The next step in my journey with the iFly 737 is adding BeyondATC. I have a couple of questions…

For the most realistic experience, I want to use ATC assigned runways and departures/approaches.

- I believe ATC will say “Expect Runway X via XYZ” at clearance for my departure and again at or near T/D for arrival… is that right? Is that how BATC works?

The thing is, unless I missed something, when setting up a flight plan in SimBrief, you have to choose runways.

- In the real world, do flight plans have runways and ATC may just override them?

- Or… do you somehow strip the runways out of the flight plan? If so, how?

Basically… How do I setup a Simbrief flight plan that will work with BATC and not dictate runways and let BATC assign them in real time?

Edited August 8, 2025Aug 8 by Virtual-Chris

23 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

- In the real world, do flight plans have runways and ATC may just override them?

They won't have runways. Usually it's the SIDs and STARs (if there are any). The ATIS will tell you the arriving and departing runways.

Simbrief will assign runways and about 90% of the time they match real world ATIS.

Your departing runway will change for a variety of reasons. The airport could "flip" due to changing runways. Right now, BOS is departing 09, but a heavy airplane will depart 4R instead. Same with arriving runways. On arrival, same. You'll get cleared for a STAR, and then a runway. If the STAR is different you'll get an amendment to your clearance in route.

When you get your taxi clearance is when you might get the actual runway. But BATC will tell you as part of your initial clearance what runway to expect.

If I feel like it, I'll check what simbrief gives me against the RW Atis. That said, with BATC any RW comparison isn't valid. The AI ATC will flip an airport on a moment's notice.

However, I notice with BATC its situational awareness is suspect at times. Even now, it will sometimes give me a runway my plane simply can't take off from. I haven't had much luck telling it to change runways either. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I end up just turning if off if it gets stubborn. BATC also is oblivious to any local noise control restrictions which also affect RW runway placement.

The best path to success with BATC is to let it play by its own rules and not interject too much RW stuff on top of it.

Reading about BeyondATC, it seems to imply that if you leave the runways in the flight plan in SimBrief, it will ignore them and use it's own logic anyway, so it sounds like I don't need to change anything in the flight planning aspect.

5 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

They won't have runways. Usually it's the SIDs and STARs (if there are any). The ATIS will tell you the arriving and departing runways.

Simbrief will assign runways and about 90% of the time they match real world ATIS.

Your departing runway will change for a variety of reasons. The airport could "flip" due to changing runways. Right now, BOS is departing 09, but a heavy airplane will depart 4R instead. Same with arriving runways. On arrival, same. You'll get cleared for a STAR, and then a runway. If the STAR is different you'll get an amendment to your clearance in route.

When you get your taxi clearance is when you might get the actual runway. But BATC will tell you as part of your initial clearance what runway to expect.

If I feel like it, I'll check what simbrief gives me against the RW Atis. That said, with BATC any RW comparison isn't valid. The AI ATC will flip an airport on a moment's notice.

However, I notice with BATC its situational awareness is suspect at times. Even now, it will sometimes give me a runway my plane simply can't take off from. I haven't had much luck telling it to change runways either. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I end up just turning if off if it gets stubborn. BATC also is oblivious to any local noise control restrictions which also affect RW runway placement.

The best path to success with BATC is to let it play by its own rules and not interject too much RW stuff on top of it.

So do you strip the runways out of your simbrief plans, or just leave them in there?

38 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Basically… How do I setup a Simbrief flight plan that will work with BATC and not dictate runways and let BATC assign them in real time?

You don't need to do anything special. BATC will ignore the runways you have in your Simbrief flight plan and instead assign a runway according to its own internal logic.

4 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

BATC also is oblivious to any local noise control restrictions which also affect RW runway placement.

BATC does have knowledge of the preferential runway rules at many large airports and will assign the preferential runway up to a certain tailwind component. If you don't see this, it's probably because the airport you're operating from doesn't have its preferential runway rules coded into BATC yet. (Not sure how you would make this happen, but probably a good idea to ask on the Discord.) 

1 minute ago, Virtual-Chris said:

So do you strip the runways out of your simbrief plans, or just leave them in there?

Leave them, I don't think you really can strip them out. BATC will override it anyway if it wants to. When I file on VATSIM it just sends the SIDs and STARs anyway. Just have BATC read the Simbrief plan.

Sounds like this is easier than I thought... thanks all!

In the real world when you file a plan and include the runways they will get stripped out during processing. On a similar note to this is that when filing IFR, you include the DCT's between fixes and navaids etc, but they all get stripped out during processing.

4 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Sounds like this is easier than I thought... thanks all!

I also use BATC but because I use another app that reads Simbrief OFP w/ its assigned runways, if they don't match, I will edit Simbrief and change the departure runway to the one given by BATC.  As said most often they do match.