VFR request IFR

[col1948]

I installed Reutte (LOIR) scenery, for those who don't know it is set in a mountainous region of Austria. So I assigned a Kingair KA90 to do a trip to Linz (LOWL) with a VFR plight plan, I set the altitude of the flight to 4000ft intentionally.
So the AC took off, started to climb but ATC told him to go to a higher altitude to avoid the mountains, this was what I wanted to happen.
The AC altered it's altitude a few times avoiding mountains, I also had Active Sky working as well and the clouds were low and thick, then something I have never heard before the AC asked to change to IFR.
So then it was doing an IFR flight but more... ATC was constantly telling the AC to descend to 4000ft but the AC ignored and kept changing altitude to avoid mountains, then after a while it cleared the mountains and started to descend to 4000ft.
As it changed to another controller a funny thing happened that controller told the AC to go to 5500ft, then it was getting close to the destinations and it was told to do the normal descent and it eventually landed safely.

It wasn't a boring flight to watch seeing as all this going on plus the scenery was good flying over the Tyrol mountains and lakes in a snowy landscape.

[col1948]

Hmm, Now I did a return journey but selected a different aircraft, it took off headed towards the mountains, started to climb above the set altitude, it did this for a while then about half way it turned in to a mountain.
So what went wrong, was because it was a different AC or was it the route plus the weather was a lot clearer and it stayed as a VFR flight, interesting?

[Firebird]

IFR flights will avoid terrain, VFR will not. This has been seen by many people over the years and it tales all of us by surprise the first time we see it.

[col1948]

Hi Steve,

So in my first post I said I heard the AC ask to switch to IFR because of what I think was the weather conditions where as in my second post the weather was a lot clearer to the AC stayed as VFR thus as you said it doesn't avoid terrain.
What I did like in my first post was the AC was avoiding mountains even though ATC was telling it to descend, it ignored ATC till it was clear of the mountains then it obeyed.

Col.

[Firebird]

Yep, and it can at times make life very tricky for AI on approaches to mountainous airfields. Sometimes that just will not be able to land.

[Victory103]

The fake "curved" ILS might help out here for IFR traffic.