45 minutes ago, tup61 said:

 There is a debate going on that if ATC (ICAO) tells you to fly to a certain altitude while you are flying a SID or STAR, should you fly directly to the assigned altitude or should you keep all published constraints on the way there?

ICAO PANS-ATM:

"Clearances to aircraft on a STAR with remaining published, level and/or speed restrictions shall indicate if such restrictions are to be followed or are cancelled. The following phraseologies shall be used with the following meaning (meaning is omitted by me, too much text...) :

DESCEND VIA STAR TO (level): 

DESCEND VIA STAR TO (level), CANCEL LEVEL RESTRICTION(S) AT (point(s)):

DESCEND UNRESTRICTED TO (level) or DESCEND TO (level), CANCEL LEVEL AND SPEED RESTRICTION(S): "

These clearances leave ZERO ambiguity, it's crystal clear what the controller expects from the pilot.

Note that this is ICAO PANS-ATM, not FAA regs or EASA SERA. I know EASA has not transposed everything in PANS-ATM.

43 minutes ago, tup61 said:

O, btw, I used the new option Established on the approach (or something like that) this evening but all ATC did was say Affirmative. It didn't had me over to tower or anything. Seems like a rather useless option...?

It did hand me over to tower for me the two times I used it. That's also what would happen in real life (once on the beam, tower can take over). No idea why it didnt for you.

15 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

ICAO PANS-ATM:

"Clearances to aircraft on a STAR with remaining published, level and/or speed restrictions shall indicate if such restrictions are to be followed or are cancelled. The following phraseologies shall be used with the following meaning (meaning is omitted by me, too much text...) :

DESCEND VIA STAR TO (level): 

DESCEND VIA STAR TO (level), CANCEL LEVEL RESTRICTION(S) AT (point(s)):

DESCEND UNRESTRICTED TO (level) or DESCEND TO (level), CANCEL LEVEL AND SPEED RESTRICTION(S): "

These clearances leave ZERO ambiguity, it's crystal clear what the controller expects from the pilot.

Note that this is ICAO PANS-ATM, not FAA regs or EASA SERA. I know EASA has not transposed everything in PANS-ATM.

In Europe they usually don't say "descend via STAR to". Instead they give you a STAR and once they want to bring you down they say "descend to".

9 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

In Europe they usually don't say "descend via STAR to". Instead they give you a STAR and once they want to bring you down they say "descend to".

“They” like IRL or in VATSIM?

1 hour ago, espent said:

“They” like IRL or in VATSIM?

Well I heard CLIMB unrestricted on VATSIM all the time. I have not heard Descend unrestricted, though.

So I had my first bad approach with BATC (finally), it did not register me passing a waypoint on a curved transition to final and therefore bugged out (wanted me to go back to that waypoint on the STAR when I was already established on final). I was able to restart BATC and resume the flight from final approach, so at least I could finish it with ATC.

2 hours ago, SAS443 said:

ICAO PANS-ATM:

"Clearances to aircraft on a STAR with remaining published, level and/or speed restrictions shall indicate if such restrictions are to be followed or are cancelled. The following phraseologies shall be used with the following meaning (meaning is omitted by me, too much text...) :

DESCEND VIA STAR TO (level): 

DESCEND VIA STAR TO (level), CANCEL LEVEL RESTRICTION(S) AT (point(s)):

DESCEND UNRESTRICTED TO (level) or DESCEND TO (level), CANCEL LEVEL AND SPEED RESTRICTION(S): "

These clearances leave ZERO ambiguity, it's crystal clear what the controller expects from the pilot.

Note that this is ICAO PANS-ATM, not FAA regs or EASA SERA. I know EASA has not transposed everything in PANS-ATM.

Hm, okay, well, none of that is there in BATC. Or FSHud. Don't know about other ATC addons. 

2 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

In Europe they usually don't say "descend via STAR to". Instead they give you a STAR and once they want to bring you down they say "descend to".

As I eloquently tried to explain in my previous response, not sure you bothered to read it, less so trying to understand it. But I'll try again.

EASA aimed to implement exactly what PANS -ATM suggested for SID/STAR phraseology , but some states objected to it (hence my message above that EASA has yet to transpose it, so it never made its way into SERA fully), but my guess it will eventually get there.

Eurocontrol stresses EASA to settle this. Below is a statement from taskforce of CCO/CDO:

" the European CCO / CDO Task Force urges States and Regulators to solve any outstanding issues related to the use of this phraseology, transpose into SERA and enable the Europe-wide implementation of Amendment 7A (my note: PANS-ATM sid/star phraseology)" 

So, that's the background why your friends at VATSIM europe do as they do.

 

Edited May 16, 20242 yr by SAS443

14 hours ago, martinboehme said:

These are UHF frequencies, which, as @mmcmah has already pointed out, are primarily used by military aircraft. If the airfield doesn't have VHF frequencies, then you're probably not welcome there as a civilian. 😉 I see on the charts that RJFY has a VHF tower frequency but no VHF frequencies for ground or ATIS. I assume the VHF tower frequency exists so that civilian aircraft can divert to RJFY in an emergency.

That's extremely helpful! The military part of it occurred to me as I know it's a military base, but I think was thrown off by the fact that there were usable tower frequencies; your explanation totally makes sense. I appreciate the info.

9 hours ago, SAS443 said:

As I eloquently tried to explain in my previous response, not sure you bothered to read it, less so trying to understand it. But I'll try again.

EASA aimed to implement exactly what PANS -ATM suggested for SID/STAR phraseology , but some states objected to it (hence my message above that EASA has yet to transpose it, so it never made its way into SERA fully), but my guess it will eventually get there.

Eurocontrol stresses EASA to settle this. Below is a statement from taskforce of CCO/CDO:

" the European CCO / CDO Task Force urges States and Regulators to solve any outstanding issues related to the use of this phraseology, transpose into SERA and enable the Europe-wide implementation of Amendment 7A (my note: PANS-ATM sid/star phraseology)" 

So, that's the background why your friends at VATSIM europe do as they do.

 

Why that aggressive attitude? I did not contradict you nor question what you said. I just added that it‘s not done in Europe like that, after you said that EASA did not fully transpose it. So all I did was actually *confirming* what you said.

13 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

So all I did was actually *confirming* what you said.

this the the oddest thing.
We're not even talking about Europe, but ICAO. But you seem to like your own voice - alot.

Edited May 17, 20242 yr by SAS443

3 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

this the the oddest thing.
We're not even talking about Europe, but ICAO. But you seem to like your own voice - alot.

23 hours ago, SAS443 said:

Quote

As I eloquently tried to explain in my previous response, not sure you bothered to read it, less so trying to understand it. But I'll try again.

EASA aimed to implement exactly what PANS -ATM suggested for SID/STAR phraseology , but some states objected to it (hence my message above that EASA has yet to transpose it, so it never made its way into SERA fully), but my guess it will eventually get there.

Eurocontrol stresses EASA to settle this. Below is a statement from taskforce of CCO/CDO:

" the European CCO / CDO Task Force urges States and Regulators to solve any outstanding issues related to the use of this phraseology, transpose into SERA and enable the Europe-wide implementation of Amendment 7A (my note: PANS-ATM sid/star phraseology)" 

So, that's the background why your friends at VATSIM europe do as they do.

That's a lot of Europe for not talking about Europe.

 

one poster couldn't resist sharing his VATSIM experience and "confirming" how the real world works.
That is deserving of a "alot of Europe"-award. 😎

 

I would actually prefer if we all remain friendly and share experiences about the BATC. Thank you.

I had a pretty flawless flight yesterday from EDDF to LSGG. All handoffs worked nicely from clearance to landing. However, from reading through various posts on the Facebook BATC group as well as my previous experiences, it seems as if a lot of people suffer from the failure of the program to hand you off to approach and/or tower, while descending on a STAR. Hopefully, this gets fixed, because it seems to bother a lot of people. Some suggest to simply tune to approach without hand-over. I will try this next time. 

Edited May 18, 20242 yr by carlito777

21 minutes ago, carlito777 said:

I would actually prefer if we all remain friendly and share experiences about the BATC. Thank you.

I had a pretty flawless flight yesterday from EDDF to LSGG. All handoffs worked nicely from clearance to landing. However, from reading through various posts on the Facebook BATC group as well as my previous experiences, it seems as if a lot of people suffer from the failure of the program to hand you off to approach and/or tower, while descending on a STAR. Hopefully, this gets fixed, because it seems to bother a lot of people. Some suggest to simply tune to approach without hand-over. I will try this next time. 

There's a bug where ATC doesn't register you passing a waypont on the STAR (which you actually did pass just fine) and it will therefore pause all descent until you pass it. That's why you get vectors to that waypoint if you ask for the next fix. It's a stupid, annoying bug which explains 95% of the problems people have on approach, especially missing further descent clearances or handoffs to tower. The program just gets "stuck" at one waypoint in the STAR.
This happens mostly on tightly curved STARs or transitions.