ATC - extents and expectations

[jackdleach 11]

Hi - I've never really spent a lot of time with ATC in sims, but am trying to now, specifically in fs2020.  I have some general questions and wondering if someone can give me some high-level responses...

Departure:

I'm doing VFR flights with a C172.  When I start a flight at parking I can pick up ATIS and tune to Ground and request taxi clearance, and I can switch to Tower when holding short and request takeoff clearance.  Once I get that, I'm pretty much done with ATC other than "I'll let you know when you're out of my airspace."  I don't get any vectors for my takeoff direction (I have no other planes in the sky despite having tried to set that up, thinking some traffic and ATC chatter might be nice...).

Cruise:

I can't really do any radio work in cruise.  I could request flight following (yay!), check nearby ATIS, but that's it.  Not that there's much I expect to be able to do here, but it'd be great to be able to request winds aloft or a TAF from a nearby station or something... anyway, no biggie here, I can deal with it as-is

Arrival

So I near my next destination, a field in class Bravo.  I can't do anything here.  I can tune the radios to approach or tower or asos or whatever, but I can't make any calls.  The only option i have is to request flight following (still, if I haven't already).  There's just no option to initiate any of these calls in ATC.  Therefore, instead of being vectored into Class B airspace for landing (which would be nice), I just do it myself (oh well, there's no traffic anyway, so I'll just pretend I was asked to enter a left pattern at downwind 45...).  I land, turn off the runway, then I can contact Ground for taxi clearance to parking.

This is a huge hole in the experience.  I must be missing something?!? Or, my expectations are way too high?

Re-Departure (Same Flight)

Ok, so same flight here, I've drained the dragon, grabbed a snack, stretched my legs, ready to get back in the air... I can't do anything on ATC.  No option on Ground to request taxi clearance to a runway (I have Ground Services, which doesn't include anything useful), no option to contact Tower for takeoff clearance.  The best I can do is hop on the runway (not a problem, it's an eerily empty ghost-airport anyway), and take off.  At about 200 feet, Tower finally speaks up: "XYZ, you were not authorized to take off!"  Thanks buddy.

 

There's apparently some pretty big holes in the ATC system.  At very least I'd expect to be able to have the things noted above.  Should this be possible?  Am I missing something?  Is it because I'm not filing a detailed IFR flight plan, that VFR at controlled towers just doesn't really work with ATC? In this latest flight I did actually set my arrival airport as part of the flight setup (which I hadn't been doing), hoping that'd at least let me contact Tower on approach and get vectored in for landing, but no luck there either, it made no difference.

Any recommendations on things I may be able to do to make this experience a bit more authentic?  Be it settings, configs, game operation, plugins...

Thanks

 

[Ixoye 1,812]

I have no problem to connect to tower on approach, but you have to cancel flight following first, or change the squawk code to 1200 (I think) to get the option to call other airports, change the frequency to your destination airport should also work.

[jackdleach 11]

I've tried all frequencies at the destination airport, but I'll try again and make it a point to squawk 1200 to see if that helps.  Thanks

[himmelhorse 1,276]

This ATC system is at least, as bad, as all the default predecessors in flight sim. As usual, we have no choice other than to resort to 3PDs and I believe there is at least one payware and one freeware ATC programmes that are vastly better than default, already available for MSFS.

Simply put ... There are NO excellent, or even good, default ATC programmes in any flight sim programme.  A fact of life perpetuated in MSFS. Unfortunately, I can see no prospect of huge improvement by MS?Asobo. Note here that they have already made some improvements.

Sadly,if anyone is chasing anything approaching realism in ATC there are options but they all lie with 3PDS (payware and one significant freeware) 

Tony

[jackdleach 11]

Hi @himmelhorse - if it's not against the forum rules, could you recommend some of these 3PDs that I might look into? I'm wary of these things usually - I'd only want to use well-supported, well-adopted solutions (e.g., not some weak attempt that has a high chance of being abandoned in 3-6 months as is so often the case in development libraries I deal with as a software developer).  I'd be perfectly content to invest in a paid or subscription-based service that is run by a solid company with attention to stability (particularly as this sim is so new and with so many changes, it's a tough time for that right now).

What I'm not looking for is to join an online community of simmers who work together over ATC.  While it's something I may do someday, for the foreseeable future my aim is to become more familiar with general ATC operations, both VFR and IFR, on my own time at my own pace.

I can (and have, lightly), look around myself, but I'm not confident what I'm looking at and what the solutions are really geared for, how well they're supported, etc.  If you (or whoever) has an advice or recommendations in finding a suitable one given what I'd like to do, I'd certainly be appreciative.

Thanks,
-jack

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Jack,

Payware .... Pilot2ATC.  I believe it is very good

Freeware Vatsim ... again, very good but is live on line and I think has a fair sort of learning curve (real and qualified Air Traffic Controllers)

I think there is another freeware one but for the life of me I cannot remember which one it is. Someone else in this forum will know and I am sure they will be able to help.

Tony

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Jack,

The one freeware programme that I could not remember is, of course, Little Nav Map. I was reminded because they have just announced compatibility with MSFS in todays "AVSIM Front Page"

I have not tried any of these add-on ATC programmes in any sim, so my comments have basically neem just a repetition and/or summary of other peoples opinions. At the very least though, the freeware has a cost free "suck it and see" aspect which may or may not be, appealing.

Good luck with your search and I guess, any comments on your results would be welcomed in this forum.  There is already lots of comments regarding this topic here though.

Regards

Tony