Getting different runway to land

[Guest BobKK]

Sometimes ATC will direct you to land on a runway which is not used in reality that much, only because the wind favors that runway. For example, at KLGB Jets always land on RWY 30 but in the sim, if there is even a slight wind coming from say, 130 mag, you'll be directed to land on RWY 12. (This happened to me yesterday, in the Learjet).Other than manually changing the wind direction, which is awkward, (especially when using real weather), is there any way to insure a specific RWY at an airport, for landing?Bob

[kerke 0]

If the airport has paralell runways, sometimes the FSX ATC will allow you to pick another runway. I believe that the ATC is one of the weakest features in FSX as it was on FS9.Kerke

[MillKa 0]

Same problem at EDDF (Frankfurt, Germany). FS ATC sometimes wants me to land on RWY 18, which in real life is used only for takeoff.The problem is that the scenery data does not (yet) contain local preferences like that. So FSX ATC has to pick the RWY according to wind direction.However you can pick a different RWY and approach. The first time FSX ATC directs you to land on RWY X, watch for the ATC menu options "select another runway/approach/transistion". Usually i get what i want, however i havent tried to pick something completely bogus yet. Might be different with heavy AI traffic and/or stronger wind.

[n4gix 4,947]

Requesting a different runway isn't always that straightforward either...Tower: November Four Golf Xray, cleared to land runway twelve.N4GX: Gary tower, request runway thirty.Tower: November Four Golf Xray, clearled to land runway twelve, circle-to-land runway twelve.

[kerke 0]

Bill, that's probably because you are requesting the rwy change from TOWER. If you request it from APPROACH you'll probably do a little better. I almost always request a different rwy from APPROACH to avoid the anoying GO_AROUND thing due to AI traffic. For instance, at KMIA, if I get assigned 26R for landing by APPROACH, I will request 26L to avoid landing where all the AI planes are landing, that's how I never get a GO_AROUND from TOWER. However, when I request a rwn change, ATC will will almost always clear us to the initial rwy ILS side-step to my requested rwy, which is fine because I get to at least hand fly the final approach.Kerke

[Guest BobKK]

Kerke,I'm aware that what you described, getting RWY 26L instead of 26R, works because both RWYs have the same mag heading. But unless I'm mistaken, ATC will not give you a RWY with a substantially different MAG heading because it does not favor the current wind direction. As stated above by another post, you can request the preferred RWY approach but they'll tell you to "circle to land" for the original RWY, which defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. I think that getting the RWY favoring the current wind is hard-wired into the default ATC.At LAX, planes usually land on RWYs 24 and 25, even if there is a slight wind coming from the east. ATC will change the RWYs to 6 and 7 IF the wind from the east exceeds a certain threshold, say 10kts. But anything less than this, planes will still land on 24 and 25.But in the sim (and I could be wrong on this) you would get RWY 6 or 7, even with a 1-2Kt wind from the east. IOW, the sim ATC only considers wind-direction to determine the RWY and not wind speed.Bob

[yellowjack 28]

Try listening to ATIS it announces the active runway(s) and that is the limit of your choice. Oh for an AFCAD for FSX where at least you had some control of the runways.:(

[Guest wyoming]

of the decision wind speed should do the trick. Just got to find the line somewhere...

[kerke 0]

You're correct Bob. When FS9/FSX ATC is assigning KMIA RWY 12/30 for landing, I won't even get a choice to select any other RWYs. Having heard hundreds of hours of real-life KMIA CENTER, APPROACH, DEPARTURE and TOWER traffic chat with my ATC scan-radio, I can tell you that the FS9 and FSX ATC is on of the weakest sim features.BTW, one of the things I hate the most of the FSX ATC is that, on departure, it waits until you are almost 200 feet from your assigned climb ATL to give you then next ALT, it does it too on descend. Also, how about the FSX ATC hyperactivity which keeps switching you from one ATC frequency to another? Arriving at Orlando's KMCO, I get switched to Tampa APPROACH, how weird is that? It did all that nonsense on FS9, I would have expected FSX to have fixed all that, but it didn't.Kerke