Hi,Stupid question coming.:-hmmm I've been tuning the aircraft radios myself when flying then, by chance, I read something about "autotune" in the FS2004 Learning section. How does "autotune" work? Is it automatic or do I have to configure something? I read the section several times and saw nothing about "autotune" settings or how it works. I can't believe I've been flying this long without knowing about this feature.:-doh Thanks,Tom:-roll

Tom,No question is stupid.For what I remember Auto tune does not need to be configured in a special way to work.ATC will hand you, for example from Clearance delivery to ground for taxing,you will see in your ATC dialog box:1. Tune XXX.XX Miami groundYou have two options here:A. Tune the radio yourself, ( I think this is what you do)B. Press "1" on the keyboard, and the radio will be tunned in that frequency for you. (this is Auto tunning)whatever option you take you will see that the ATC dialog box changes:1. Contact Miami Groundand then you press "1" in the keyboard to contact.I dont have FS in this machine, so the text in the ATC dialog box may be slightly different.

Hi,Thanks, Gabriel, for your response. It is a lot easier to click on a number to tune the radio - especially during takeoff and landing when cockpit work is most demanding.Tom:-)

Which raises the question: How do pilots in single-pilot aircraft handle this when a radio needs to be retuned during a busy time like takeoff or landing? Seems like you'd need three hands for a while. Is it, as I assume, just a skill you develop with practice?And why couldn't real life instruments offer something like an "autotune" feature? Ideally, the ATC message that directs the handoff could be embedded with the new frequency in a way that could be received by your radio, if so configured, to be automatically stored as the "alternate" frequency so that you could select the new frequency (or not) by a single button press. I imagine this would require some fairly significant changes in various instruments and also broadcast protocols, so perhaps an intermediate step would be to store all the frequencies in a GPS unit, program the GPS to offer a menu of likely frequencies depending on a comparison of the aircraft's location vs. its flightplan, and allow the GPS unit to tune the radio when the pilot presses a button selecting the correct frequency from the menu.Or is this already available?

If you have inexpensive radios, you're pretty much stuck with hand tuning; most trainers are like this, and you get used to it. After a while, you can pretty much do it by feel.There are radios that have "standby". Generally, you will know ahead of time most of the frequencies you will need, and can have the "next" one dialed into standby ahead of time.Rich---The Catholic Church is on record as being against the use of Surrogate Mothers, a rule that was definitely not in effect at the time of Christ's birth.