Hi all,

after hours of flying with little birds in VFR to enjoy the nice scenery, today was my first try with the A320 and an IFR flight (short trip of 20 mins).

I was flying from EDRZ (Zweibrücken, Germany) to LFSB (Basel, France/Switzerland), alt was 25.000 ft. Start fine, Cruise fine. After a while, the ATC was giving me new altitude orders.

I was descending from 25.000 to 11.000, everything ok. My course was still the planned one, which was leading from the west to Basel Airport to runway 08 (very short GA runway), normally the airliners come from north to runway 15 ( i just took what the flight planner proposed to try it out). But ok. Then, the ATC left me on 11.000 ft and controller switched from Reims Center to Basel Approach and back. I changed between both around 15 times. Meanwhile, i flew according the programmed flight path, but with 11.000 of course much too high. There was no order to intercept an localizer, it just repeated the order "fly as planned" again and again and again and after each repetition, i had so switch to Reims center again, then back to Basel Approach, "fly as planned", then again switch to Reims center.

Hmmm...very nice. I was a little bit lost. No altitudes given? No runway given?

After my flightplan was at the end (basically 11.000 fts OVER the runway), the Airbus flew circles.

Then i aborted IFR and made an manual VFR landing on runway 15.

 

My questions.

Was that my planning failure? Do i need to choose the landing runway in the flight planning phase?

Does the ATC only say "fly as planned" and i have to choose course and altitude by myself then?

Does ATC never guide me but just let my fly my planned course and runway?

 

Whats the secret now? (i was very familiar with the ATC in FSX/P3D)

Edited August 26, 20205 yr by Paladin2005

ATC needs to get fixed.  I had the same problem in which I reported it in another thread and to MS.  Too many are looking at scenery and flying airliners with no ATC on YouTube where things like this aren’t getting caught.  This is one of the fundamental features of FS since FS2k2 and it’s broken.  I’m hoping for a fix in the next update.

Edited August 26, 20205 yr by Dillon

12 minutes ago, Paladin2005 said:

Does ATC never guide me but just let my fly my planned course and runway?

Whats the secret now? (i was very familiar with the ATC in FSX/P3D)

I was trying out something similar a few days ago in the TBM. IFR from Frankfurt to Heathrow. I didn't select any specific arrival or approach when planning the flight on the world map. I did plan it using the upper airways option. When I approached the English coast, ATC assigned me a specific approach procedure, I then loaded this into the Garmin and it worked just like it should. ATC also stepped me down right until I hit the glideslope in the end.

Zeitgeist, means:

Flightplan roughly to the arrival airport.

Inflight wait for the ATC to assign a specific approach?

Then enter this approach via G1000/G3000 or Airbus FMC?

 

Did it guide you through each step or just said "fly as planned"?

 

Edited August 26, 20205 yr by Paladin2005

ATC is broken and I can't get procedures to appear in the TBM, maybe they are not implemented for every airport, they were working for some in Argentina where I landed IFR in zero visibility at 3-4 airports.
Very frustrating to do anything else than VFR with preset weather at the moment.

1 minute ago, Paladin2005 said:

Zeitgeist, means:

Flightplan roughly to the arrival airport.

Inflight wait for the ATC to assign a specific approach?

Then enter this approach via G1000/G3000 or Airbus FMC?

Did it guide you through each step or just said "fly as planned"?

Alright, let me try to explain it step by step:

• Plan the flight from the world map, with departure and arrival airports clearly selected.
• It will then give you a direct-GPS routing. I changed that to upper airways, and it selected a route with various waypoints on the way. I didn't select anything else on the world map, no departures, arrivals, or approaches.
• I started the flight, got IFR clearance before taxiing, ATC cleared me for my cruising altitude and told me to proceed as planned (on my planned IFR route)
• When I was across the English channel, somewhat south of London, ATC assigned me to a specific approach procedure for runway 27R of Heathrow and cleared me direct to the first waypoint of this procedure. I then selected and loaded this procedure on my Garmin, which updated my flightplan with additional waypoints for the approach. I just continued in NAV mode and followed the approach waypoints one by one. ATC also gave me altitude assignments for the descent at the waypoints.
• This basically took me down to the final approach to 27R, when I was cleared for the ILS approach. I then switched my NAV source from GPS to NAV1 (I had input the ILS frequency there earlier) and hit the APR button on my AP. The autopilot captured to localizer, and shortly after that, I went to manual to finish the landing.

It seems to me that the ATC is partially broken and partially just different from the one in P3D.

I just completed a flight from Tallin to Bromma. 

1. ATC gave me alttitude instructions until I hit 6,000 feet. 

2. I was then assigned an approach. 

3. I loaded and activated the approach and dialed the frequency for the localizer into Nav1

4. Never got any further instructions regarding altitude, so I descended myself for a correct altiude to intercept the localizer (info is in the flight plan)

5. When I hit the correct altitude about 3 miles out I switched to Vor, which turned into Loc1

6. Plane intercepted the localizer turned to the runway, glideslope became active, and I landed with no problem. 

38 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I was trying out something similar a few days ago in the TBM. IFR from Frankfurt to Heathrow. I didn't select any specific arrival or approach when planning the flight on the world map. I did plan it using the upper airways option. When I approached the English coast, ATC assigned me a specific approach procedure, I then loaded this into the Garmin and it worked just like it should. ATC also stepped me down right until I hit the glideslope in the end.

Here’s the issue I have and that the weather could change at your destination prompting a runway change meaning choosing your runway in flight planning won’t work.  That’s not how it’s done in the RW anyway.  Also picking your approach in the Garmin is impossible in the CJ4 because it doesn’t have one (that’s the plane I was using when I saw this problem.

1 minute ago, Dillon said:

Here’s the issue I have and that the weather could change at your destination prompting a runway change meaning choosing your runway in flight planning won’t work.  That’s not how it’s done in the RW anyway.  Also picking your approach in the Garmin is impossible in the CJ4 because it doesn’t have one (that’s the plane I was using when I saw this problem.

I think most of these issues are probably a combination of:

• Some avionics and AP functions already implemented in some planes, but not others
• Insufficient documentation about what should work when and how, and in which planes
• In some cases: Simple user error.

20 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

 

• In some cases: Simple user error.

Been doing this for years here and in the real world, it’s not user error on my end.  The Garmin usage is interesting as it seems the ATC engine assumes the plane has one but it’s apparent the ATC engine needs work for planes that don’t.

OK I count myself as being on a new learning curve with this sim, coming from P3D, but there are times when it seems it is not making life easy.

I mainly fly airliners and am used to PMDG study level detail. I know the default stuff like the 320 is not to that level (yet? will it ever be?) and just for fun I'm coming from an exclusive Boeing background, so I got to learn the 'bus too here.

I'm now more comfortable with what the 'bus will actually let you do in terms of flight management - nav, alt, speed, but am really struggling with IFR and ATC.

I'm trying to learn the 'bus on a familiar route I tend to use for P3D testing. Flightplan is generated in SimBrief and loaded via the options in MSFS2020. It sees and loads it up. The plan also shows in the aircraft. I could see ILS details loaded in also, so it knows where I am going. Following alt constraints, I should be on a nice approach, but ATC doesn't seem to want to play ball, and I inevitably end up either flying right over the runway, or vectoring around the airport,.

So right now I just want to fly IFR with my plan, but without ATC complicating matters. I can come back to its foibles later perhaps.
The simple question is can I, and how do I turn ATC off? I've played with a few settings to no avail, and still find ATC barking at me. It must be buried in there somewhere!!

2 minutes ago, DaveRuk said:

OK I count myself as being on a new learning curve with this sim, coming from P3D, but there are times when it seems it is not making life easy.

I mainly fly airliners and am used to PMDG study level detail. I know the default stuff like the 320 is not to that level (yet? will it ever be?) and just for fun I'm coming from an exclusive Boeing background, so I got to learn the 'bus too here.

I'm now more comfortable with what the 'bus will actually let you do in terms of flight management - nav, alt, speed, but am really struggling with IFR and ATC.

I'm trying to learn the 'bus on a familiar route I tend to use for P3D testing. Flightplan is generated in SimBrief and loaded via the options in MSFS2020. It sees and loads it up. The plan also shows in the aircraft. I could see ILS details loaded in also, so it knows where I am going. Following alt constraints, I should be on a nice approach, but ATC doesn't seem to want to play ball, and I inevitably end up either flying right over the runway, or vectoring around the airport,.

So right now I just want to fly IFR with my plan, but without ATC complicating matters. I can come back to its foibles later perhaps.
The simple question is can I, and how do I turn ATC off? I've played with a few settings to no avail, and still find ATC barking at me. It must be buried in there somewhere!!

get the mod for it, already much better.

On 8/26/2020 at 12:51 PM, Paladin2005 said:

Hi all,

after hours of flying with little birds in VFR to enjoy the nice scenery, today was my first try with the A320 and an IFR flight (short trip of 20 mins).

I was flying from EDRZ (Zweibrücken, Germany) to LFSB (Basel, France/Switzerland), alt was 25.000 ft. Start fine, Cruise fine. After a while, the ATC was giving me new altitude orders.

I was descending from 25.000 to 11.000, everything ok. My course was still the planned one, which was leading from the west to Basel Airport to runway 08 (very short GA runway), normally the airliners come from north to runway 15 ( i just took what the flight planner proposed to try it out). But ok. Then, the ATC left me on 11.000 ft and controller switched from Reims Center to Basel Approach and back. I changed between both around 15 times. Meanwhile, i flew according the programmed flight path, but with 11.000 of course much too high. There was no order to intercept an localizer, it just repeated the order "fly as planned" again and again and again and after each repetition, i had so switch to Reims center again, then back to Basel Approach, "fly as planned", then again switch to Reims center.

Hmmm...very nice. I was a little bit lost. No altitudes given? No runway given?

After my flightplan was at the end (basically 11.000 fts OVER the runway), the Airbus flew circles.

Then i aborted IFR and made an manual VFR landing on runway 15.

 

My questions.

Was that my planning failure? Do i need to choose the landing runway in the flight planning phase?

Does the ATC only say "fly as planned" and i have to choose course and altitude by myself then?

Does ATC never guide me but just let my fly my planned course and runway?

 

Whats the secret now? (i was very familiar with the ATC in FSX/P3D)

It happened to me too, tried a couple times and then gave up on ATC, till They fix it

8 minutes ago, DaveRuk said:

The simple question is can I, and how do I turn ATC off? 

The simple answer is don't contact them in the first place, or if you have contacted them, change the frequency.

12 minutes ago, viz said:

The simple answer is don't contact them in the first place, or if you have contacted them, change the frequency.

That's the bit I can't figure! I'm guessing there's a simple way if doing that but so far my experience has been: Load flight from my SimBrief file, Fly Now, and immediately ATC starts banging on at me. So if you could guide me on how not to contact them at the start that'd be great. Alternately do you mean to change a COM radio setting?

Thanks in advance!