Hi.
Just wondered if anyone was able to give a definitive method for getting the correct callsign when using SimBrief with the in-game ATC.
I tend to simply enter only the departure airfield and gate into the flight planner then download the flight information into the FMGS (on the FBW 320) direct from SimBrief. Unfortunately I always seem to end up with duplicated callsigns/flight numbers which is a pain in the butt and I haven’t managed to get it right as yet.
Is it even possible?
Many thanks.
I set only the flight number in sim brief and set in my livery the callsign.
When you load the flight using the integration, it works.
I change flights and liveries and my callsign is always right.
Thanks
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Just change the flight number in the INIT page after you call your simbrief plan, and you should be good.
I still can’t get it to work.
It reads the ATC callsign embedded into the aircraft followed by the callsign. So in this example;
Speedbird SHT2C (with the SHT spelt out phonetically)
The callsign should be - “Shuttle 2C”
I can get something sensible if I put nothing in any SimBrief field other than the flight number. In that case I would get the embedded ATC name of the aircraft followed by that number, i.e. American1411
Very frustrating.
@Djorous I’ll give your method a try. Thanks.
Well, did you put Shuttle in the Aircraft callsign at the world map before starting the flight? Did you put the flight number 2C in the world map as well?
Yeah. I typed it in the world map as ‘Shuttle2C’ and it spelt out the word ‘Shuttle’ phonetically. I ended up with ‘Speedbird s-h-u-t-t-l-e 2 C’.
I find also that if I fill in the Airline box in SimBrief I end up with a duplication too.
I think what I’ll have to do is have a BA livery just for ‘Shuttle’ and edit it in the aircraft.cfg as the ATC callsign.
It just seems to be a dogs dinner otherwise.
Uhhh… Don’t type it that way.
Enter Shuttle in the Callsign.
Enter 2C in the Flight Number.
The Callsign entered in the world map will override the Livery Aircraft.cfg
So even if your Livery Aircraft.cfg is written as “Speedbird” if you enter “Shuttle” in the callsign box in the world map, the sim will use “Shuttle” and will disregard “Speedbird”
The sim uses a priority hierarchy to determine the callsign and flight number:
- World Map
- Livery
- Aircraft
If the Callsign and flight number is entered on the World Map, it will take that. If it’s empty, it will take from the Livery aircraft.cfg. If that one is empty, it will take from the Aircraft’s Aircraft.cfg.
This is why it’s so messed up 
If you type it in the way you’ve suggested (and you’re right because that works) it doesn’t verbalise North American callsigns correctly.
For example, it will say “American One Four One One”.
If you put it all on one line in the callsign it will say “American fourteen eleven” which is correct (the same applies to any aircraft flying in that airspace. You can be the Speedbird Three Two Bravo until you speak to the Canadians, then you become the Speedbird Thirty Two Bravo Heavy).
I seem to have made some progress after a lot of trial and error. I can fill out the SimBrief plan as it should be (with the ICAO airline code, Flight Number and ATC callsign) and as long as I simply change the FMGS Flight Number to 2C it seems to work. I’ve also changed the ATC airline in this specific livery .cfg file to ‘Shuttle’.
Thanks for the help & suggestions.
Shouldn’t those phonetics be internationally standardised by ICAO instead of just the FAA? I mean, wouldn’t that confuse pilots if coming from a different area?
American Fourteen Eleven can easily be misheard with American Forty Eleven.
I always thought that saying American One Four One One would be the correct one, because it can remove confusion on any ATC controller everywhere around the world, as it would mean “1 4 1 1” The same way we say “Niner” instead of “Nine” for the number 9. Which is to remove confusion with the German word “Nein” which means “No”.
The sim ATC uses a single standardised way for all the flights everywhere. Even Chinese Airspace which is using Metric Standards in real life is still using Imperial units in the sim.
You’d think so wouldn’t you?
Sadly it’s not the case. Every country has it’s own way of doing things and that’s the way it’s done in North America.
“Fourteen Eleven” is the way that callsign is verbalised in the US.
The whole callsign and units of measurement system(s) in the sim needs an overhaul as it’s pretty much entirely incorrect.
It would be a huge overhaul though. It’s a text to speech technology that needs to be “trained” with enough data coming from a different styles for every airspace. That would mean we have to build a worldwide classification of every phonetic styles. And then assign those specific styles to each ATC frequency.
Not to mention, we have to make it dynamic. Meaning each style needs to be able to pronounce every single world combinations correctly according to their styles. This would also need to be able to pronounce the flight numbers too. What’s the difference on how to say a flight number 1 versus if someone were to put flight number 0913751039471.
On top of that, it would also need to have both male and female voices, with multiple voice actors for each genders doing the recording. Also, for every style at different parts of the worlds have their own accents. That would require additional number of voice actors recording their voices for every single combinations of letters, flight numbers, and instructions.
In the end, it would be trilions and quadrillions of different voice combinations being recorded for every single scenarios and ATC instructions. It doesn’t feel like an overhaul… It feels like we’re trying to redesign the entire automated ATC which if we want it to be so advanced that it could actually Automate ATC in real life.
What happens if an AT controller who is trained in Brazil were to move to the US and become an AT controller there? Would they need to be retrained to use the US style instead. Or could it be an individual style thing, which means every person has their own different way of pronouncing it, as long as they’re correct so to speak.
I mean, I’m not a pilot so I’m not really familiar with all of this, which is why I never really see the ATC issue that big of a deal for me. But I guess pilots who are much more familiar with their own airspace would easily realise there’s an issue. But then again, everyone would be saying it’s an issue since every pilot and ATC from every parts of the world using MSFS would always think it’s wrong.
I can’t think of a way to satisfy everyone in this case… Unless we spent another few billion dollars on that automated ATC project I mentioned above just for a Windows 10 flight simulator app.