12 minutes ago, marlon445 said:

Is that because of Beyond or the Fenix?
The last time I flew it, the VNAV was completely useless, and I couldn't make a single descent without using speed brakes the entire way down.
I actually have a nice screenshot where, on final approach with flaps 2 out and a 12-knot headwind, I’m gaining speed at 900 FPM instead of losing it. Needless to say, I’ll never fly that thing again.

In the A350, at least, I haven’t had any issues with the descent anywhere; everything went smoothly in Frankfurt yesterday.

And the new instruction to fly over a STAR point at a certain altitude and then continue descending makes it even easier.
The only annoying thing is that Beyond always makes you fly through the entire transition instead of using sensible shortcuts.

Yeah im aware of VNAV issues with thr Fenix. Not exactly sure what the majority of users are experiencing but I find it often struggles on descent to follow the green dot. It ends up at least 1000 feet too high so I need to intervene. Climbing very slow also compared to real world experiences imflying with Easyjet or looking at FlightRadar.

My comment at the steps is entirely a BATC matter as its giving me atc comments to descent to 35000 feet, I do that then after reaching 35000 I get nothing for ages. Sometimes atc giving directions to other traffic then eventually tells me to descend to 32000 feet then repeat....wait...descend 28000. Doesn't always do it and works better if there's a STAR or initial approaches with altitude constraints. Theres no STAR for EGAC

17 minutes ago, cj-ibbotson said:

Not exactly sure what the majority of users are experiencing but I find it often struggles on descent to follow the green dot.

And where is the problem in using the speedbrakes? This is done in real life as well. 

Coincidently I just saw two real Airbus captains streaming their Cross the Pond flight on Vatsim and the pilot flying said in real life they never use managed descend anyway, because you a) will never know if the wind does not suddenly change in a way that the aircraft starts to dive to meet its target and b) you need to slow down to 1000ft v/s when reaching the last 1000ft before your target altititude to not trigger any TA/RA in case of traffic below you and if you do that in managed mode you will likely miss constraints if there are any.

So in real life they go V/S mode and manage the descend themselves.

4 hours ago, jcomm said:

Well, there may still be bugs & limitations but overall my preferred ATC robot !

It has improved. I did do some research and watched SI YT videos, and concluded that it's not even ready for me to even try it for 24 hours. I'm not going to pay a sub for an unfinished add-on.

I do as much vfr flying as I do ifr. I thought SI would be the best option since it's much more mature for vfr. I love the way SI controls both GA & Airliner traffic, but I'm not going to touch it until I see a video that shows me that it almost ready.

A bug here and there is OK, but I want to avoid paying to be a beta tester.

 

5 hours ago, cj-ibbotson said:

Yeah im aware of VNAV issues with thr Fenix. Not exactly sure what the majority of users are experiencing but I find it often struggles on descent to follow the green dot. It ends up at least 1000 feet too high so I need to intervene. Climbing very slow also compared to real world experiences imflying with Easyjet or looking at FlightRadar.

My comment at the steps is entirely a BATC matter as its giving me atc comments to descent to 35000 feet, I do that then after reaching 35000 I get nothing for ages. Sometimes atc giving directions to other traffic then eventually tells me to descend to 32000 feet then repeat....wait...descend 28000. Doesn't always do it and works better if there's a STAR or initial approaches with altitude constraints. Theres no STAR for EGAC

Descent management without a STAR has a fix in internal testing right now. For *with* a STAR it should be much better since the latest update. The late instructions were one of the biggest pet peeves I had with BATC, so the devs have put a lot of work into those very recently and I found them perfect now on a STAR.

For me one of the best changes was being able to change the approach even before reaching TOD.

Edited April 29Apr 29 by jcomm

Just called top of descent into Porto and was told to route for the visual runway 35.  No descent altitude given.

I get about 30NM from the airport and then I get sent on a completely crazy circuit around the airport, 1200ft, at 250 knots.  Then routed miles to the south and completely forgotten about after nearly crashing into terrain.  

I then turn back towards the airfield and tower tells me to report runway in sight.  (It's grey and raining).  

Do I just completely ignore the wild goose chase vectoring or go back to SI?  

This was absolutely awful.  I thought there would be some improvement after a year away.  

With BATC on approach, I've learned you just have to take matters into your own hands.  I call "ready for descent" and they don't give permission, but just do it anyway.  The program never complains.  

When it gives you a visual approach, just load in an instrument one.  Make sure you are at a proper altitude for the approach yourself.  Check the approach and know what altitude you want and get there.  You can request an IFR approach, but it doesn't seem to change the vectors.  The vectors seem better, but any instruction that takes you away from the runway, just ignore it.  Sometimes their vectors are ok assuming you descended early enough.  If you just listen to them, you'll be way too high and tight almost 100%. 

Not sure if it is just GA flying, but it likes to bring me in very tight to the approach.  It isn't bad as long as I am low and slow enough.

A lot of times (I fly in the US), I just fly the RNAV and ignore them.  

If they tell you do to something that doesn't seem right, ignore it.  I usually ignore go around instructions, they work sometimes, but often they send my Bonanza on a 30 mile circuit that may or may not end in a mountain.  

I find BATC pretty good considering that it's still early access. It's actually quite realistic that you have to plan/brief your descent.  My only peeve is you can only select certain  runways that the simulator thinks are active but that is a simulator 'feature'.

It would be very interesting to hear comments from anyone running BATC with Concorde. It had a very different set of flight parameters to a Boeing / Airbus.

On 4/27/2026 at 8:39 PM, Claudius_ said:

I would be happy if BATC took full responsibility to plan the entire flight plan, not just the STAR.

Doesn't SI do that, too? 'Expect the YAHOO arrival' etc? 

Edited April 29Apr 29 by The_Flying_Potato

I've had a couple of good flights in BATC and am thinking of cancelling my subscription to the competitor. At least having a happier time on it than earlier in the week,

The caveat being if I just ignore any crazy vectoring commands (and I've only had to do this once, at an airport that apparently had borked nav data).

I've not had any traffic conflicts.  The skies are much more alive than with SI.  Literally chatter all the way down Italy from various A/C.  It's done what has been asked of it for three flights now.  I love all the accurate accents.  Perhaps a bit on rails? I'm on the experimental build and have not tried any VFR yet.  

The jury is still out but I'm a bit more encouraged at the moment.  I've been really tired of shelling out for SI, and having traffic still taxying onto the runway as I've rotated while it's being padded out with fluff that doesn't affect the basic ATC experience.  

 

I was getting a bit annoyed with all the vectoring instructions today. Do you think this is a bit too much:-

11:57 - turn left, heading 075
11:58 - turn left, heading 055
11:59 - turn right, heading 070
12:00 - turn right, heading 080
12:01 - turn left, heading 060
 

54 minutes ago, BruceA320 said:

I was getting a bit annoyed with all the vectoring instructions today. Do you think this is a bit too much:-

11:57 - turn left, heading 075
11:58 - turn left, heading 055
11:59 - turn right, heading 070
12:00 - turn right, heading 080
12:01 - turn left, heading 060
 

Some context is required. Was this an IFR plan? If so, what stage of the flight were these instructions issued?

On 4/29/2026 at 1:29 PM, Langeveldt said:

Just called top of descent into Porto and was told to route for the visual runway 35.  No descent altitude given.

I get about 30NM from the airport and then I get sent on a completely crazy circuit around the airport, 1200ft, at 250 knots.  Then routed miles to the south and completely forgotten about after nearly crashing into terrain.  

I then turn back towards the airfield and tower tells me to report runway in sight.  (It's grey and raining).  

Do I just completely ignore the wild goose chase vectoring or go back to SI?  

This was absolutely awful.  I thought there would be some improvement after a year away.  

If it's MKStudios, please get the latest update for that scenery. The initial release came with a broken navdata, which explains exactly what you experienced (BATC will never give a visual approach outside of the US; unless all other approaches are non-existant/broken as is here the case)

10 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Some context is required. Was this an IFR plan? If so, what stage of the flight were these instructions issued?

After take-off, it was trying to vector me to the first waypoint on the IFR flight plan.