7 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

In my case I was cleared for the ILS approach to RWY26 when I had just joined the SID at FL220 - 20 miles WEST of the airport.  Bugs of this magnitude, are in my opinion,  not acceptable even in early access.

I agree. To confirm a serious bug exists I would try a couple of different flights to confirm the problem isn’t isolated to one airport.

I’m a little confused though. West of which airport? The arrival or departure? What were the two airports?

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I agree. To confirm a serious bug exists I would try a couple of different flights to confirm the problem isn’t isolated to one airport.

I’m a little confused though. West of which airport? The arrival or departure? What were the two airports?

EGGW Gatwick.  Willow STAR.  20 miles west of the airport descending to FL150. Cleared to establish!

20 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

EGGW Gatwick.  Willow STAR.  20 miles west of the airport descending to FL150. Cleared to establish!

He's correct. I've heard New York Center clear an AI aircraft into the JFK 4R approach. That is 100% incorrect unless New York Approach is somehow offline. While it hasn't happened to me, I've heard enough AI traffic incorrectly cleared to final by Center to write it up as a bug.

Edited March 24, 20251 yr by Mike T

1 hour ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

EGGW Gatwick.  Willow STAR.  20 miles west of the airport descending to FL150. Cleared to establish!

As a comparison, I just finished LFPG to EGKK with FSHud. 30nm before the latest waypoint in the flight plan (KUNAV), I was told to expect runway 08R with the KUNA1G arrival and the TIMBA transition. I was then cleared for the STAR and transition, and around 12nm on the ILS DME got cleared for the ILS and was told to report when established on localizer.

FSHud had me descend according to the altitudes in the STAR and transition - FL160, FL070 then eventually 4000ft and 3000ft.

When I contacted tower, I was number 3 for landing. I guess traffic separation still has issues, as I was eventually told to go around. I was then cleared direct TIMBA then flew the transition and ILS and was luckily cleared to land. 

I don’t have an IRL IFR rating, but it made sense to me how FSHud handled this. I think I read somewhere that Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in Europe, so I guess it’s tricky for an ATC addon to manage this at maximum traffic settings.

With all the recent discussions on BATC vs SI (what the word not allowed is going on?), I’m tempted to repeat the flight with BATC and SI. I don’t have a subscription for SI, but I might try the demo.

Edited March 24, 20251 yr by Cpt_Piett

8 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

As a comparison, I just finished LFPG to EGKK with FSHud. 30nm before the latest waypoint in the flight plan (KUNAV), I was told to expect runway 08R with the KUNA1G arrival and the TIMBA transition. I was then cleared for the STAR and transition, and around 12nm on the ILS DME got cleared for the ILS and was told to report when established on localizer.

When I contacted tower, I was number 3 for landing. I guess traffic separation still has issues, as I was told to go around. I was eventually cleared direct TIMBA then flew the transition and ILS and was luckily cleared to land. 

I don’t have an IRL IFR rating, but it made sense to me how FSHud handled this. I think I read somewhere that Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in Europe, so I guess it’s tricky for an ATC addon to manage this at maximum traffic settings.

With all the recent discussions on BATC vs SI (what the word not allowed is going on?), I’m tempted to repeat the flight with BATC and SI. I don’t have a subscription for SI, but I might try the demo.

Please report back your findings, if possible also using SI !!! Looking fwd into it !

Edited March 24, 20251 yr by jcomm

1 hour ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

EGGW Gatwick.  Willow STAR.  20 miles west of the airport descending to FL150. Cleared to establish!

Okay but I don’t know where you departed from. Assuming Manchester or another airport to the north the arrivals into Gatwick have to stay high to avoid inbounds / outbounds for Heathrow.

You should be vectored to the south of Gatwick with the downwind leg not far from the south coast. No lower than FL90 when abeam EGKK. Then further descents and vectors to position you SE of EGKK around 12 miles out around 4,000ft.

Final instruction should be a heading of 295° to intercept the localiser for 26L. Then cleared to land around 3 miles out.

Remember aircraft shouldn’t be flying the STAR all the way in. It’s the job of ATC to separate inbounds. You’re not the only aircraft in the sky. 😉

21 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I read somewhere that Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in Europe, so I guess it’s tricky for an ATC addon to manage this at maximum traffic settings.

It is plus its proximity to Heathrow makes it doubly tricky. Inbounds from the north need to stay high when abeam Heathrow for TCAS reasons.

Same issues at Liverpool with Manchester only 25 miles to the east. That’s another worth testing. 👍

12 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Remember aircraft shouldn’t be flying the STAR all the way in. It’s the job of ATC to separate inbounds. You’re not the only aircraft in the sky. 😉

I think this might be one of the trickiest aspects, especially with very high AI traffic settings. IIRC I had 4 aircraft ahead of me as I was flying the transition on the «downwind» leg to 08R. Even though I was told to slow to 210kts then 180 (probably as an attempt at traffic separation), I ended up getting a go-around. As I finally landed on the 2nd approach, I saw a line of 6 AI holding short of 08R.

Having read so much praise for SI recently, I’d love to test the accuracy of the ATC component into Heathrow or Gatwick. I’ve done some shared cockpit flights with a friend who owns it, and every time I’ve been underwhelmed, to put it mildly. 

Edited March 24, 20251 yr by Cpt_Piett

4 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I think this might be one of the trickiest aspects, especially with very high AI traffic settings.

You can see in my signature I fly P3D and using AIG Ai I also have lots of other traffic arriving and departing my arrival airport.

Using AiCompanion I can see conflicting traffic. If they’re taxiing out to depart on my landing runway they get deleted using AIC. Ditto for anything between me and the runway when landing.

Do you have the ability to do that with your sim and traffic program? Makes life much easier. 😉

10 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Do you have the ability to do that with your sim and traffic program? Makes life much easier. 😉

With FSHud and BATC - no, I don’t think so.

24 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

With FSHud and BATC - no, I don’t think so.

Surely you must have some control over the % of Ai injected into the sim? The alternative is to fly into less busy airports.

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Surely you must have some control over the % of Ai injected into the sim? The alternative is to fly into less busy airports.

Well, if I understand you correctly, I don’t think there’s an in-built function in either of these addons that will automatically remove an AI if there’s a conflict. I’ve had some «standoff» situations with both, where I’ve had to re-route myself on the taxiway to avoid a collision. 

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

As a comparison, I just finished LFPG to EGKK with FSHud. 30nm before the latest waypoint in the flight plan (KUNAV), I was told to expect runway 08R with the KUNA1G arrival and the TIMBA transition. I was then cleared for the STAR and transition, and around 12nm on the ILS DME got cleared for the ILS and was told to report when established on localizer.

FSHud had me descend according to the altitudes in the STAR and transition - FL160, FL070 then eventually 4000ft and 3000ft.

When I contacted tower, I was number 3 for landing. I guess traffic separation still has issues, as I was eventually told to go around. I was then cleared direct TIMBA then flew the transition and ILS and was luckily cleared to land. 

I don’t have an IRL IFR rating, but it made sense to me how FSHud handled this. I think I read somewhere that Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in Europe, so I guess it’s tricky for an ATC addon to manage this at maximum traffic settings.

With all the recent discussions on BATC vs SI (what the word not allowed is going on?), I’m tempted to repeat the flight with BATC and SI. I don’t have a subscription for SI, but I might try the demo.

You do realize that BATC does the EXACT same thing you just described - except the go around part since BATC handles traffic much better. I have not seen an AI Aircraft, or me, go around since I've been using BATC. As a matter of fact, BATC has been smart enough to clear me to a new STAR because the winds had changed at the arrival airport, making the filed STAR invalid. So I hand to scramble for charts and reprogram the STAR in the MCDU before I hit the transition fix.  As a side note, BATC handles traffic so well that it is great to see the "string" of pearls at night at major airports rather than a swarm of airplanes attacking the runway. Additionally, BATC does X-wind runways for approach and landings and simultaneous approaches on parallel runways, no input needed from the user. So at airports like KEWR where there are parallel runways and FSLTL and AIG will incorrectly use both for landing which causes a traffic jam - it will automatically use correct runway for take off and landing.

But the BEST thing for me is that BATC has solved the garbage airport AFDs and AI traffic ignoring the AFD and parking at random gates which kills immersion. It's usually 99% correct. Likewise, they have done wonders with traffic behavior. No more 3 point landings and takeoffs - the AI aircraft now flare and rotate. ALSO, the aircraft no longer take off in unrealistic short lengths. They will use 3/4 of the runway lengths to simulate derates. Oh, and pushback, is a true pushback and turn to the direction Ground has asked them to for taxi to which ever active is assigned. Yesterday I had 4 aircraft in the alley all with the same heading. I listened to each contact ground and prepare for taxi. I contacted ground and was instructed to hold for "company traffic" and once the aircraft ahead of me cleared the alley, I was cleared to taxi on.

No BATC is not perfect, but I am not sure what the detractors are on about. Mind you I'm not using the experimental build, but I see some of those who are complaining are using it.

7 minutes ago, Mike T said:

You do realize that BATC does the EXACT same thing you just described - except the go around part since BATC handles traffic much better.

Well, my example was in response to the comment re: being cleared for the ILS to EGKK 20nm out. Look, I like BATC, but overall FSHud is more accurate IMO. 

As for go-arounds, I haven’t tested how BATC would handle the exact same situation into Gatwick with max traffic settings. 

13 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Well, my example was in response to the comment re: being cleared for the ILS to EGKK 20nm out. Look, I like BATC, but overall FSHud is more accurate IMO. 

As for go-arounds, I haven’t tested how BATC would handle the exact same situation into Gatwick with max traffic settings. 

That comment is to be construed as something that CAN happen, not something that always happens. It's never happened to me, but I've heard center clear AI aircraft into the approach in airspace which would never do that. And since BATC doesn't differentiate between AI and User aircraft, it's bound to affect me at some point.

As for traffic, I have all AI Traffic settings on 10 (the highest setting), and I've never seen a go around at any major airport. BUT to be fair, I think many of the airports are a bit light for both take off and landing with the BATC traffic engine. This to me is BATC's biggest weakness - it doesn't pull in live traffic like FSLTL. So, at many airports I expect to be jammed with takeoffs and landing, it's never a traffic jam as one would expect. Never number 10 for takeoff. BUT, I've seen strings of pearls on approach to KATL last night, 5 deep each for simultaneous runways and it was amazing to watch the even spacing. Aircraft have time to land, and get off the runway as in real life. ALSO, since the BATC engine has solved the slow to exit, slow to take off, AI traffic don't meander after landing, and don't taxi all the way down to the landing marks before beginning its take off roll.