I filed a flight plan from YSBK to YSSY. I used LittleNavMap and used the RW11C SID from YBSK and RNAV-Z 07 Approach for YSSY. I'm flying in the default Cessna 152. 

The flight plan has me go from the BK NDB to ANKUB, SSYWF, SSYWM. These last three waypoints are the approach procedure.

After getting IFR clearance, YSBK Ground puts me on RW29C departure. That's fine, I take off, circle left back to the the NDB, no problem. I then fly my heading south to ANKUB.

At this point they hand me off to Melbourne Control who tells me to maintain heading and fly as planned. I do so. 

From this point on, I requested vectors a few times and I get the impression that I'm supposed to follow my flight plan, and that the ATC isn't going to keep vectoring me. They did ask me to increase my altitude above what my flight plan had though. So okay, I turn east and head toward YSSY, following the approach procedure. I got ridiculously close before Melbourne Centre handed me off to YSSY Tower. 

So close, that I mistakenly thought I must just have to start descending to follow the approach. Well, they handed me to tower when I was meters away from the runway. So I landed illegally etc. What should I have expected? Like, I'm supposed to follow my flight plan but also not follow the approach procedure until tower says?

Or is my inclusion of approaches from LittleNavMap too much of an expectation? Does MSFS ATC expect me to enter patter and then contact the tower?

I'm just confused. What I want most is just a seamless experience with ATC. What do I need to do so that what I do makes ATC happy and also is something I can rely on? Basically, what should my expectations be to land "correctly" at a busy airport like YSSY?

At this point, ATC provides mostly what might be called "aural immersion". After take off, I usually ignore it and just follow the charts. 

A couple of days ago, ATC instructed me to climb to 39.000 feet - in the DA62. Ha ha.

I just use pilot2atc and real chatter files. Not sure if anything better will ever come along. 

If you import a flight plan made in a third party app, it doesn’t always set the arrival or departure airport correctly.

That will confuse the ATC, it will think you’re just flying at the airport, not landing at it.

Edited September 5, 20214 yr by Tuskin38

You can’t simulate IFR properly with the current ATC and navigation issues with this game. 

21 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

If you import a flight plan made in a third party app, it doesn’t always set the arrival or departure airport correctly.

That will confuse the ATC, it will think you’re just flying at the airport, not landing at it.

I think you have the right of it.

I started a light from just a little west of ANKUB, and entered direct to YSSY with my RNAV-Z 07 approach that I wanted. Flew a little bit, straight at ANKUB and then Sydney ATC did all of what it was supposed to do. It's idea of what my altitude should be at the approach waypoints was a little bit out, but otherwise, I was very happy.

I double checked, and loading my flight plan from LittleNavMap looks correct. As in it's all the same waypoints and destination stuff as entering it directly in MSFS.

I'm going to try again and enter the same flight plan I had in LittleNavMap into MSFS directly and see if that resolves the issue. If so, this seems like a simple enough bug to recreate and report to Asobo.

So, the problem is externally generated flight plans. Or at least the ones generated by LittleNavMap. Running the same Flight Plan manually entered into MSFS, selecting the same SID and RNAV-Z 07 Approach has the ATC behaving as it should.