Is ATC bugged or do I not understand what ATC is supposed to do?

[Mama Symphonia]

Hi guys! Pretty much a total newb here, trying to set up an IFR flight between two nearby airports using the vanilla ATC to practice using the autopilot in the Cessna 172 Skyhawk. I guess what I was expecting was to receive vectors that would take me from the origin takeoff heading and line me up with the ILS approach at the destination airport eventually. But one of two things always happens:

either A) I get vectored out of the airport and off into a direction that is nowhere near going to get me to the destination. Sometimes I get vectored AWAY from my destination airport for dozens of nm before being vectored off into ANOTHER seemingly random direction. I feel like this could only be a bug.

or B) I get a few vectors followed by the ATC saying "resume own navigation" (even if I set the weather to the worst, lowest visibility possible) and cancelling my IFR plan. Now I don't want to sound like a lazy nelly, but I didn't want to resume my own navigation, I wanted my hand held the whole way basically D: What can I say? I get off on following directions.

Never once have I successfully completed an IFR flight between any two airports, and I've been at it for over 20 hours trying to make it work. I dunno if ATC are *supposed* to let you go after a bit, but I thought with an IFR flight plan you were supposed to get directions the whole way along?

I've also just heard bad things about XP11's ATC in general, although I thought people were just talking about the TTS quality. I can stand bad TTS, but it would be a shame to hear that the navigation itself is bugged in what is supposed to be a primo flight sim. Are the common alternatives like 124thATC and Pilot2ATC any better at not leaving you for dead?

Thanks for the help!

[ZeroReady]

No one uses Xplane ATC. It does not work well and will only lead to frustration. Maybe someday it will work, probably not. Have you thought about using VATSIM instead?

[tree-fella]

Me: That's a 10000ft mountain!!
Xplane ATC: Continue at 2000ft
Me: I'm gettin' Pilot2ATC

I've not tried 124th so can't help there, but I've got Pilot2ATC and it's great. Have a good look at it on you-tube,have a browse through the user forum on Avsim and if you think its for you try the free demo. It's good for both IFR and VFR flights, you can import/export f.p's, auto plan a route between 2 waypoints, voice interaction, weather info and more.

Oltcit Room does a 2 part review and set-up you-tube vid

[John W]

I gave up on the default ATC ages ago. For a while I was using 124th ATC and it worked well under most circumstances. There were times when approaching an airport it vectored me hundreds of miles in the wrong direction. This didn't happen all the time, but seemed to occur at certain airports. That issue, which I brought up to the developer, may have been fixed as I haven't used 124th for a long time.

I watched the tutorial videos on the Pilot2ATC website and decided to give it a try. Eventually I purchased Pilot2ATC. Some people do not like the computer generated voices Pilot2ATC uses as it uses the ones built into the speech programming in Windows. Personally it doesn't bother me all that much.

Here are a couple of things you can do with Pilot2ATC that you can't do with 124th ATC or the build in ATC. You can fly both IFR and VFR.

I can, without creating a flight plan, contact ground and request taxi to a specific runway or just let ground direct me to the active.

On contacting tower I can state "Callsign ready for departure to remain in the pattern" and Pilot2ATC will clear me for takeoff and provide pattern direction to stay in the traffic pattern so I can practice landings or even ILS approaches.

I can request the option for landing to allow me to do touch and go landings.

You can create a flight plan once if the air if you decide you want to fly IFR after you have been flying VFR for a while.

I can fly around VFR and when I see an airport I want to land at, bring up the frequency for that airport, contact approach control and request vectors for a specific approach.

Or I can just contact tower and request landing.

Pilot2ATC is very flexible. I don't use it all of the time but when I do it has performed very well.

I chose Pilot2ATC because I have three flight simulators (FSX, P3D, XP11) and Pilot2ATC works with all of them.

Pilot2ATC takes a bit of getting used to. You need to say things in a specific manner for it to understand your request. I use a gaming headset that has a microphone when I use Pilot2ATC. So I can say my request. You can also use the programmed requests is the Sayit menu. That will help in getting used to how to say a request.

There are other options you can check out like VATSIM. Just search on the internet for ATC for X-Plane 11.

Good luck with your search for an ATC program for X-Plane 11.

[old tail dragger]

Use the IOS map and be your own ATC. I shoot ILS's using the IFR map. I just get on the runway I want to leave on and from there navigate using GPS or VOR's.

[Thogmar]

Originally posted by tree-fella:

Me: That's a 10000ft mountain!!
Xplane ATC: Continue at 2000ft
Me: I'm gettin' Pilot2ATC

I've not tried 124th so can't help there, but I've got Pilot2ATC and it's great. Have a good look at it on you-tube,have a browse through the user forum on Avsim and if you think its for you try the free demo. It's good for both IFR and VFR flights, you can import/export f.p's, auto plan a route between 2 waypoints, voice interaction, weather info and more.

Oltcit Room does a 2 part review and set-up you-tube vid

Just can't get over those horrid computer voices sorry. It's 2019 and even phones have decent language generators that aren't using a voice sample for every word, but combining sounds instead. Time for third party flight sim devs to step up and stop selling painfully ancient efforts.

[jwolf_21]

As others said, I don't think anybody uses ATC after 1 or 2 tries, if you're coming from other simulators like FSX. Honestly, I learnt most of the things with FSX and I think I couldn't have learnt them from Xplane at all.

FSX ATC was not perfect but was great for most of the cases. I remember flying from Chicago to NYC on IFR with perfect instructions. On the arrival the ATC even put me between 2 planes and asked me to follow the one in the front until I was cleared to land. I really had the feeling of being in a real traffic situation with other planes around getting instructions.

On another occasion I was going to land in Dubai and while I was on final, right before clearance to land, another plane taxi into the runway. I was asked to abort the landing and got vectors to enter on a traffic pattern around.

Maybe it was not 100% realistic, but situations like those ones were pretty common and made you feel inside a live game, with "real" traffic, with you being part of all that. Even on VFR it was great to contact the ATC for some stuff.

On Xplane it's a pain and completely useless. You feel constantly alone, the IA planes don't have real routes or contact with ATC. You don't hear them, they are just there for "decor". They don't follow any procedure. And the ATC will give useless instructions most of the time, asking you to hit a mountain if necessary.

I haven't used the ATC in Xplane for a long time, but for what I have read, things have not improved. I tried 124th but I mostly do VFR and I had some issues with it, so I gave up quickly. maybe with a bit of tuning is more realistic.

I fly in IVAO (similar to Vatsim), that at least have real people around, and you really feel part of something, not isolated on a map of the world. Xplane physics and graphics, together with FSX ATC and IA, would be the best combination. Looking forward to FS2020... :)

[Mama Symphonia]

Originally posted by jwolf_21:

I remember flying from Chicago to NYC on IFR with perfect instructions. On the arrival the ATC even put me between 2 planes and asked me to follow the one in the front until I was cleared to land. I really had the feeling of being in a real traffic situation with other planes around getting instructions.

On another occasion I was going to land in Dubai and while I was on final, right before clearance to land, another plane taxi into the runway. I was asked to abort the landing and got vectors to enter on a traffic pattern around.

Wow, that sounds amazing! Does FSX support voice output, or is it text only? Of course, it probably doesn't matter with the new MFS coming out. Here's hoping they put as much effort into ATC as they did into those delicious looking leather seats!

[Maki Nishikino]

Originally posted by Momo Symphonia:

Originally posted by jwolf_21:

I remember flying from Chicago to NYC on IFR with perfect instructions. On the arrival the ATC even put me between 2 planes and asked me to follow the one in the front until I was cleared to land. I really had the feeling of being in a real traffic situation with other planes around getting instructions.

On another occasion I was going to land in Dubai and while I was on final, right before clearance to land, another plane taxi into the runway. I was asked to abort the landing and got vectors to enter on a traffic pattern around.

Wow, that sounds amazing! Does FSX support voice output, or is it text only? Of course, it probably doesn't matter with the new MFS coming out. Here's hoping they put as much effort into ATC as they did into those delicious looking leather seats!

It's just a popup menu you select. If you really want good ATC you need to sign up for an online network like VATSIM, IVAO, PilotEdge where you talk to controllers. Been using VATSIM for over 10 years and have not once used default ATC since. The new audio codec for VATSIM has totally brought VATSIM into a new era and I think another network is on it's way.

[Stringbean]

Originally posted by Maki Nishikino:

.......I think another network is on it's way.

Oh, that sounds interesting. Can you elaborate a bit more?

[EngineerKenny 123]

Like to add my praise for Pilot 2 ATC - I use it on every flight in X-Plane 11. IT works superbly. Further, if you ever need help or have a question regarding some aspect of it, the developer is SO helpful, and very quick to respond. This program (IMO) leave nothing to be desired. Give it a free try - if you like it, but it - if not, you have lost nothing! Hope this helps in your decision.

[Maki Nishikino]

Originally posted by stringbean6:

Originally posted by Maki Nishikino:

.......I think another network is on it's way.

Oh, that sounds interesting. Can you elaborate a bit more?

It's called POSCON.

[Big LV]

Here I am in November 2021, and the ATC in X-Plane 11 is still weird. I think I've found a pattern though.

I live near an airport that I can watch on flightradar24 dot com (Fullerton Municipal), and I've seen how real airplanes are vectored into the runway. X-Plane 11 ATC vectored me in a very similar manner to the real flight path. It sent me out over the ocean south of Long Beach then vectored north over Long Beach airport (LGB), then vector to 060 and let me call visual.

However, when I try to fly into a moderately busy airport (Ontario Intl KONT) in my Cessna 172 Skyhawk, ATC seems to forget about me and vector me in weird random directions, almost like they can't work me into the landing pattern. It also seems to be weird when I fly into an uncontrolled airport with IFR.

I watched a video of someone flying a real airplane into an uncontrolled airport, and they turned off IFR and turned off their squawk once they released ATC. So maybe that's the problem with uncontrolled airports, we just need the flight plan for takeoff and routing, but then turn it off when getting close. This doesn't explain the busy airports though.

[Maki Nishikino]

Originally posted by Big LV:

Here I am in November 2021, and the ATC in X-Plane 11 is still weird.

Well, like I mentioned almost two years ago I suggest checking out alternatives. ATC in flight sims has never been that great and I started flight simming around 1997. It's cool you mention SoCal because I fly there a lot on the VATSIM network. Heck, Montgomery Field in San Diego is where I got my first taste of real general aviation flying. Over 10 years on VATSIM, love it and strongly recommend it.

[Ninnuam]

Use 124th ATC, I've using it along with littlenavmap, orthoxp and the vanilla GPS.
Works great.

[JamesF0790]

Originally posted by Gimi Headpats:

Hi guys! Pretty much a total newb here, trying to set up an IFR flight between two nearby airports using the vanilla ATC to practice using the autopilot in the Cessna 172 Skyhawk. I guess what I was expecting was to receive vectors that would take me from the origin takeoff heading and line me up with the ILS approach at the destination airport eventually. But one of two things always happens:

either A) I get vectored out of the airport and off into a direction that is nowhere near going to get me to the destination. Sometimes I get vectored AWAY from my destination airport for dozens of nm before being vectored off into ANOTHER seemingly random direction. I feel like this could only be a bug.

or B) I get a few vectors followed by the ATC saying "resume own navigation" (even if I set the weather to the worst, lowest visibility possible) and cancelling my IFR plan. Now I don't want to sound like a lazy nelly, but I didn't want to resume my own navigation, I wanted my hand held the whole way basically D: What can I say? I get off on following directions.

Never once have I successfully completed an IFR flight between any two airports, and I've been at it for over 20 hours trying to make it work. I dunno if ATC are *supposed* to let you go after a bit, but I thought with an IFR flight plan you were supposed to get directions the whole way along?

I've also just heard bad things about XP11's ATC in general, although I thought people were just talking about the TTS quality. I can stand bad TTS, but it would be a shame to hear that the navigation itself is bugged in what is supposed to be a primo flight sim. Are the common alternatives like 124thATC and Pilot2ATC any better at not leaving you for dead?

Thanks for the help!

I do just want add a few things .
A) No, this can happen. It depends on the departure you've been assigned. I can't say if in this specific place X-Plane's ATC is doing this right but sometimes a SID can leave you going a fair way in the wrong direction.
And
B) No, this is very much how IFR plans work. ATC doesn't give you directions the whole way. Once they have you at the first waypoint on your flightplan you're supposed to fly your planned route