IFR Dropping

I was flying KLAX to KLAS last night and for some reason I got closer and closer to KLAS without and descending instructions.

I opened my ATC panel and had to refile my flight plan.

My IFR wasn't at anytime cancelled.

What would cause this? Has anyone else had this before?

It depends in the original Cruising altitude. The higher you come say to KLAS the sooner the ATC will ask you to descent and vice verse. If your flight is GA you probably below 20K and relatively slow, so it will take you closer before asking you to start coming down.

Cheers,

I was flying KLAX to KLAS last night and for some reason I got closer and closer to KLAS without and descending instructions.

 

I opened my ATC panel and had to refile my flight plan.

 

My IFR wasn't at anytime cancelled.

 

What would cause this? Has anyone else had this before?

This happens if you change your flightplan in flight or (I think) if the sim gets reset, for example by changing graphics settings.

I've flown a lot of FSX flights, and I don't recall ever being just forgotten about as

far as a IFR plan. But it will drop you if you don't answer their radio call. I think it's

usually the third call, and if you don't answer them, they cancel IFR.

Maybe they were calling and for some reason you didn't hear it, or maybe confused

them as calling another flight and didn't answer.

Also, I've never seen any resetting of graphic or scenery settings as effecting a

IFR flight as long as the sim wasn't shut down.

The only times I've ever had flights cancelled were from not answering their radio

calls. So far, never for any other reason that I recall, and I've done a few thousand

flights using FSX ATC, being as I've had FSX for around 9 years now. And I think the

ATC for FS9 and earlier were basically about the same.

One thing.. If you are handed off to another center freq, it will usually wait for you,

and not cancel you if you don't show up for a while. Or at least it always has for me

so far..

So say I need to go to the little buoys room or sumtin, I wait until I'm handed off to

the next center, and then I wait and not check in until I get back to the sim.

I won't be cancelled as they won't have any reason to call me until I get checked

in with the next center.

They will be waiting for me on the next center when I get back, even if it takes

quite a while.. I've had cases where I was gone so long I had passed the next

center coverage and was ready for the next one after that. It would hand off to

the first, and then handed off to the next one with the next transmission.

But no risk of being cancelled doing that.

I have also flown lots of flights and it has happened several times. The one I mentioned was at night and the IFR flight between KSFO and KLAS is fairly direct down the central valley of California. This particular instance, ATC gave me a turn towards the east about half way through the flight and no more radio contact after that. After waiting, what I thought was an appropriate amount of time, I checked the map and found I was entering Utah. I re-established the IFR plan and was given a turn to the west and carried on from there.

Another thing to look at, if you see this happen again, is the Fltplan portion of your GPS. Normally it will show a certain mileage between waypoints. If in the event that I think I need to re-establish the IFR, if you look at the GPS Fltplan you may see thousands of miles to your next waypoint.

All answers/replies are good and valid and I have experienced them all (FS-2002, -2004, Ten) but not recently or in a while (maybe years) at least. Maybe I've gotten better at it over the years.

But just yesterday I made a delightful flight and after the excitement of touch down a B737 taxing in the runway at opposite direction crashed my illusions. That was on purpose by FSX, I could feel it. The lousy sempiternal spoiler.

Cheers,

if you look at the GPS Fltplan you may see thousands of miles to your next waypoint.

That can be caused by a faulty addon scenery.

peace,

the Bean

I have also flown lots of flights and it has happened several times. The one I mentioned was at night and the IFR flight between KSFO and KLAS is fairly direct down the central valley of California. This particular instance, ATC gave me a turn towards the east about half way through the flight and no more radio contact after that. After waiting, what I thought was an appropriate amount of time, I checked the map and found I was entering Utah. I re-established the IFR plan and was given a turn to the west and carried on from there.

 

.

Did it actually cancel the plan, or was there waypoint coordinate mayhem in the route?

I've seen messed up plans with bad waypoints, that might make it seem like it had vapor

locked, but it still hadn't actually cancelled the plan.

Normally you would know if they cancelled IFR as they would tell you, and also tell you

to squawk 1200.

Did it actually cancel the plan, or was there waypoint coordinate mayhem in the route?

I've seen messed up plans with bad waypoints, that might make it seem like it had vapor

locked, but it still hadn't actually cancelled the plan.

Normally you would know if they cancelled IFR as they would tell you, and also tell you

to squawk 1200.

No actual cancelling of the plan. No squawk 1200. No nothing! I think Bean hit it on the head with a faulty scenery area. I see the GPS FPL problem when I fly to Catalina Island using a free updated scenery from Aerosoft. The airport on the island looks great but ATC has no knowledge of it's existence. Weird things happen!

reply to OP,

This happened to me a few times, and it was probably my fault most times.

The reason was I got instruction to, for example, climb to 9.000 ft, heading 210.

I acknowledged,

and folowed up.

(or at least, I thout I did.)

same error as you.

flying at 9.000, hdg 210, no more instruction. checked gauges several times. nothing. even though I had met the directions.

Then one night I had been playing around with weather settings.

It was taking just a bit to long for the next instruction to come, but plan was not cancelled yet.

I suddenly realised I had been changinging the barometer setting!

The altimeter read 9.000 alright, but was still adjusted to 29.92

I pressed >b

I climbed to 9.000, fixed.

To get a feel for the barometer settings/altimiter reading, with the aircraft parked adjust the barometer knob, (next to the standby-altimiter usually), and watch how your altimiter reading and barometer reading change.