Cruise Altitude, FSX Flight Planner and ATC

[suvo]

Hello Friends..

This is my first post in this forum.. I have been into FSX (Flight Simulation in general) for about three months now.. Have been spending time using the Cessna and have recently moved to Jets (CRJ700)... I dont have any addons till now, apart from few textures etc and have been concentrating on learning to fly, staying with default aircrafts and default features of FSX, before i move on to some advance addons in future...

Right now I have been taking lot of free flights using the CRJ700, flying IFR, GPS, with default ATC etc etc...

I have observed one peculiar phenemenon with the default flight planner assigned Altitude and ATC involvement thereof ....

Say I am flying between Departure A and Destination B within India.. I know there are flights in that route, have flown in as a passenger in this route as well... The FSX flight planner assigns me a default altitude of 4000 FT during this leg.. Which in my opinion is way to less.. As i have said, I have flown in this sector and there is no way the jets have flown at this altitude... The usual flying time is 50 mins in this route....

Now I know, that this default altitude assignment can be changed... So lets say, I change it from 4000 FT to 11,000 FT...
Now when I start the flight, the default ATC assigns me to climb and maintain 11,000 ... So far so good...

Now thereafter the default ATC will not ask me to descend till I am about 60-70 NM from the destination.. And at that point of time the default ATC asks me to descend all the way to 1,700 FT and maintain 1,700 until established on the localizer (I am doing an ILS approach) ... The problem is descending all the way down from 11,000 to 1,700 at the last 60 NM is tricky as compared to if I would have stayed at 4,000 FT which was originally assigned by the default Flight Planner...

I thought, either the Flight planner will assign me a realistic altitude in this route or the default ATC will have the AI built in, which will figure out, in case I am at a higher altitude will descend me gradually, rather than abruptly bringing me down from 11000 to 1,700 ...

I have tried by changing the Jets etc, but it behaves in the same manner...

May be i am interpreting it wrongly, in case if some one can guide me as to whats going on, or what I am missing, would be thankful ...

I have searched the older threads, but did not find any directly attributing to this.. In case I have missed this one too, please point me to the thread wherein this discussion has happened before..

Many thanks in advance,,

Regards,
Suvo

[garymbuska]

First Off welcome to SIMV
That is very true the default planner is the pits.
When planning any route anywhere FSX gives you several options IFR or VFR
Than when plotting the route you have options as well
High Altitude flight plans: Low Altitude flight plans: VOR to VOR : and direct.
As for altitudes there are assigned altitudes when flying one for East to West and One for North to South and the reverse of both
North to south are ODD numbered and east to west or even numbered.
There are several links you can use that will give you a more realistic flight plan one that uses SIDS and STARS as the default planner does not.
I use the following link It allows you to save the flight plan so FSX can use it
http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/
There are even places where you can down load real airline flight plans from
If you are using the default planner you can change the altitude to what ever you want before saving it. I f you wait and request a higher altitude after you are air born FSX will not calculate you descent correctly as it is using the altitude you filed.
If you ever try flying with live ATC the controller will not allow you to depart if your altitude you filled is incorrect. They will suggest altitudes to you.
You can try joining a virtual airline as most of them will have Live ATC
This is just one such link
http://www.vatsim.net/
This can be a lot of fun and you can learn a lot about the real world of aviation.
Just remember to let them know you new to this as I have to caution you they expect perfection from pilots which means you will need to know ATC lingo such as ALPHA, BRAVO and so forth a plane with the markings N239FC would go by November 239 FOXTROT CHARLIE,
It can be a real blast as you will see other airplanes in your airspace that are not AI generated. But it can have its down side as some controllers will not give you much slack when they tell you to do something they expect you to do it in a timely time frame and they may not give you much time to write down there instructions so when they tell you to turn left heading 125 they expect you to do so or they will kick you off the channel.
One of the reasons I stopped flying with them I was unable to keep up with some of them and when I asked them to repeat the instructions they would get nasty about it. Of course there is a person over the controllers that you can make a complaint to but I just grew tired of it.