Pilot2ATC is a fantastic “interactive” one and was a great stepping stone to VATSIM for myself.
FSHud is more like the “in-sim” ATC, but functionality is much better (although I haven’t used it).
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Just to be the objective voice on this, VATSIM requires absolutely zero commitment. Just log on and fly when you feel like talking to real people for once. The only thing i can think of from a “commitment” standpoint is the P0 test and that’s open book.
I’ve had some smooth brain moments but most controllers are super chill and accommodating, especially if you are new. Its not as intimidating as it seems and like 95% of the radio calls is just repeating back what you’re told. If you mess up, as long as you apologize, correct your mistake and move on it’s not a big deal. I knew a guy who got a ban from the network because he wanted to argue with the controller instead of clarifying what was said, accepting that he was wrong or controller changed things on him and moving. You might hear a controller roll their eyes if you ask for clarification on a call but low key they thank you for it
Not only that, you can also join as an observer where you won’t be seen or heard so you can get your toes wet a little bit.
Don’t get me wrong this isn’t a “vatsim or die” comment. Just trying to be the objective voice 
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Hi there, There is also another ATC program called PF3-ATC at it’s best…It has a lot of different voices
https://www.oncourse-software.co.uk/pf3_details.htm
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I have 6,000+ hours on VATSIM across many sims, absolutly love it and have helped many that are new.
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Pilot2atc is an amazing standalone program. It is very realistic when one compares it to live ATC like Vatsim. There are you tube videos available to learn how to add additional ATC voices for free. There is also an additional program one can purchase for about $15 U.S. dollars that adds ATC chatter in the background that totally adds to the immersion.
You can have the Copilot answer all the ATC calls and change Frequencies, or when one is more confident you the pilot can respond with your voice and change to the appropriate frequency manually, which is very realistic. It gave me the confidence to be on Vatsim for both VFR and IFR flights. In fact I use both Pilot2ATC and Vatsim alot when there is no live ATC at the moment I’m flying on Vatsim.
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It’s just an updated and repolished Radar Contact. Youtubed it and the moment I heard the voices, yup. The original creator of that was John Decker I think? Maybe Dave March was a big contributor on or apart of it. I did try to use it back in the day but the varied voices of the people who recorded was nice but you can tell where the clips end and start easily for literally each phonetic or instruction so there’s no fluidity.
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I like PF3 as well, it’s not perfect, but I prefer it to Pilot2ATC where you have to load all the voices you want to hear.
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I can recommend Pilot2atc, it takes some time to configure but it is quite powerful, comes with plenty of features and is constantly being updated by the developer. Allows IFR and VFR, you can add many additional voices (either buying them or with a trick in windows to unlock new ones).
Best point is the support of the developer. I had an issue and we started exchanging mails. He was pushing to me new builds every day or even after few hours, for further testing, until the issue was completely solved.
If I remember correctly there is a time límited demo version, so you can make up your own mind.
I’m pretty crazy about ProATC SR
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Love Pilot2ATC.
When used with MCE (Multi Crew Expirience), your copilot, flying tubes is a whole new experience.
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One of “we all” here. The ATC works very well for me about 98% of the time and the “live” ATC products described here don’t cover my small plane up in the mountains.
But Pilot2ATC requires you to set up SID and STARs manually which removes some immersion as you will have “no surprises”. Therefor I prefer ProATC SR.
This is not accurate, there are settings that let the software dictate to force pilot selection, or to choose it itself.
I continue to use Pro ATC/SR after a few months and have learned to workaround the many bugs and it works great most of the time. I find the user interface and simplicity of setup vastly superior to the other 3rd party ATC solutions (based on my experience trying the demos).
The only reason I would hesitate to recommend it would be the lack of demo to try before purchase, bugs that require workarounds, weird support forums and the lack of updates (promised big “update” for a while a now with nothing). I still use it every day and do not regret the purchase despite these caveats. Just hoping default ATC someday gets some attention and necessary updates then I would gladly use that.
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I went with Pilot2ATC 2 weeks ago. Fantastic program! Its UI is dated and could use an uodate but its core functionality is rock solid. I considered ProATC but read the dev is slow, still has bugs from previous versions and the forum moderator (if you need to ask questions) is a tyrant. Was not impressed with what I saw.
You can check a box to let Pilor2ATC choose sids and stars or force it to let you fly a certain route with no surprises.
If the develooer could update the UI and work in other things like ATC holds ect. It would be top of the pack more than it already is.
Hi
I bought Pro ATC a while back and had mixed results - restarted it last month and have been enjoying it a lot more. Agree its easier to get flight plans set up quickly.
I do have run very large bugbear with it - often the atc will give micro adjustments on course. Eg left 345, then a 20 seconds later right 350, another 10 seconds left 345…and so on…I cant beleive ATC would have that level constant micro course adjustments. Even allowing the ProAtc autopilot to do it still results in micro adjustments. And making the corridor the max makes no difference.
In short - did you find away around the micro adjustments - or is there something i need to tick or untick to reduce it?
Or is this just reality or an annoying issue?
thanks
mark
Hi, there was a discussion about this in the “official” forums a few months ago and a very rare response from the dev. regarding this behavior. If you hunt around during flight you’ll find button to “show map” and somewhere on there is a “corridor” width. The dev recommended increasing the corridor width (I believe default is 6 miles and he recommended 10) and should help reduce this problem.
thanks i will check again, i had it on 10 before i think and it dont think it helped - but at least i am not the only one thats recognised the issue - i thought it was just me.
thanks for the reponse.
P2A supports holds. Just declare a missed approach.
To me, the UI is the most awkward, dated part of P2A. It looks and works like it was developed for Windows 95. It’s effective and works, but looks and feels so dated. And navigation is rather awkward. There would be far better ways of doing things in this day and age to improve the UI and UX.
While P2A certainly isn’t perfect as an ATC solution, IMHO it’s head and shoulders above default ATC. I haven’t really used other 3rd party ATC, but from what I’ve seen of them in product pages, videos, etc, at least for my use case, P2A is definitely the better solution.
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