During long distance flight with GPS, I usually leave the plane in AP and take a break. When I come back, ATC already cancel my IFR. What should I do, re-file it? The problem is. If I re-file when very close to destination, ATC mess up my approach. What do real pilots do when taking a nap while in AP and ATC cancels IFR?

Two things you cando:Either refile, or before you take a nap, wait until ATC hands you over. Do not contact the new center, approach whatever. When you have finfished your nap just contact them. Your IFR will be still alive and not canceled.Alex

Aha! I will choose the second option. Thnx.

Real pilots do not take naps when in command of an aircraft, even when in AP--what if it fails?? Unless of course they have another pilot on board who can takeover control from them while they are resting.Would YOU like to be a passenger on an airliner where the entire flightdeck crew was sleeping when something went wrong??Paul

Like a lot of others, I also take a snooze.Hehe,when I fly, I have to be the pilot, copilot, engineer, serve coffee, ect. I hate that when I have to sleep for everone on board. bugby

>During long distance flight with GPS, I usually leave the>plane in AP and take a break. When I come back, ATC already>cancel my IFR. What should I do, re-file it? The problem is.>If I re-file when very close to destination, ATC mess up my>approach. What do real pilots do when taking a nap while in AP>and ATC cancels IFR?Or you can try Radar Contact: www.jdtllc.com, or the forum here at AVSIM: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=135You can have the copilot take over ATC calls when you're taking your nap. And you can have the sim pause at X miles from your destination so you can fly the approach yourself.Recommend you wait for version 4.0 if you're concerned about control over AI traffic. In the current version you can be on final and an AI plane can taxi onto the active when you're trying to land. In 4.0, the Radar Contact "controllers" prevent this.The developers and beta testers in the forum can answer any questions you might have.Take care,

Here is what I do when I want to take a break to make some coffee or fix something to eat or whatever, I cancel IFR... Then I do what I have to do and when I return I just reopen the flight plan. Simple and it works.

It sounds good. I will wait for v4 then. Thnx.

>During long distance flight with GPS, I usually leave the>plane in AP and take a break. When I come back, ATC already>cancel my IFR. What should I do, re-file it? The problem is.>If I re-file when very close to destination, ATC mess up my>approach. What do real pilots do when taking a nap while in AP>and ATC cancels IFR?I think the way FS9 ATC handles this is a little buggy. Sometimes, when I'm asked to contact, say, "Madrid Center", I don't hear it; then my IFR plan gets cancelled.Had this happen two days ago: Was flying the ERJ 145 with Portugalia livery into Lisbon airport. Just downloaded the very nice (free) photographic Lisbon scenery. Was all set up for a spectacular approach over the Tejo and the Tejo bridge to runway 3. ATC asks me to descend from 22,000 to 12,000 feet. I'm approaching 12,000 when I suddenly get: IFR flight plan cancelled. The thing to do is to (as others have advised) to refile your flight plan (under choose new ifr destination in the atc menu), then NOT (obviously) to move your aircraft to the new departure airport. If you do that, your flight is (obviously) going to be fubard. You can then go on as usual, but if you are descending, atc will sometimes ask you to "climb to...." Obviously, if you are on approach, this doesn't work. So, the next thing to do is to hit the "request altitude decrease option" and to ask for the altitude that you were at when ATC cancelled your flight plan. Works for me. ricardo

What I do depends on what I feel like and how far I am from my destination.... Maybe I'll re-file IFR, maybe I'll just request flight following and fly the rest of the flight in VFR mode (even though that wouldn't be allowed above FL180 :()..Most of the time, if I'm leaving the flight deck for longer than a minute, I'll wait until I get a handoff and acknowledge but don't contact the next station. When I get back, I contact whatever ATC station I should be tuned to and everything's back to normal....If I urgently need to go afk and can't wait until I get a handoff, I'll just pause the sim while I'm gone. Not realistic, but neither is hiding from ATC in a handoff.... :(

I think if that happened in real-life you would get an escort from a nice Panavia Tornado to the nearest field airport. Then you would have a chance to explain what happened to the CAA before being asked to repeat the statement in a court of law whilst your employer simultaneously hands you a P45 and organises a replacement crew to complete the trip!!

I tend to do flights between 2-3 hours, up and down the east coast, or to the caribbean (I base myself at KEWR). In those cases I'll fly in real time but using one of the methods described here already - Start out and climb to cruise altitude, after reaching cruise altitude wait for the next handoff, acknowledge and tune in it, but do not contact the next center. You'll hear ATC chatter for a awhile until you are 'out of range' then it will quiet down. Once I'm within 200 nm of destination I contact the center displayed in the window - no cancellations. I have noticed however on very long flights - over the Atlantic/Pacific, etc that if I use the above method and use acceleration, when I drop out of warp and then contact the local center (near my destination), I will get bogus vectors from ATC. Usually 2, and then a "proceed on course". At first I was doing as they said, but I found if you acknowledge the request to turn, but don't, acknowledge the next request, but don't do it, they usually happen fast enough and your "proceed on course" comes up next and everything is fine.I never fly at a rate above 4x acceleration, I find at 2x and 4x you can go to spot view and do some decent sight seeing. I flew from Phuket to Guam recently in CS707 and found out how unfamiliar I was was with Southeast Asia/Indonesia. If I stay with the aircraft during 'silent running' I'll spend time doing fuel and nav calcs, but on the long ones I'll go do something else. I once (early in fs2002) had set up a flight to Sky Harbor, got all set up at altitude and then left. I fell asleep and when I woke up I had found the aircraft had reached Phoenix, circled at altitude until the fuel was gone, then spiraled in to crash, it took me few minutes to figure out what happen (perfect circles on the moving map gave me a clue...)Have fun, it's a big world out there!SteveDell 8250P4 2.53, 533 fsb1 Gig RAMGeForce 4 4600FSAutoStartCS707DF727PMDG737(600,700,800 & 900)PMDG Beech 1900DUltimate Traffic