28 minutes ago, psolk said:

If ATC was easy the sim producers would have mastered it by now 😉

Yep, its hard.  I'd dare to say one of the hardest things in a flight sim to get right.  And one of the most important if you want a high fidelity simulated experience.  Fair play to all the devs out there making a stab at it.  Every ATC app I've used has its own peculiar strengths and weaknesses.  Let's just be thankful that there are a few people out there who are willing and able to take on the gargantuan task of ATC, otherwise we'd all be stuck with default.... 🤮

 

I am flying now from KSAF to KSAN.  At cruise,FL310, I asked BATC for descent since I was about 45 miles from TOD, it cleared me to 6000. Looking at my Avliasoft EFB, I can see terrain all along my route easily. If you don't have Avliasoft,  Skyvector as all the charts you need for the US. I don't need ATC micromanaging my approach especially when I am following a Star, Just a bit of common sense and piloting is all it takes. 

 

 

 

I am

Edited February 24, 20251 yr by Bobsk8

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

At cruise,FL310, I asked BATC for descent since I was about 45 miles from TOD, it cleared me to 6000.

But did it also tell you to descend via the STAR? 

1 hour ago, Dave_YVR said:

But did it also tell you to descend via the STAR? 

YES. star and runway

 

I generally fly in oz  and  have no issues, usually  batc tells me  the  star and  rwy  before  my td  and  tells  me to call ready for descent, other  times  it will  tell  me   the star/rwy  and  than tells  me  to descend  to whatever  flight level. So it  could be  region related issues

Edited February 25, 20251 yr by pete_auau

15 hours ago, ConstVoid said:

RC needed those options because it knew nothing about SIDs, STARs and Approaches. By selecting the options it was effectively saying that the pilot could do whatever he/she wanted without being admonished for not adhering to ATC instructions. We expect ATC programs to be more aware of procedures these days so that the pilot doesn't need to give them clues like this.

Yes, you just needed your first WP within 30 miles of the airport to qualify as a DP.

Everything having the same navigation database and matching charts was a luxury in those days 🙂

16 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

I don't need ATC micromanaging my approach

I'm sorry, what is ATC doing?  If there's plenty of traffic and all anyone ever does is follow their flight plan as if there was no other traffic to "control", it seems like BATC provides essentially meaningless ambience, no?  IOW it's only telling you to do what you would normally do.  I'm having a hard to seeing where the "control" comes into play.

Since I am not very experienced with ATC I find it impossible to explain why it is that the company producing FSHud, who must understand vastly more than I do, decided to program that arrival into KDEN the way they did.  Why?  Did they not bother to learn how ATC works in the RW and just decided to do this a different way?  On my last flight from KBJC back to KSHR, a very low traffic rural norther Wyoming airport, I used FSHud to compare the heinous job BATC did.  As it likely would have in the RW (??) FSHud routed me into a very simple approach into the longer runway, 33, and the descent calls were as one might expect since it was clear weather and no wind nor other issues.   It told me to descend to 7200' from cruise, not the 4000' below the arrival airport that BATC did.  It did not do any stepped descent calls like the arrival into busy KDEN did in weather.

Edited February 25, 20251 yr by Noel

53 minutes ago, Noel said:

I'm sorry, what is ATC doing?  If there's plenty of traffic and all anyone ever does is follow their flight plan as if there was no other traffic to "control", it seems like BATC provides essentially meaningless ambience, no?  IOW it's only telling you to do what you would normally do.  I'm having a hard to seeing where the "control" comes into play.

Since I am not very experienced with ATC I find it impossible to explain why it is that the company producing FSHud, who must understand vastly more than I do, decided to program that arrival into KDEN the way they did.  Why?  Did they not bother to learn how ATC works in the RW and just decided to do this a different way?  On my last flight from KBJC back to KSHR, a very low traffic rural norther Wyoming airport, I used FSHud to compare the heinous job BATC did.  As it likely would have in the RW (??) FSHud routed me into a very simple approach into the longer runway, 33, and the descent calls were as one might expect since it was clear weather and no wind nor other issues.   It told me to descend to 7200' from cruise, not the 4000' below the arrival airport that BATC did.  It did not do any stepped descent calls like the arrival into busy KDEN did in weather.

FSHud needs to work on their voices which sound like cartoon characters, instead of trying to micromanage a star arrival to an airport, which no airline pilot in real life would ever have to deal with. "American Airlines, descend 100 feet to 6100  .."  LOL, what a joke. 😁

Anyway, my advice to you, is since you like FShud so much, just delete BATC from your PC, and have a nice day. 

Edited February 25, 20251 yr by Bobsk8

FSHud def has marginal voices for sure.   Where did you dig that up from the 100' descent call?  In my 12 or so flights w/ FSHud never heard anything like that.  But you're just trying your hardest to bash FSHud which at least delivers smooth AI traffic.   Requesting a new runway from BATC which it gives me the option to do, two times in a row at different arrivals, and having it then respond with, "Confirm new Visual Approach to Rwy 24/15", ie the same runway?   What a JOKE 🤣.   And worse still, BATC sends me to the fricking runway at KSBA use for arrival which is only used for departures and touch and goes because of the steep descent to Rwy 15L from the north, then when I request another runway it says, "confirm new approach" to the same fricking runway?  You're just enamored with the voices which are better, but the ATC has a ways to go.

Your advice is worthless because you flat out ignore everything mentioned about BATC while you bash FSHud.  I'm looking for reliable knowledge, not your lame advice.

Edited February 25, 20251 yr by Noel

4 minutes ago, Noel said:

Requesting a new runway from BATC which it gives me the option to do, two times in a row at different arrivals, and having it then respond with, "Confirm new Visual Approach to Rwy 24/15", ie the same runway?

Are you sure you didn't click the button to ask for a new approach instead of the new runway button? I think usually they are one after the other. You may have clicked the wrong one by mistake.

On 2/23/2025 at 10:29 PM, Tuskin38 said:

How would the BATC devs get that kind of info? How would it know there is a mountain there?

BATC knows where mountains are. The Terraindata is in the BATC-Install-Folder:
BeyondATC\BeyondATC_Data\StreamingAssets\TerrainData.

The question is:
are the Mountains in the simulatorscenery correct?
use BATC their own terraindata?
I never would fly into any mountain, also not in reality, the ATC can say what he want, but fly in a mountain? - NO, NEVER -

And dont forget: BATC is in alpha, there are some issues, you have to accept this issue, all user can send the issues to BATC in Dicord,
that could make the program better and better.

5 hours ago, Noel said:

It told me to descend to 7200' from cruise, not the 4000' below the arrival airport that BATC did. 

Just look at the approach plate for the ILS or LOC DME Rwy33. Assuming you were routed over Crazy Woman which would make sense coming from BJC, the min IFR alt from CZI to KEKNE is 9100. Outside of that area is probably even higher from the south.  My thinking is that FSHUD wasn't using any proper Min IFR altitudes either.  Possible even due to radar coverage and also being so rural, ATC irl there might even just give you initial decent and then just clear you for an approach.

14 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

  My thinking is that FSHUD wasn't using any proper Min IFR altitudes either.  

Not sure about that still.  Here was my route.  I have to assume the 'Descend to 7200' FSHud gave me had to do with that '72' on the LNM below, but that is an assumption only of course, just fits kinda.  That is the 'minimum off-route clearance grid'.   As I mentioned BATC said 4000' initially then later the closer we got upped that to...7200'.

15 hours ago, Alti said:

And dont forget: BATC is in alpha

Ouch... It may seem like that but BATC actually is in Early Access which, at most, could be regarded as some sort of beta. The fact that you call it alpha says something. 😉 I do think btw that BATC will stay in EA for at least one or two years or so. It's FAR from completed yet (as far as an ATC addon can ever be completed).

1 hour ago, mistolip said:

Ouch... It may seem like that but BATC actually is in Early Access which, at most, could be regarded as some sort of beta. The fact that you call it alpha says something. 😉 I do think btw that BATC will stay in EA for at least one or two years or so. It's FAR from completed yet (as far as an ATC addon can ever be completed).

I actually don't think it's helpful to categorise any ATC app as alpha, beta, early access or whatever.  The fact is, this stuff is so hard to do it HAS to be done incrementally, and that's exactly what you see with BATC, FSHud, as well as VoxATC.  Some parts of each may be considered polished, some are fundamentally sound but may be able to be tweaked, some are genuinely at an alpha or beta stage. 

Again, at risk of repeating myself, any small developer CANNOT produce an all singing all dancing ATC app in a relatively short timeframe, especially when the base simulator platform is a constantly moving target with SU's and bug fixes here there and everywhere.   Accept that what is there working is available, and choose whichever app gives you the things that you need most.

In fact, if you genuinely want to see better ATC, my solution is to buy all of them (none are particularly expensive after all), and use them interchangeably depending on your flight use case.   That way we support the limited 3rd party ATC app developers, which encourages new feature development faster, as well as a healthy sense of (respectful) competition 🙂

 

Edited February 26, 20251 yr by kevinfirth