I still enjoy "taxi into position and hold" in P3D. Personally, I prefer it to "line up and wait".

6 hours ago, Lenny777 said:

"...Get over it because it is what it is."

What a wonderfully brief, if not eloquent, defense of mediocrity!

14 hours ago, Mike S KPDX said:

You know, I read this and I have to also respond.  I try to place myself into the role of the programmer, and one day your boss walks up to you and says 'your part of the ATC team, start with a list of ATC commands'.  Now one would think that you can make one phone call to any FBO, ATC center, local pilots association, ect... ect... literally one phone call.  

But no, you do something else and who knows what that even is.  I find as I get older I get more and more bothered by some basic logic flow of things.

The last thing a programmer wants to do is talk to someone on the phone... what I suspect they did was go straight to the source of the information and downloaded themselves a copy of their countries Radiotelephony manual (or whatever it's called in that country). From that they will have extracted all the approved phraseology and made a list of ATC commands.

Unfortunately this all happened in the late nineties/early naughties and in the US... while they used "Position and Hold". The programmer was completely correct and performed his job accurately and with dilligence. They then implemented it exactly as required. Full marks to the programmer(s).

X years later the US changed to match the ICAO standard and started using "Line up and wait".

Unfortunately the people in charge of FS (managers/supervisors/CEO?) didn't want to pay to update (and subsequently test) this data, "Time is money boy!", so they release subsequent products with the old data still in place...

...and people then have a go at the programmer because it's wrong...

9 hours ago, iwebber said:

The last thing a programmer wants to do is talk to someone on the phone... what I suspect they did was go straight to the source of the information and downloaded themselves a copy of their countries Radiotelephony manual (or whatever it's called in that country). From that they will have extracted all the approved phraseology and made a list of ATC commands.

Unfortunately this all happened in the late nineties/early naughties and in the US... while they used "Position and Hold". The programmer was completely correct and performed his job accurately and with dilligence. They then implemented it exactly as required. Full marks to the programmer(s).

X years later the US changed to match the ICAO standard and started using "Line up and wait".

Unfortunately the people in charge of FS (managers/supervisors/CEO?) didn't want to pay to update (and subsequently test) this data, "Time is money boy!", so they release subsequent products with the old data still in place...

...and people then have a go at the programmer because it's wrong...

whaaaa???

80's and 90's?  this software was started development in 2015!.  Twelve years after the verbiage was made standard by the authorities.

no, the programming guys got it wrong, how do we know that? simply because it is wrong.

Seems we have some (same old problem) language differences between UK/ EASA and the USA.

UK (CAA publication CAP413) states "Taxi and Hold Position" is quite right in many circumstances.

https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/modalapplication.aspx?catid=1&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=9857

It's a regular occurrence in the Sims that we have these ATC Differences difficulties.

It's no big deal;

 

Edited April 11, 20215 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

26 minutes ago, Mike S KPDX said:

whaaaa???

80's and 90's?  this software was started development in 2015!.  Twelve years after the verbiage was made standard by the authorities.

no, the programming guys got it wrong, how do we know that? simply because it is wrong.

Well obviously not...

Position and hold was changed to line up and wait on September 30, 2010 so this bit of code was probably written before then...

Hate to break it to you but there's still some old FS code in MFS, including (but not limited to) most of the ATC stuff.

As to your second point, if I (as your boss) told you to write a program that added 2 and 2 together and output 5, who should the users complain to when the program doesn't correctly add up 2 and 2?

 

I tried ATC in MSFS2020 today and have promptly switched it OFF again.

It's a basket case. It has no bearing on anything approaching real world procedures and for any aspiring real world pilots out there should be firmly ignored. 

VATSIM is the go-to that at least - most of the time - has aspiring ATC wannabes operating it and has a degree of accuracy and not only that but; ATC phraseology location dependant too.

I have other views on how VATSIM is being used by obscure airlines to train their pilots but that's the stuff of nightmares so I won't go in to it here. Suffice to say; in terms of ATC; it's as real as you're going to get right now.

Dive in! and if you're scared to push the PTT on VATSIM - then you need to review whether or not there's a Pilot in you trying to get out.

AVIATE - NAVIGATE - COMMUNICATE

In that order in a crisis, but, those elements are the normal triangle of activities 99% of the time when things are fine. You must be able to converse with ATC.

I did my RT Exam about 15 years ago - it cost me £75 and it took a day to do - with the Oral and Written Exam at the end of it. It was money well spent.

Edited April 11, 20215 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

I was hoping that between FSX and FS2020 MS could have gotten the ATC at least halfway right. 
 

They could have fixed most of the errors in FS2020 by listening to LiveATC for an hour. Or reached out and found a controller or current controller to consult them on the endeavor. But as it stands, the ATC is absolutely atrocious. I used it once, on a flight through my RW airspace (I’m a controller at Washington Center) and my head just exploded. 
 

The frequencies weren’t off by too much (the frequency I was put on leaving Potomac TRACON would have been the sector in the southern part of my area, not the one on the north end) but the constant “proceed to XYZ” on each check in made me want to strangle the programmer.

Plus the US has had descend via clearances since 2010, it would have been nice if they could have found a way to integrate those. 

The reason I decided to address this topic was simple, that if this is a "flight simulator" then simulate flying an air plane, in the 21st century, here in this world. I am well aware that the ATC is so off reality,that some of you say leave it alone just fly and forget it. But here is the problem,If you have never flown a plane in your life and you invested in this product , you should understand unless you are doing some far off bush flying, no one flies without ATC. It is extremely important to understand how it works for any pilot or wannabe. If the Xbox crowd wants to jump in any plane and dive bomb into cities ok,but not serious simmers and especially real world pilots.I see also that some think this is old versions of MS Flight simulator just re warmed. Even Bruce Artwick who invented flight simulation had the correct ATC verbage back in 1992 with his great Sublogic ATP. go back and youtube it.So I dont see or understand why this very vital part of flight was so ignored? So Cmon............

3 hours ago, Bart_ATC said:

I was hoping that between FSX and FS2020 MS could have gotten the ATC at least halfway right. 
 

They could have fixed most of the errors in FS2020 by listening to LiveATC for an hour. Or reached out and found a controller or current controller to consult them on the endeavor. But as it stands, the ATC is absolutely atrocious. I used it once, on a flight through my RW airspace (I’m a controller at Washington Center) and my head just exploded. 
 

The frequencies weren’t off by too much (the frequency I was put on leaving Potomac TRACON would have been the sector in the southern part of my area, not the one on the north end) but the constant “proceed to XYZ” on each check in made me want to strangle the programmer.

Plus the US has had descend via clearances since 2010, it would have been nice if they could have found a way to integrate those. 

Well obviously this is more of a Worldwide Terrain Generator showcase and flight sim second, or we'd have at least halfway decent ATC...

25 minutes ago, joe cooper said:

The reason I decided to address this topic was simple, that if this is a "flight simulator" then simulate flying an air plane, in the 21st century, here in this world. I am well aware that the ATC is so off reality,that some of you say leave it alone just fly and forget it. But here is the problem,If you have never flown a plane in your life and you invested in this product , you should understand unless you are doing some far off bush flying, no one flies without ATC. It is extremely important to understand how it works for any pilot or wannabe. If the Xbox crowd wants to jump in any plane and dive bomb into cities ok,but not serious simmers and especially real world pilots.I see also that some think this is old versions of MS Flight simulator just re warmed. Even Bruce Artwick who invented flight simulation had the correct ATC verbage back in 1992 with his great Sublogic ATP. go back and youtube it.So I dont see or understand why this very vital part of flight was so ignored? So Cmon............

Exactly!

VATSIM... Isn't an option for me as I want to hear ATC interact with AI AC around me as in the real world!

54 minutes ago, Kilo60 said:

Exactly!

VATSIM... Isn't an option for me as I want to hear ATC interact with AI AC around me as in the real world!

PF3 does exactly that. The controller will call out my traffic, and call sign, and I see that traffic on my moving map, with call sign, and altitude and heading. No canned ATC from some airport 400 miles away that is all make believe. 

9 hours ago, Mike S KPDX said:

whaaaa???

80's and 90's?  this software was started development in 2015!.  Twelve years after the verbiage was made standard by the authorities.

no, the programming guys got it wrong, how do we know that? simply because it is wrong.

I do not know why I have to repeat this.  MSFS told us before and after release that this flight sim platform was a ground up new platform.  If it is an entirely new platform, I fail to see how anyone could possibly think that parts of the ESP programme are, in any way, incorporated.

Despite this very obvious fact, I do seem to recognise a lot of the concepts etc do, in fact, look very similar to the old ESP and ATC is very recognizable as similar to FS2004. This disillusioned old fella (me) simply has to accept that I am entering dementia.

Regardless whom we blame, however, as stated in the quote, it is wrong simply because it is wrong. Despite its obvious lineage, ATC for MSFS cannot be among the priorities, abilities, or motivation off  the MS/Asobo9 team.

All the above means though, is that if you want anything remotely resembling real world ATC, you will find it in the bottom of your pockets or wallets, in the form of payware.

I wish it were not so,

Tony

2 minutes ago, himmelhorse said:

I do not know why I have to repeat this.  MSFS told us before and after release that this flight sim platform was a ground up new platform.  If it is an entirely new platform, I fail to see how anyone could possibly think that parts of the ESP programme are, in any way, incorporated.

Asobo were given the FSX code by Microsoft to use in whatever way they saw fit... so, yes, they did include FSX elements in MSFS2020.. no mystery..

Just now, Bert Pieke said:

Asobo were given the FSX code by Microsoft to use in whatever way they saw fit... so, yes, they did include FSX elements in MSFS2020.. no mystery..

Bert,

We all know this, I think.

What I am getting at was the impression given out before release and after release of this platform, it was always touted as a "from ground up" platform. With a completely new platform, one does not really expect 2004 technology being adopted.  I do know that I am being very cynical and have no right to be, because I only use ATC for take off and landing. I would just love to use it fully or to use the payware, but unfortunately, my pockets are very, very deep and there is not much at the bottom of them either. 

I apologise if I came across as being serious with the line you quoted.

Regards

Tony