Stearmandriver

That was my only point: "all" don't have to do it on the PMDG forum either, as it is not policed / audited. They don't actually care if you're using your real name. You just need to use a name. If they actually audited this, they'd lose half their forum.

Just pointing out that it's just as easy to get around the requirement, if someone wishes. I'm not there anymore because my real name will never appear publicly searchable in connection with flight sim video games (professional privacy is of course more important), and I also won't lie about it. But for anyone who wishes to, it's just that easy. There's all kinds of obvious fake names on there; maybe half are real and that's being generous.

You can always just use a fake name on the PMDG forms btw. They don't do any cross referencing to see who is real, and they don't actually care if anyone uses a fake name, no matter how obvious, until other users complain. So, no need to feel obligated to actually expose your identity over there. You just need to sign a name, not your actual name.

Worth remembering that many airlines build their own RNP procedures that would not appear in public navdata and thus wouldn't be in navigraph. I'm not familiar with the airport being discussed, but if it gets regular airline service, decent chance at least some of those operators have their own approaches.

Not really though, not in the examples given anyway. Everyone uses block altitudes. I use them often enough while oceanic even in 737s. I would think BATC could honor a block altitude with no problem; just like real ATC, there would be no need to monitor or care about anything the aircraft was doing as long as it remained in the block. I'm more interested in having it not descend me into mountains or drop me on a downwind and forget about me lol.

Haha right, keeping you honest! 😁 (To be clear, it was a joke - I don't expect BATC to be able to conduct PARs lol).

Quite a few military fields will still offer them to civilian traffic for controller proficiency's sake. Practice approaches will result in a miss, but naturally in an emergency situation where the civilian aircraft needs the PAR, it's a useful backup to have in your area; it'll get you on the ground safely.

PAR would be a lot of fun. Let's test those vectors 😉.

It's really polished. I wouldn't be someone to hear about estimated release dates so I have no idea there, sorry. My personal impression is that they've got almost all of the intended work done at this point (I think I heard some further cabin polishing for the 8200 model is ongoing), but yeah I would think it's "close", in terms of work left to do. How that translates to time, I don't know. Can you elaborate? I'm not sure I've ever done truly steep turns with it, but I absolutely love the flight model and have never noticed any tendency to oscillate in bank when rolling into or out of turns regardless of bank angle (is this what you mean?). There is a tendency to roll out of a bank that starts becoming noticeable around 25 degrees of bank, requiring some continuous aileron pressure into the turn to maintain constant bank angle, but this accurately reflects the inherent lateral stability of the real aircraft.

Er? Not... Legally, it doesn't. 😉

Sure, there are times when you can call the field 20+ miles out. There are also plenty of times when you can't call the field 5 miles out, even when the reported conditions suggest you should be able to. Sun glare, localized haze etc... That's the whole point - a visual approach cannot be dictated by a controller. It's something the pilots must agree to accept, or it doesn't happen. And no, when you refuse, it doesn't mean you'll be "hauled up to explain" or anything like that. Even when refusing a clearance that might be seen as more of a dictate from ATC, a pilot will not get in trouble for using that magic word: "unable". This is a strong point of emphasis as we train new captains these days. We take great pains to ensure they understand that any amount of discomfort they have with a clearance is a fully sufficient reason to decline it. That's their responsibility, in fact. Don't like the approach? Go around. Don't like a clearance? "Unable", and tell them what you can do instead. I only mention this because it IS such a critical item in the industry right now. I agree we've kind of lost the point here, which I would say is this: in a simulator, the user should be able to dictate exactly the conditions of the flight. That's the point of a simulator - I can fly in any weather I want, at any time of day I want, in any aircraft in any mechanical condition that I want... I certainly should be able to tell an ATC client which approach I'm doing, and not the other way around. I'd say the fact that this is how real life works, just supports the point that you should then clearly be able to do it in a sim as well.

You eliminated a lot of context in this story, including the most important detail: it wasn't the requirement for an instrument approach that caused the delay. It was the requirement for a RUNWAY change. ATC would have had no problem clearing them for, and there would have been no delay resulting from, an instrument approach to 28R. Firstly, the ops spec requirement not to fly visual approaches at night to certain airports is industry-common, and it does not require a clearance for an instrument approach. It simply requires that the lateral and vertical guidance of a published IAP be followed. You can accept a visual approach clearance, you just have to fly a published procedure. In the Lufthansa case, SFO had runway closures for construction. They were using 28L for departures and 28R for arrivals. The ILS to 28R was also out of service. Lufthansa either did not have the RNAV 28R approach in their nav data, or they don't do RNAVs on the 350 fleet. I don't remember the specific reason, but they were unable to use the RNAV to 28R for the required guidance. That forced them to 28L, which was stacked with departures and that's what caused the delay. The spacing differences between aircraft on a visual vs instrument approach are trivial for ATC. They would have had no problem being cleared for the RNAV to 28R (or the ILS if it were up), though they wouldn't have needed such a clearance anyway. Stating that which type of approach an airliner flies is purely the captain's decision is not simplistic, it's simply how things work. It's not an ATC decision.

Yes, the iPad in SP1 contains several options to load data to the aircraft, including a one-click "load all" option that uplinks route and perf init to the FMC as well as loading fuel and payload to the aircraft. It's seamless. It's honestly the best EFB implementation I've seen in MSFS. As far as the OP, yes the current release version of the aircraft does uplink route correctly. It also uplinks both enroute and descent winds. You just have to request them via the FMC, as is done in the real aircraft. The enroute winds are requested via the Legs --> RTE Data Page. Descent winds are requested via the Descent --> Forecasts page.

Airliners, like any other aircraft, get whatever type of approach they request. When it's clear and a million, will ATC sometimes assume everyone can take the visual? Sure. And if you're unfamiliar with the area, it's dark, there's some sun haze or a thin layer between you and the airport, or you just don't feel like accepting the responsibility (there are actually airline pilots who have a policy of never accepting a visual), you just ask for the instrument approach and then you'll get that. Controllers don't really care, and they certainly can't argue with pilots about it. There have certainly been plenty of times I've accepted visuals. There have certainly been plenty of times I've stated I'll require a different approach. They're just different approach types for IFR traffic. That's the real world. When I experimented with BATC, one of many things it did that caused me to shelve it was trying to assign a visual in marginal VMC conditions and then not changing me to an instrument approach when I requested it. This is a pilot decision, not a controller decision.

Every single time I've departed JFK in a jet over the last 30 years, it's been a series of turns - not just one, but a series - and typically intermediate level offs, before finally being cleared on course and to altitude. That's just one example. ORD is another. I guess they didn't get the "Ray Proudfoot Avsim" memo. 😁

I've never bought a single 3rd party airline airport. There's no need. When it comes to atmospheric GA or bush strips, yes, 3rd party scenery can significantly help. When it comes to large airline airports though, pretty much all of them in the sim are plenty usable as-is. I'd say start with some airline flights to default airports and see if you even like this kind of simming before you start spending money on scenery you may end up not using regularly.

To be fair, "realistic" turbulence in 2020 and 2024 definitely isn't. I run turb on low and even then I see occasionally unrealistic air movements, though 2024 seems a bit better about this. But "realistic" is way overdone in both sims. But also, PMDG is known for accepting flaws in their flight model and auto flight behavior as LRBS says. They have a tendency to then try and gaslight their users into believing that it's a "realistic quirk" - until maybe they finally fix it a few years later and then tout themselves as the best dev in existence for being able to solve this suddenly egregious problem that they've told you was fine for a long time 😉. TL;DR - it's probably a little of both. You can't fix the PMDG issues, but you can certainly try turning your turbulence down.

Haha in airplanes this old, just about ANYTHING is a realistic option. There are as many restoration styles as there are airframes still flying. I've flown J-3s with no electrical system at all, I've flown them with nothing but an electric starter, and I've flown them with all manner of radios crammed in all manner of places. The one thing I'd say about the CAS Cub is: if I were restoring a J-3 and putting an electrical system in it to run radios, I'd surely give it an electric starter too 😁. But I suppose from a simming standpoint, the hand propping is novel. And I'll bet, somewhere out there, is a Cub in this exact configuration. There's always one.

Well, kind of. Yes if ATC needs you down early for traffic, you're coming down early. But usually this isn't the case and your initial descent clearance will be at pilot's discretion. They do this specifically because they know we want to remain on our FMC calculated vertical path, based on the cleared arrival. It would be fair to say that a pilot's descent calculations for optimized performance are secondary to traffic deconfliction needs, but I wouldn't say they mean nothing to ATC. I'm not sure what BATC is doing these days but if it's regularly forcing you to start down early vs using a discretionary descent, that would be pretty unrealistic.

Yep I've got it now. I explained above: the Navigraph app on my phone would not allow me to scroll the menu down far enough to see the final chart in portrait orientation. I could only see it when I turned to landscape. Would not have expected charts could hide haha.

Ah hah, there it is, sure enough. I was looking at the navigraph app on my phone, and weirdly I could not scroll down far enough to see that last chart in the list until I turned my phone from portrait to landscape. So I could see the charts for the BIG transitions but not OCK. Weird but good to know now that can happen.

The CAS Cub is hands-down the BEST stick and rudder airplane in MSFS. The BEST. And as the real J-3 is the best stick and rudder airplane that has ever been built, this works out well. Additionally, it's probably the airplane I've tried in the sim that feels the most like its real-world counterpart. I love Cubs, and this thing does them justice.

Maybe I'm missing something; I never did see it specified which STAR we were talking about. But from what I looked at, I only see one STAR that drops you at OCK (the fix referenced by the OP). Where are you seeing a charted transition from OCK to 09L? From BIG, yes, but how is that helpful if your STAR ends OCK? Looks to me like vectors are absolutely required. Not getting them would 100% match my experiences with BATC. It simply doesn't really understand vectors, when they're required, which parameters must be honored etc.

Yes, I'll try it again at some point. But it hasn't been THAT long since I last tried it, and in my experiments it still has not vectored me correctly, not even once. This spans airline flying into hub airports and GA IFR flying into a variety of fields. It's never once done things "correctly", there's always a time when I have to just shut it off. It's descended me into mountains. Given me 90 degree intercepts. Dropped me on downwind while on vectors and then shipped me to tower. Never even once has it given me vectors that are even close to a real world standard of "acceptable". Based on the latest reports, it's still not fixed so every time I think about trying it, I opt for Vatsim instead even if not fully staffed. One day, though. At this point it's kind of a game to see what it'll do next.

It's a game so sure, you can do whatever you want. But if you're suggesting this is what would happen in reality, that's definitely not true. Can you get hung high because ATC forgets to clear you lower and you can't get a word in? Sure. Can you get hung high because of conflicting traffic? Sure. But you'll never just "decide" to descend on your own. ATC doesn't care what your flight plan says, they've got traffic to deconflict and can't just have you doing as you like. In reality, you'll deal with the high as necessary - add drag, get relief on speed restrictions, get vectored for the descent, even enter a hold if necessary. You can't just do what you want unless it's a safety of flight issue, and even then you have to advise ATC asap. I have also seen BATC just completely break, in which case I just self-vector to final, but if that's really what the program "expects" you to do, then it's simply broken, is all. I haven't used it in a while for this reason; if it can't vector correctly, I don't even see the point. That's basically its only job.