Finally got BATC up and running in last night’s stream. Here’s a quick synopsis:
I loaded into MSFS at Boulder City Airport (KBVU) in the Royal Duke.
Since I knew I needed a SimBrief flight plan, I generated a quick flight plan without really changing anything. KBVU direct LYNSY direct KIFP. Interesting to note that SB automatically assigned me an IFR cruising altitude of 5500(!) and a departure runway of 33, when the winds clearly favored runway 9.
I then fired up BATC. The BATC UI is very straight forward: put in your SimBrief ID, speak a test phrase, make sure your PTT and other settings are good to go (had a slight issue with mapping a button, but that was on my end). One thing to note - I couldn’t see an interface to change the output audio, so it was all going through my studio speakers instead of my headset, which did make it hard to hear a couple things later. I suppose I need to change the default audio output for BATC in Windows.
Once I had the plane running, I simply tuned Las Vegas departure (BVU is non-towered) per the actual charts and requested clearance. That worked well, however, I was assigned an initial altitude of 6,000 (good) and a final of 6,600 (!). To be fair, it’s not far to LYNSY, and it is the IAF at IFP with a minimum segment altitude of 6600, so that could be SOP down there, but I expected final cruise to be more like 8,000. No worries, though.
The only other thing that struck me up to this point was the ATC clearance to taxi at KBVU, which again is non-towered, so that’s a little unusual. Usually it’s either a “call me when ready for release” or just a “hold for release until” and it’s up to me when to move the aircraft. Oh well. I thought the expect further clearance (EFC) instruction was well done.
I taxied to runway 9, as it was most favorable, and departed. Here’s where things got weird. There is no charted departure procedure at BVU, but there is a textual one, so I followed the instructions for runway 9, which is a right turn to 180°, intercept the BLD R-150, and climb to 7600 on course direct LYNSY. I made the turn after the obligatory climb to 400’ AGL and contacted Las Vegas departure, who then started vectoring me back to the north on a reading of 325(!), which is specific, but nonsensical. I realized that they were basically taking me back to the starting point over the field. I could chalk this up to a quasi-VCOA or traffic needs, but it didn’t make a ton of sense to not have me go direct LYNSY considering my filed route and rate of climb.
Anyway, after BATC got me back on their course and direct LYNSY, I was given a climb and maintain 6,600. I read that back, with my callsign (“1SB”) and was corrected numerous times (even pausing between the readback altitude and callsign in case it was parsing the “1” as part of the altitude, but to no avail. I eventually just read back the altitude with no callsign and it was accepted. Er… no. That was probably the most glaring procedural hiccup on what was an otherwise pretty good flight.
The rest of the flight went pretty well. I enjoyed the sector handoffs, the approach clearance, and the handoff to the tower. The runway exit instructions are vague, there’s no ground handoff or taxi instructions. I expected that due to report here that ground ops aren’t yet implemented, but maybe just a “taxi to parking, remain this frequency” would be a nice finish to a session.
Also, it would be cool to personalize ATC sendoff responses, especially when the frequency is not busy “good bye, good night, so long, SEEya,” etc in response to mine.
So after one session, I’m pretty excited, to be honest. Yes, there are some gaps in logic - it pretty much needs you to be “on the rails” and getting there seemed a bit sloppy, especially in a non-SID, non-towered environment. But there’s an incredible amount of potential here. I’m most excited to see implementation of VFR ops and interaction with other traffic.
What I also envision this doing, in a perfect world, is filling the gap when VATSIM sectors are offline. Enroute, it should be close enough to use in its current form. But a huge opportunity is bridging the gap to relieve the top-down clearance/ground/tower ops at satellite fields. Of course, the issue will be BATC getting the aircraft to a point where a VATSIM center or approach expects it, and executing facility coordination and subsequent frequency handoff between BATC and VATSIM. Tall order, I know, but if done properly, this could be a game changer. The hardest part IMO is going to make sure everybody is able to comply with the instructions, which is no different than the current issues, but I don’t know how I’d expect BATC to handle that along with handing aircraft over to a human controller: “I’ve got an A320’ that’s assigned a heading of 330 but is flying southbound and not talking to me.” lol. 
Overall, currently 6/10 with the understanding it will get better as it’s developed and well-needed features are added. It’s actually really nice once you’re at cruise. An absolute bargain at the current price point. If applied to a sliding scale of lowered early-release expectations, I’d say more like 8.5/10 as it did nearly everything I expected it to do, save for the things I mentioned above.
I’m going to try integrating a BATC cruise portion with an offline VATSIM segment next time I get a chance.
