Comments on: ATC changes in 12.06 and beyond

By: Jim Keir

Jim Keir — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:19:11 +0000

In reply to Montgomery Bonner. That's already been mentioned a few times and no, it's not customisable. Noted.

By: Montgomery Bonner

Montgomery Bonner — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:50:09 +0000

Please, please, change the taxi way direction colors. I can hardly see the “yellow”, make it red, or purple, or something we can all see. I constantly miss turns because I cannot follow those lines. I do not think this is customizable by me the user, I will look in the manual, please, this is a major event for me. NOT color blind, but yellow on yellow is just wrong.

By: Montgomery Bonner

Montgomery Bonner — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 18:32:15 +0000

For SSG-747, you the pilot in command have to turn on the radio for you to be able to hear ATC. It’s not on by default, clicking the button on the radio brings it too active. Additionally, if I start out using my speakers, and it’s time for BH to go to bed, I switch over to headphones, but XP does not know this, so “go to sounds, and change the output device to headphones” and then it works fine.
This may also be applicable to other planes, as in some, my guess is the radio is off by default and has to be turned on. Before you “say it don’t work” please ensure that you know how the radios work in the plane you are flying.
Cold and Dark – I like to learn how to start up all the systems in the plane from inactive state. One of the things is the avionics, need to be active for the radios to work. I have a switch on my Throttle assembly to turn them on, it works in all the basic plane choice, but no effect on aftermarket planes, so I have to check for things to be working if flying aftermarket plane. All of this is a learning curve for us all.

By: Jim Keir

Jim Keir — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 18:20:16 +0000

In reply to Montgomery Bonner. Yep. If you've no AI running then you won't hear any other traffic. Just 3 or 4 around you will give better immersion without clogging things up too badly.

By: Montgomery Bonner

Montgomery Bonner — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 18:16:24 +0000

In reply to Jim Keir. YES, ATC especially for Big Iron, is essential. But I think I have traffic off, because I never hear any other planes. So I'm going to see what settings I can change so I hear other planes/controllers talking. Deeply appreciate all the hard work on ATC and the sim. I love XP way, way more than the other guy, one big reason, I can click on icon, and be at my departure point in normally less than 1-2 minutes, this includes, failures set to off, and location/gate with engines off or on. The other guy takes 3.5 minutes just to load. I got better things to do than wait. LOVE XP-12.

By: Jim Keir

Jim Keir — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 14:24:24 +0000

In reply to Ulrich. Internal AI always use ATC, they can't function without it. External AI won't use ATC because there's no way for the sim and a plugin to communicate intentions. I'd love it if there were, but there's other stuff way further up the list.

By: Jim Keir

Jim Keir — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 14:20:45 +0000

In reply to Ramon Arriaza.

you can seat for hours without an answer and when you get one is “Don’t talk when the frequency is busy” even you can hear nothing going on.

Sounds very like you've got your radio volume too low, or different Tx/Rx set. Make sure the sim's "Pilot" volume is not at zero, too. The obvious other thing to check is that you're on the right frequency. You can radio-check any controller you like but if they're out of range, you obviously won't hear their response. That's the whole point of radio check; if you don't hear a response, something's wrong your end. There was a bug where you would hear the "frequency busy" response when the controller was actually out of range but that was fixed and released months ago so make sure you're up to date.

There is no way to choose a nearby landing site when in a casual route.

Yes, there is. In fact there's several. If you're getting flight following you can request landing at a nearby controlled airport and they'll put in the request for you. Or, you can request a frequency change to any nearby airport and you'll be told the right frequency and autotune will even set it for you if that's enabled. If you're not getting flight following, just call the airport directly and request landing. There's even a list of suitable nearby airports in the ATC dialog ready for you to just click on if you're not up for checking the map or tuning the radio yourself.

I have tried to file a simple flight plan from point A to point B and I am ignored

This is just not going to happen. Are you sure you're activating the flightplan by requesting clearance and not just filing it? And, you do mean filing it and not just entering it into your FMS, right? That seems to be a very common mistake with people who are more used to other simulators.

I know that in certain places, ATC maybe hard to hear, why make it so hard in the sim?

Because that's how it is for real. The volume in the sim is never reduced so low that it's completely inaudible even when it probably should be so you need to train yourself to listen carefully, as with a real VHF radio, and make use of the "Say Again" call if you need it. You always get the written transcript in the ATC dialog as well, if you want confirmation. I suggest you read this which has a whole section on the new VFR features, and ask for some help getting started on a forum.

By: Jim Keir

Jim Keir — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 13:57:24 +0000

In reply to James B.

It’s an UI design thing. To avoid having a very long list of alternatives, it generates altitudes at 1K, 2K, 5K and 10K either side of you to manage the groups of changes that are likely to be requested – this is really intended for requesting cruise altitude changes rather than step ascent/descent. Those altitudes are then made correct for the diration/altitude rule if you’re above transition.

By: Ramon Arriaza

Ramon Arriaza — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 21:37:20 +0000

As a fan of GA Planes and VFR flyer, I find that ATC is a big letdown for me, starting with “Radiocheck” , you can seat for hours without an answer and when you get one is “Don’t talk when the frequency is busy” even you can hear nothing going on. There is no way to choose a nearby landing site when in a casual route. I have tried to file a simple flight plan from point A to point B and I am ignored, plus the constant chatter ” Descend to level…” seems that the somebody is not listening to ATC, and is tiring. ATC seems to be geared to users in the big planes, but for the VFR and casual flyers is useless. This seems opposite to reality, because is the very base of initial pilot training to communicate with ATC in VFR situations and X-Plane fails in this respect. MSFS is much better in this situation, always gives you an option to land, it even show you the proper way for a particular airport, as you progress in your training you can turn that feature off. X-Plane 11 used to show you the ILS path , I don’t see that feature in XP 12.
I have been using X-Plane since v7, and as I see XP 12 develop, ATC is not where is should be, neither is MSFS, but they try to make it easy for the learning. You hear the same phrasing all the time, and you can almost feel that you can say it yourself. This lead me to the next problem, the volume. I know that in certain places, ATC maybe hard to hear, why make it so hard in the sim? Most users are pretending to be pilots, so I don’t really care if I am flying in a remote area, make it audible, remember that is a nice training tool, just make the airplanes real, although we know that they are an approximation. Vatsim is a nice alternative. Thank you for listening.

By: Ulrich

Ulrich — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 16:59:56 +0000

In reply to Jim Keir.

Well, it’ll be a bit “finger pointy” when reminding only once. Seen from the other side human pilots may be also displeased when AI planes do not use ATC at all.
The “perfect sim” might allow the human to take control of any plane observable in the sim (in Flight Unlimited III that was called”teleporting”), so the same rules should apply to everyone IMHO.