I’m only asking because ever since the release (and I’ve been here since then) I’ve been hoping the developer might one day deliver what they’ve promised: an A.I. Pilot who will follow your flight plan to the letter, taking off and landing without accident or mishap, providing the user (in this case ‘passenger’) with a safe and complete flight experience.
It’s always been my hope that I could enjoy MSFS 2020 as a ‘virtual airline and sightseeing’ experience. I don’t want to be the pilot: I want to be the passenger, and I want this amazing software to take me on amazing flights around the world.
Every few months or so I fire up MSFS 2020 again, do all the updates, and optimistically put in my flight plan (invariably, Bangkok International to Krabi - a short domestic Thai flight), sit back in my economy-class window seat, nervous but fully-insured, and hoping (yet again) for the best. Every few months or so I learn, despondently, that Charlie (the A.I. Pilot) has still not qualified, still cannot follow a flight plan, and still does not understand how to land airplanes.
I highly doubt that with a realistic flightmodel in a dynamic atmosphere it will ever happen to work as you say. Flying is a highly complex process that requires a huge amount of development and coding to get the automatics to do it right. An AI pilot who‘s supposed to do it „humanly“ would be even more difficult. My prediction: forget it. It‘s a feature that has never had a chance to succeed with the goal of a realistic flight model and should have been left out right from the start.
Interesting I can imagine putting such a flight on in the background while doing other things.
But I just don’t really think they should focus on this. Not with all the other problems. They should have never added it in the first place. Yes it’s not good that it’s broken, but we got so many other problems for people that actually do fly.
Wow having an AI pilot take over the controls somtimes would be interesting. So having said that I would like you to meet “AMY” my AI
copilot. She does well handling the radios.
Somtimes she jumps the gun and asked for push back before I start the
engines and release the parking breaks, maybe some one at MSFS can look into that little bug. Any way having an AI pilot frees me up to taxi and do the other tasks before and after wheels up. Maybe its wishfull thinking but flying an A320,787 or 737 can get very hairy somtimes😬
I love the challenge, thats why we fly.
Meet Amy my AI copilot in the attachment… oh yea Amy does not drink🤣Happy flying👍🏾
The sim can control AI planes, fly them from airport to airport, land and taxi to parking. The AI pilot is a similar thing with some added functionality. I really don’t see why they cant make it work.
Cars can drive themselves in real life now, so i can’t see how it would be a problem in an simulator where everything is controlled by coding. Give it a year or so, and you can relax in the first class seat for the full flight.
And i believe it will be the case in real life aviation to pretty soon.
So today I decided on another go at this. Charlie is ■■■■ well going to do things my way or take the highway. After a bit of talking, Charlie and I finally agreed to a new flight plan - KL International Airport to Singapore Changi Aiport. Not too much of a hop, and something I felt hopeful my ever-unreliable A.I. pilot might just be able to manage.
Things began well. I think that was due mostly to the planning. From a parked position, out onto the departure runway, up, up, and away (I chose the high-altitude route - we were in the A20 Neo) and Charlie was properly (if a little ostentatiously at times) following all the waypoints and - crucially - maintaining correct altitude and engine power at all times. I was completely ‘hands-off’ with the flight controls. Gotta trust Charlie, right…?
Against the odds (and perhaps thanks to two weeks of enforced sobriety on his part), Charlie actually made the landing at Changi - and, as if to rub it in, he taxied the plane all the way (and it was a long way) to its assigned parking space. All without incident. I mean, even the landing was flawless (on target and with no casualties amongst the passengers).
Things might be looking up. Charlie’s full of himself now, grinning like a loon, continually muttering ‘I’ve still got it, mate.’ Perhaps. He looks thirsty.
So I’ve been flying the A.I. quite a bit lately. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Flight plans matter. For instance, it’s important to tell the A.I. that you’ll be using the high-altitude route. This provides the A.I. with detailed route-finding. I find it works very well.
On the world map, depart from a specific parking space, and aim to complete the flight at a specific arrival parking space. Having some knowledge of how the selected airports/runways work (for departure/arrival) will probably be a big advantage here (just a guess).
The A320 Neo is an ideal candidate for a fully ‘hands-off’ flight (start to finish, including taxi-to-runway at departure and taxi-to-parking at arrival).
Problems:
At departure, A.I. will successfully request push back, will taxi out to take-off runway, but often then requires the player to manually request take-off clearance, despite having the A.I. set to manage ATC comms. It’s odd. Sometimes works without manual intervention, sometimes not.
On approach, A.I. often seems to make slightly late decisions, particularly when lining up to the runway approach grid. It’s a bit untidy and sometimes results in a heart-stopping scramble to get the plane into correct alignment. Starting this process a bit further out from arrival seems to be a better idea. Would be nice to see this tweaked by the developers.
A.I. can sometimes manage to taxi-to-parking (assuming you’ve specified a parking slot in your flight plan), but often will land safely and then…sorta lose its way. So far, if this happens, I’ve found this to be irretrievable (i.e. without manual intervention). A great shame.
Conclusion:
A.I. flights (fully ‘hands-off’) are very nearly a thing. Almost fully working. But there’s still too much of an element of risk and gamble involved for the player to feel assured their ‘hands-off’ flight will complete without mishaps. A.I. uncertainty at crucial points (such as safely getting off the arrival runway to the designated parking bay) needs to be hammered down. The ultimate ‘passenger experience’ in MSFS 2020 is within touching distance!
