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What do I do in this situation? Been sitting at the gate for a long time now and cannot get taxi to takeoff clearance. It's foggy at the airport now, does this have anything to do with it? I still see other planes taxiing and taking off getting clearance. Just to give clearness on how I been flying, I have not used the flight planner yet. I look up the code for the airport I'm flying to and set it up in my GPS. I'm not looking for extreme realism. In that case should I just taxi and takeoff anyway? I really don't want to do that.

Only IFR flights will be cleared, when the visibility drops below 3 NM (I'm pretty sure, that's the limit). Anything above should be good for VFR

What do I do in this situation? Been sitting at the gate for a long time now and cannot get taxi to takeoff clearance. It's foggy at the airport now, does this have anything to do with it? I still see other planes taxiing and taking off getting clearance. Just to give clearness on how I been flying, I have not used the flight planner yet. I look up the code for the airport I'm flying to and set it up in my GPS. I'm not looking for extreme realism. In that case should I just taxi and takeoff anyway? I really don't want to do that.

How long have you been waiting?

If an airport is in IFR conditions, the only way to get a clearance is to either increase visibility in the weather options, or file an IFR flightplan...

Many times while on a VFR flight, I have had to change it to IFR because of changing weather.

Been waiting at least 20 mins. Then I lost count. I'm using real weather. I looked up the weather conditions in google earth for the area (Gahndi Intl., India) there's smoke and fog all over the place. Been trying to take off since yesterday morning and I don't think the foggy/smokey conditions will lift anytime soon. I'm currently trying to figure out how to file an IFR plan.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to file an IFR plan.

When you create a flightplan, check the 'IFR' option.

Are you fairly proficient with instrument flying, and navigation?

No. I pretty much got the basics of flying manually and using auto pilot. I just got this Simulator a couple of months ago and am still new at this. I'm good at landing too. I just never got into using the flight planner. As I said in my first post, I set the destination in my GPS and navigate my way there. But when it comes to major airports, I like to at least contact ATC to not be so wild (get an assigned gate and request takeoff clearance).

Cool, sounds like you're on your way to becoming a virtual pilot...

I would recommend reading through Brett Henderson basic pilot course down in the flight school board. I'm sure you would learn a lot.

And leave the GPS off, until you can find your way around without it.

If you're gonna start flying by instrument  flight rules (IFR).. you'll need to be able to actually navigate.. find your way around by instruments  ;)

Those skills are a MUST when you're flying approaches. Using a GPS weakens the skills..  8-)

Mistro wrote:

I'm currently trying to figure out how to file an IFR plan.

Read the FSX Learning Center>Key Topics>Flight Planner topic which describes how to create (or edit) and load a flight plan using the FSX Flight Planner.

Once you have your IFR flight plan loaded and are at the gate or parking, you will have a new option in the ATC window to 'request IFR clearance' (first or second window depending on the airport). Use this option to 'file' your IFR flight plan with ATC. ATC will grant your IFR clearance and will give instructions for departure proceedures.

Dave

Thanks everyone! From what I'm understanding, I will not be stuck at airports due to conditions and also improve my approaches to runways. When I landed in Afghanistan, I prayed that the plane landing on the runway I was approaching would get off the runway before I landed (I felt like a stunt man). So I see why getting into traffic patterns helps also.

Well I think you've got the problem covered, Instrument flight rules (IFR) are in place when the weather obscures visibility so that flying by Visual Flight Rules (VFR) to avoid terrain and other aircraft is impossible, or highly discouraged anyway.