+ 15

Guys, I know you want an update, but we are in a "holding pattern right now on RCv5. When it comes it will be a great update, but not now. Enjoy RCv4.3Bob JohnsonRC Beta Team

Holding pattern? Is JD still ill or something?

Hi Bob,Would you care to explain what you mean by "in a holding pattern"? Does this mean the development of RC5 is on hold? is there any progress? It's not that we're pushing you guys to deliver a new RC5 soon or something like that, but let's just say it's been very quiet on the RC5 development front lately. I guess we're starting to wonder if there's any work being done on RC5.I'm personally also wondering about some kind of voice recognition software being linked into RC5. I know SuperATC can be linked to RC4, but after trying out VoxATC yesterday, I wonder if VoxATC isn't a bit more 'developped' than SuperATC is. Mind you...I'm still asking this out of curiousity without any judgement....I really like RC4 since, according to me...it's the best ATC program available so far. However...after using it a long time now, the next step )for me that is) would be to start talking back to ATC. Pressing a button to respond is no progress in me getting things more life-like in FSX.I hope you'll regard my questions as positive as I intended them to be and am looking forward to your response.

I'm personally also wondering about some kind of voice recognition software being linked into RC5. I know SuperATC can be linked to RC4, but after trying out VoxATC yesterday, I wonder if VoxATC isn't a bit more 'developped' than SuperATC is. Mind you...I'm still asking this out of curiousity without any judgement....I really like RC4 since, according to me...it's the best ATC program available so far. However...after using it a long time now, the next step )for me that is) would be to start talking back to ATC. Pressing a button to respond is no progress in me getting things more life-like in FSX.I hope you'll regard my questions as positive as I intended them to be and am looking forward to your response.

Have you tried Multi Crew Experience with RC4? It works much better than Super ATC since it can read and interpret the RC4 menu and the phraseology you have to use is very accurate.However, Its not perfect since RC4 will nag you due to the time you will take to respond via voice, but it is certainly a step forward in realism. They do a free trial so I'd recommend you give it a try whilst we all wait for RC5. +16

Holding pattern? Is JD still ill or something?

I haven't been around in a while and didn't realize JD was ill. Is everything ok?

I have long been "talking to RC4", but not using Super ATC or the like. I found SUper ATC to be very...underwhelming. Having to use shortcut phrases is not exactly what I had in mind when tallking to ATC. So what I do now is disable pilot wavs, and speaks the commands as I am supposed to, then hit the button. Takes some timing, as you dont press the ack button until about halfway through your response, so you have enough time to then contact the next controller or make the appropriate course adjustments before ATC gets back on the horn to yell at you.I find using RC4 in this way to be quite enjoyable, makes it much more realistic for me and more of a proper flow, you really need to be ontop of things when taking off and landing doing it this way.There are a few things that make RC4 difficult on you when I do things this way, mainly the fact that it only responds to comm1. so I cannot have the whole departure freq flow set up on my radios and just flip around like I do when on VATSIM. So I am always gearing up the next frequency, which adds a little more work. Also the fact that when you switch frequencies, RC4 doesnt realize the switch until you actually respond, so there are times when I am called to approach, and I switch over, but still hear chatter of the control center while I am talking back.I brought up some ideas on how to better make my way of doings these work more smoothly, and JD seemed interested, so maybe he will add the simple features so other people can "talk" to RC5 and not have to buy a second program.Cheers

Guys, what I meant by holding pattern is no different than RW, when in a holding pattern you are still flying, but staying in place. :( We have done lots of work on RCv5, but many things are in a work in progress stage. RCv5 objectives are exciting, but lots of work still to do on them.I will NOT comment on JD, please respect his privacy. I hope you continue to enjoy RCv4.3 as I do, play with any addons I too have several and enjoy flying all over the world with my LDS 767.The beta team is in place and excited about v5 development. :( Bob JohnsonRadar Contact Beta Team

Hi Scott," I found SUper ATC to be very...underwhelming. Having to use shortcut phrases is not exactly what I had in mind when tallking to ATC."Since I was the guy who (in January 2009) had the idea to voice-interface IYP (of which Super ATC is a free subset) and RC and wrote most of the commands, I may be allowed to make a few remarks:IYP (Super ATC) was never meant to operate RC's ATC by IYP voice-commands. My idea was simply to find appropriate voice-commands to trigger RC's keystrokes. That's all. The idea was NOT to talk to RC's ATC but to instruct RC's pilot ( who would then act as FO) what to say to ATC. So when you are saying "contact tower" you are not using a "a shortcut phrase talking to ATC" but simply giving an instruction to your acting FO to contact tower. He is then changing frequencies and contacting Tower using proper ATC phraseology to do that. Giving the fact that RC was not meant originally to be used by voice-control I think this is an acceptable way to handle the present situation in RC4. I say "acceptable", "perfect" is is certainly not.In spring and summer 2009 we further developed this but in October we felt that we were coming to a dead end for two reasons: 1, we realised that RC's menu/sub-menu/sub-sub-menu structure is far to complicated to find easily memorisable voice-commands for all situations and 2, we were under the impression that the release of RC5 was imminent. Frankly, we were afraid that we would have to do the whole work again. So we put it on ice. Or, as Bob says, " we are flying a holding pattern". But since RC5 seems to be far away ...Cheers, AndreasPS: You can always change the standard RC4 phrases used by IYP in the Options menu in IYP (don't know if you can do this with Super ATC).PPS: If jd or the beta-team feel that I could be of use for implementation of voice-commands in RC5 please contact me on andreas.gutzwiller(at)bluewin.ch.

Giving the fact that RC was not meant originally to be used by voice-control I think this is an acceptable way to handle the present situation in RC4. I say "acceptable", "perfect" is is certainly not.

I agree with you 100%. It all just depends on what you are using RC for. It is not made to be talked at, that is for darn sure. But I needed something that I can use as practice for talking to ATC, especially in high workflow situations, as I tend to have the habit of mumbling, or trailing off and not saying my callsign clearly. I use VATSIM when there is adequate coverage and other flights in the area, but that does not happen alot in my situation, so I try to use RC to talk to. The short cut phrases just doesnt work for what I need it to do, but it did work in getting RC to do what needs to be done, I had no problems with the functionality of it, thats for sure.

And still my original questions remains unanswered as to what the current status in development of RC5 is

And still my original questions remains unanswered as to what the current status in development of RC5 is

Respectfully, I expected you would have already understood that no one is going to list the development details for our enjoymentI can personally clearly see the only answer was, is and probably will be to the very end on the development cycle - it is being worked on.

I guess my answer of holding pattern is not detailed enough for you. :( Let me be more specific, code has been developed and tested. Design objectives have been developed and code tested against those objectives. There have been many discussions about SIDs and how they should be handled. There are many other advances that are still in the initial design stages. Details of team discussions are not going to be discussed on this forum. This forum is for support of V4.3. If you want details about code development it will NOT be released on this forum.Understand that everyone wants V5 as soon as possible, but details of our work won't be released here. :( Bob JohnsonRC Beta Team

Thanks a lot for your informative answer!

I think the main reason people keep talking about RC5, is because they get told every time they raise an issue with RC4.3, that it will be no more in version 5.Others simply ask because they are eager to buy, and would rather buy the latest.Take the example of the controller that is nagging you even after you left his frequency. Or the very short time you are given before further nagging on many clearances. I don’t think these are major things to fix, in an otherwise decent ATC add-onI personally think V4.4 is more than welcome here. You can then take all the time you want to write and test RC5Of course this is just the humble opinion of a registered user, and others may disagree.Regards,Gerald Reilly