"Descend and maintain 7,900"

[mtr75 653]

3 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Heh!  "Interesting" as in the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

But don't mind me, I'll be off scouting Alaska for likely sandbanks or glaciers to land on.  Maybe now you understand why a lot of formerly airliner-exclusive simmers (and some real life airline pilots) are going to GA flying in MSFS.  It's really that good.

My favorite switch in the whole aircraft is the OFF switch on the radio. 😄 

Hook

I'll be in the Bonanza and the Baron flying around the Caribbean, my friend. Looking forward to it for sure. 

[LHookins 3,113]

3 minutes ago, LHookins said:

My favorite switch in the whole aircraft is the OFF switch on the radio. 😄

Something I really like about the A2A Piper J3 Cub is that it has a battery powered radio with a battery life of about two hours.  You have more endurance than that, so you *have* to turn the radio off for at least part of your flight if you're flying to the limits of your endurance.

Hook

[CW46 101]

5 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

And as was expained to you in the other thread by various users, the default ATC isn't designed for real-world pilots.

Which has confirmed what I expected when it was to be offered as playable on the Xbox, that this is foremost a game not an attempt at realistic flight simulation. I am sure all the fidelity hype will be greatly appreciated by those who play games with xbox controllers and are 10 years old. Alas, I don't own an Xbox or desire one so might as well may as well upgrade to P3D V5. Although one would think that it should not have been that difficult for the developers to have a listen to a few minutes of real world ATC communications and get a handle on the correct lingo. "Proceed as planned".... okay, what's your vector Victor? After a few minutes of the as is ATC any sort of immersion was long gone. Maybe in a year or so when when third party developers have a go at it.

[cwburnett 1,809]

5 hours ago, mtr75 said:

Never in the history of aviation has an aircraft been asked to climb to or descend to some random altitude like 7,800. Never. An approach clearance, a la "Descend and maintain 3,600 until established on the localizer, cleared ILS runway 33 approach", sure. But just randomly? Nope. Absolutely bizarre. 

I totally agree that default ATC is bugged. For many reasons, including the fact that it appears to live in a world where terrain doesn't exist.

That said...I have three thoughts on this subject, in no particular order.

First, in the video you shared, the instruction to be at 8,800 was part of the approach sequence and that's why it was given. The call was "you are 29 miles southeast and expect vectors visual runway 26". The 8,800 was part of that call and part of the initial approach instructions. My 'realism' complaint would be putting me 2000' above field elevation 30 miles out, but that's neither here nor there, since there was a mountain between the plane and the airport.

Second, and purely FYI to your point about 'never' ... in the real world, I have gotten odd altitude assignments many times. Sure, only a small fraction of the time, but especially in the mountain west (where I live), it happens. Sometimes because of MVA or OROCA or MEA or MOCA or any of those + crossing traffic considerations, etc. There are plenty of reasons why it can and does happen. And no simulated ATC engine can handle those requests or reasons.

And third, default ATC sucks, it always has and it probably always will. Why? Because ATC is complicated; it's the reason that in this day and age, we still have fully human controlled ATC. MSFS, P3D, XP...all live in a very realistic world, with realistic terrain and airports - and each bit of airspace has its own unique challenges. Strictly speaking, one could probably automate ATC for IFR traffic departing from and arriving exclusively at airports with departure and arrival procedures that directly connect to low- or high-altitude airways and with approach procedures (which I think is what Asobo updated ATC to do, right?), but as soon as we start talking about vectors we have to think about descent rates and obstacle clearance and groundspeed and conflicting airspace and other traffic...and...and...it is too much to code for every single unique scenario.  There are perfectly good platforms available for simulating flight in a controlled environment - namely Vatsim and the like... I'm a pilot in the real world, so maybe my perspective is jaded, but I don't need a computer voice to tag along with me while I fly a stupid-simple departure+airways+arrival+approach flight; that flight doesn't require any instructions at all. Where I'd want it is in complex airspace with lots of conflicting traffic where every turn, airspeed change and altitude change is meticulously choreographed to keep me clear of conflicting traffic and deposit me on the approach at an altitude and airspeed that is manageable. And to date, the only computer that has been able to reliably do that is the human brain.

To each his or her own, but I don't understand why anyone thinks Asobo should have been able to build something that the world's aviation authorities admit is years and years away still from a technological standpoint.

[Shug 210]

Never in the history of Avsim has everyone ever agreed on anything. Never.

[Chock 17,769]

If the built-in ATC is not perfect, I'm okay with that. Certainly in Europe we've been used to having FAA protocols in FSX and P3D for nearly two decades, so inaccurate stuff has been the norm and there can't be many FSX or P3D users who haven't had an occasion where the built-in ATC was vectoring you all over the place before sending you on a course where you'd end up smacking into the side of a mountain. But as long as it basically will offer some kind of stab at ATC, it'll do. Frankly, most of the time I have my MCE co-pilot work the radios anyway.

I daresay Asobo will improve it and I should imagine we'll end up with a decent TPD ATC add-on at some point too. But you're probably never gonna have it perfect even then; there are just some things which would be too difficult/unusual to make the effort in having AI do; such as a controller-assisted non-gyro approach from VFR on top after a vacuum failure mayday, or Harrison Ford landing on the taxiway next to you.

 

[Chock 17,769]

11 minutes ago, Shug said:

Never in the history of Avsim has everyone ever agreed on anything. Never.

Your post might be the exception to that.

[Slides 1,552]

14 minutes ago, Chock said:

Your post might be the exception to that.

I disagree 

[Dave_YVR 997]

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

Real ATC is only responsible for  separation of IFR traffic.

Say what? ATC is responsible for terrain separation when issuing ANY altitudes or vectors when on an IFR clearance. In the sim however, not so much.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Dave_YVR

[ShawnG 1,823]

22 hours ago, CW46 said:

Which has confirmed what I expected when it was to be offered as playable on the Xbox, that this is foremost a game not an attempt at realistic flight simulation.

well, sir, when you upgrade to p3dv5, despite the fact that it is, by name and by legal agreement a serious, non entertainment, non gamey, non xboxy hyper serious simulator.  You will find that it's default ATC is exactly the same one from FSX which is worse than the one shipping with MSFS...  

I would imagine that if it were at all easy to program an infallable ATC ai,  It would already be directing the real traffic in the skies above us.

Edited August 14, 2020 by n4gix
Removed unnecessary long quote!

[sd_flyer 6,087]

47 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

Say what? ATC is responsible for terrain separation when issuing ANY altitudes or vectors when on an IFR clearance. In the sim however, not so much.

ATC only responsive for IFR traffic. Of course they won't deliberately put  airplanes below minimum safe altitude. By then again why do you thing all airlines equipped with GPWS if ATC suppose "to take care of them"? There are plenty of high profile case with CFIT cases with ATC on duty were  providing vectors.

By the way nearly all midair collisions in SoCal for past 20 years I can remember were while ATC was talking to both aircraft prior collision !

[Dave_YVR 997]

2 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

ATC only responsive for IFR traffic. Of course they won't deliberately put  airplanes below minimum safe altitude. By then again why do you thing all airlines equipped with GPWS if ATC suppose "to take care of them"? There are plenty of high profile case with CFIT cases with ATC on duty were  providing vectors.

By the way nearly all midair collisions in SoCal for past 20 years I can remember were while ATC was talking to both aircraft prior collision !

Almost 28 years now in ATC, I guess I've been doing it wrong this whole time. 🙄

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

5 hours ago, CW46 said:

Which has confirmed what I expected when it was to be offered as playable on the Xbox, that this is foremost a game not an attempt at realistic flight simulation. I am sure all the fidelity hype will be greatly appreciated by those who play games with xbox controllers and are 10 years old. Alas, I don't own an Xbox or desire one so might as well may as well upgrade to P3D V5. 

Yep, I guess that's what you should do then. Maybe the ATC in P3D will be more to your liking.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Der Zeitgeist

[mtr75 653]

11 hours ago, ShawnG said:

well, sir, when you upgrade to p3dv5, despite the fact that it is, by name and by legal agreement a serious, non entertainment, non gamey, non xboxy hyper serious simulator.  You will find that it's default ATC is exactly the same one from FSX which is worse than the one shipping with MSFS...  

I would imagine that if it were at all easy to program an infallable ATC ai,  It would already be directing the real traffic in the skies above us.

But that's just the thing - we have a snapshot of default MS ATC from 20 years ago and default MS ATC from today... and it doesn't seem to be any better. 20 years later...

What should also be obvious from the trajectory of FSX is that what we see is what we get. It will not be improved. 

Edited August 14, 2020 by mtr75

[LHookins 3,113]

11 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

and it doesn't seem to be any better. 20 years later...

We don't have flying cars yet either. 😄  We were expecting to get those 20 years ago.

Has *anyone* made an ATC for a flight sim that you would deem adequate?  It might not be as easy as you think.  

Hook