I’m wondering if there’s a way to replace the default ATC with something more realistic. I was really impressed by how good BeyondATC sounds, but the biggest issue with all these programs is the requirement to use a flight plan.
Most of the time, I just randomly pick an airport from the world map in the sim, spawn my aircraft at a parking spot, and simply fly. It would be great to add some realism and listen to ATC from real-world scenarios. Of course, I use the default ATC and always select the appropriate communication options for departure, landing, and general instructions.
At the moment, I don’t use any traffic or ATC programs. I used to run FSLTL, and it was amazing.
Does anyone know of a solution that would allow me to have more realistic ATC while still keeping my flexible flying style without requiring a flight plan? If there’s an option that integrates with an EFB, that would also be great!
Have you given SayIntentions a try? They have a VFR component that works relatively well. BeyondATC is working on VFR, although I don’t know of a timeline for release.
SayIntentions are doing their own traffic injection starting around April 15th I believe. It’s a great product with many features and it’s uncanny when you talk to the controllers, seems real..
Try FSHUD, it’s a treat and the one time fee makes it that much better. Has an airport map with it, which is great for parking. Many improvements and additions coming from the developer, who is very active.
English is not my native tongue and anyway I don’t want to speak aloud at 5 AM with everybody still sleeping in the house… Can I use good old menus and buttons with SayIntentions?
No buttons and menus.. completely AI real voice driven, just like the real world…it does have multiple languages and you can have a free trial for 24 hrs to see if you like it…
I was recently in the same position and ended up going with Beyond ATC as I wanted to avoid any sort of subscription.
The AI traffic and the radio chatter in BATC was exactly what I was looking for. Whilst there’s no VFR mode yet (which is how I typically fly), I’ll just generate a route in Sim Brief for my starting airport and my likely destination airport just for the purposes of BATC and then I just ignore the flight plan and do whatever I want.
Thanks! And what about buttons and menus? I don’t want to speak. I prefer menu and buttons like in FS2024 ATC
As we are speaking about flight plan - do I need to pass all required data like fuel or souls on board or else I can type start airport and end airport and just fly?
Yeah, just type in the ICAO code of each airport in SimBrief and generate it. That’s it.
BATC does have an in-sim tool for excellent accessibility, and it does have those buttons you were asking about which you can click to respond. Another excellent feature of BATC is you can choose to “Auto-tune radios” and “Auto-respond”, and they essentially do the copilot’s job. Very useful if you want to focus on flying.
BATC is a one-time purchase, plus it does traffic injection and uses highly realistic voices, I’d recommend BATC over SayIntentions. Once BATC supports VFR ops it will be the ultimate ATC program.
I struggle to understand what’s the point of using BATC in this case. If you don’t request IFR clearance you won’t be able to communicate with ATC and they won’t give you any instructions, including take-off and landing clearance. I use BATC on a daily basis because I usually fly airliners but if I was flying random planes between random places I’d stay with default ATC.
OP you should know that BATC injects AI traffic only along your planned route. If you change destination in the middle of a flight and decide to land somewhere else there will be no AI traffic.
As far as special procedures go, it’s hit or miss – sometimes good, sometimes less. But procedures like “lineup and wait” or radar vectored departures are all done perfectly. I find it miles better than any other ATC program I’ve tried, unless you include vatsim
I use BATC in Europe, Asia, US, Canada, and pretty much anywhere else and I haven’t noticed any glaring issues. Occasionally I’ll have to go around because an aircraft spent too much time on the runway after being told to “expedite takeoff, traffic is 3 miles final”, but that’s usually due to higher traffic density settings.
But as Marklar66 said above, it doesn’t inject traffic to every airport yet; only to the Departure, Destination, and Alternate airports in your Sim Brief plan. I believe at a later point they plan to add traffic at every airport within a certain radius of your aircraft (25 mi I think), but it may end up too costly in terms of FPS.
Lucky you, I send them bug reports almost every time I use BATC. Only yesterday BATC told me to descend to 3,500, handed me over to another controller and they told me to descend to FL100. On the same flight one of the AI planes got stuck after pushback and I had to remove it manually because it was holding 5 other AI planes. You never get bored with BATC, not always for good reasons.
Not in any direct sense; I don’t think the sim makes that possible.
You could of course try to work around it, flying external ATC while mashing the enter key as needed to respond to career mode ATC, but if you ask me, if you’re upgrading to a superior ATC, might as well upgrade to a superior career mode addon, too. Career addons leave ATC up to you rather than trying to score you on it, so you can use any ATC you like (or none at all).
For AI traffic generation. AI traffic generation in vanilla MSFS 2024 isn’t very good IMO given the absence of liveries and lots of spinning aircraft. BATC is infinitely better in this regard. It got annoying flying to/from airports to see just generic white liveries and weird AI behaviour.
Don’t get me wrong, I do use BATC comms on IFR flights but for VFR I’ll generally just use it for AI traffic.
