345 degree track. Felt kinda like the thing it does sometimes when you're off course and it vectors you to reintercept the filed course but this time I felt I was doing ok and ended up a bit frustrated and with a map view showing my route being vectored away from pretty much the filed route for some weird reason.Only thing I can think of is because maybe before I had requested the St. Maarten approach via VOR transition and maybe I should have been heading directly for the transition vor or something??Anyone else ever have something like this happen?? Should I still follow my airways route when cleared to a transition or just go straight for the transition vor?? Seems a pretty rare occurrance but any help appreciatedThanks,Pierre

ATC will start vectors for the approach regardless of your flight plan. Your flight plan works for the bulk of the route but then ATC will calculate your distance from arrival airport and start with the vectors.

Right. This is especially true if you selected a particular approach as opposed to the default ILS. FS ATC will get the IAF and vector you toward that when your offset angle is small. For instance, if the IAF is a VOR that's nearer than the NDB in your flight plan ATC won't wait for you to go to the NDB and then "back" to the VOR. It'll just get you to the VOR.Of course it's hard to say exactly what's happening without seeing your flight plan but that's my best guess.

Cool, thought I'd now draw a small diagram of what I thought happened:-roll:-rollhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/86028.jpgI guess that makes sense although to be honest I'm still not too sure this "when your offset angle is small" thing as here it also seemed pretty big..Guess next time I'm gonna go straight for the final vor although it does feel a bit like "cheating" off some of my flight plan.. Weird thing is is that I flew the same route a few days before and had no problem just requesting the transition and following the plan. Maybe it's just my bad flying after all (and in which case I apologise for this whole post too)!!Thanks for the help though, is appreciatedPierre

hi Pierre,in situations like yours, I usually ignore ATC's nagging and finish my planned approach. Sometime you get close enough to the IAF and you're cleared for the approach.greetings,Stephan

Also keep in mind that ATC is also sensitive to the timing of events especially if you also have AI aircraft. This means that if you fly the same plan at two different times of day you might get different results because of the other aircraft (AI) in the system.

Just to say thanks again to everyoneWill do some more flying and if the same situation comes up I'll go straight to the transition fix. If they still start vectoring me I'll just try not to get too mad at it :):)Thanks again and best wishes,Pierre

You can always request the published transition assuming it is available. This way atc will expect you to do most of the navigation on your own. It may or may not help with atc deviating you off course by so much but it helps for me.

What's the matter?IRL, ATC often routes the planes direct to the next VOR if there is no Traffic in the way (or if theres traffic on the planned path). It's a shortcut, and Pilots appreciate it. So, if you are "cleared direct...", you should reply "cleared direct ..., THANK YOU!"In FS, AFAIK there are no "cleared direct to...", but maybe you got it underneath your VOR request.:)Try ATTC from xavius.comFox