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stretch1365

Pro-Atc or Radar Contact?

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Crikey. Well I found this thread and thought "excellent! I'll find an answer as to which atc addon is best" but it's like the hall of mirrors in here!

 

Till now I've just used EFB and/or the FMCs from the more advanced aircraft to navigate and basically left the default ATC to do it thing without controlling my flight.

 

I'm flying p3dv2 now, so fingers crossed - someone will develop a powerful atc tool for that. For now though, I think it might be a case of leaving well alone.

 

None of these programs seem to tick all the boxes, although Pro ATC sounds like it was promising until the support and updates turned out to be woeful (according to what many of you seem to be saying).

 

I would go for PFE or RC but they're ancient.

 

As for Vox ATC, sorry guys, again it does sound promising, but I just don't want my missus coming back home and finding me talking to my PC. Also - living in a terraced Victorian row of houses, the neighbours are going to get pretty ratty at me talking loudly to Swanwick as I cross the Bristol Channel for that late descent into EGLL... :rolleyes:

 

Don't get me wrong, I totally "get" why people would find it cool to interact with ATC through voice recognition. But me - I prefer buttons. Quieter.

 

Basically what I want is RC5, I believe... for P3Dv2.

 

So it's a real shame to hear about the developer's real-life challenges, but totally understand and respect his decision to focus on those priorities.

 

Fingers crossed for a new version of Pro ATC or something else that will tick the boxes for FSX and P3D.

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I would go for PFE or RC but they're ancient.

 

With respect ATC is not a pair of flared trousers. It doesn't come into fashion nor does it go out of fashion. RC4.3 may be several years old but it's still reliable. Give it a 5 year-old plan or one you created 30 mins ago and it will function just the same.

 

People are still buying it and will continue to do so until something substantially better comes along. But as there are only 3 packages that people discuss you can see new offerings are rare.

 

I can only speak for Radar Contact. I still use it for every flight. I couldn't even consider not flying with it. It's stable and does what it promises to do. Sadly v5 may never surface so do the next best thing and get v4.


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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As for Vox ATC, sorry guys, again it does sound promising, but I just don't want my missus coming back home and finding me talking to my PC. Also - living in a terraced Victorian row of houses, the neighbours are going to get pretty ratty at me talking loudly to Swanwick as I cross the Bristol Channel for that late descent into EGLL... :rolleyes:

.

Actually it is a common misconception that you have to talk to VOX ATC, when in actual fact you can just enable the F.O. and use the press to talk button to talk to ATC with him.

 

As for procedural correctness, I understand that this software is used as a General aviation pilot training tool by some.

 

I switched from PRO-ATC/X to VOX ATC last December out of shear frustration with PATC and it's questionable (to me) future and consider it the best move I ever made since buying add ons for FSX. To me it is the most realistic ATC I have used to date and I have tried them all. I know Ray would probably disagree with me, but I find it better than RC4, which is a very good program.

 

Regards,

 

Edit: Give the seven day trial a go, it's free.


Rick Hobbs

Boeing777_Banner_Pilot.jpg

 

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I know Ray would probably disagree with me, but I find it better than RC4, which is a very good program.

Far from it Rick. I'd never pass comment on something I hadn't tried. I've heard good reports about VOX-ATC but as I'm happy with RC4 it's not something I'm likely to try.


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Far from it Rick. I'd never pass comment on something I hadn't tried. I've heard good reports about VOX-ATC but as I'm happy with RC4 it's not something I'm likely to try.

Sorry Ray, Of course you are right. My remark was presumptuous in as much as it would depend on you having tried VOX.

 

Regards,

  • Upvote 1

Rick Hobbs

Boeing777_Banner_Pilot.jpg

 

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Hmm - food for thought. Thanks both.

 

And Ray: yes, you're quite right. That was a flippant comment regarding the age of the program. I should clarify I was referring to the likelihood it would function with P3Dv2. But a closer look reveals plenty of users who have RC4.3 and P3D getting along fine together.

 

Rick - thanks, again, you're quite right, if there's a demo then it's always worth a look. I did know about the FO, but from the Mutley's review it looked as though you couldn't enable him/her throughout the flight. If you're saying an entire flight can be completed without voice recog then great, worth a look for me.

 

Much obliged gents. Chris.

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Chris,

 

As you've found out plenty of people have got RC4 working with P3D. That's good for enthusiasts of both programs.

 

I won't go into a long list of RC4's attributes but the main ones that have made it such an impressive program for me are the worldwide enunciated centres so wherever you fly you'll be instructed to contact "xxx control / centre". Another is its observance of both FAA and ICAO rules so whatever airport you fly from / to you'll hear the correct enunciation.

 

And finally, the option to pause FS x miles from the destination. So useful for those long overnight flights.

 

I have no idea if VOXATC does those but if it does then it makes a choice even more difficult. :smile:


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Hmm - food for thought. Thanks both.

 

 

Rick - thanks, again, you're quite right, if there's a demo then it's always worth a look. I did know about the FO, but from the Mutley's review it looked as though you couldn't enable him/her throughout the flight. If you're saying an entire flight can be completed without voice recog then great, worth a look for me.

 

Much obliged gents. Chris.

Yes, you don't have to use your voice at all, but, you need to have a microphone plugged in.


Naif Almazroa

My Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Youmou0205

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Tom,

         That's pretty much true. Last night, I flew from LAX-SFO. There was plenty of ground traffic but once in the air there was little to no AI traffic. Even on approach to SFO I didn't visually see another aircraft. This is really my only complaint with VOX. You will hear the ATC chatter but almost never see the aircraft.

 

get the new version! patch released about a week ago, it's awesome, added a ton of AI traffic during the enroute phase!

 

cheers

-andy crosby

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Andy,

          I've installed 6.34. I've flown a couple of flights with it and was happy to see the increase in enroute traffic.It' the only ATC program I use now.


NAX669.png

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Andy,

          I've installed 6.34. I've flown a couple of flights with it and was happy to see the increase in enroute traffic.It' the only ATC program I use now.

 

What about the weather at destination. I tried the demo, and if I don't disable VOXATC after TOD, save the flight and renable it, VOXATC gives wrong winds at destination. Has it been fixed?


Naif Almazroa

My Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Youmou0205

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What about the weather at destination. I tried the demo, and if I don't disable VOXATC after TOD, save the flight and renable it, VOXATC gives wrong winds at destination. Has it been fixed?

 

are you using ASN? i have a similar issue, i have been following up on contacting their support about it. basically the destination airport only has valid weather once you are within 120nm (you can check it on the fsx map)... but sometimes, voxatc will query to ask what the weather is sooner than that, often on stars in the usa where the first transition is much farther away, up to like 210nm on some that i tried. on some european stars the transition is at 90 or 60nm and it gets it properly.. i think it is possible to fix, maybe voxatc can get the destination weather from ASN's snapshot file or something and range won't be a factor.

 

in my tests VOX grabbed the weather quite properly using the default weather in fsx because the destination station is always being written. but default weather is not my cup of tea for sure! anyway i think it is a solveable issue but is def a hassle with ASN. i haven't tried the other engines with it so i dunno about those. 

 

cheers

-andy crosby

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are you using ASN? i have a similar issue, i have been following up on contacting their support about it. basically the destination airport only has valid weather once you are within 120nm (you can check it on the fsx map)... but sometimes, voxatc will query to ask what the weather is sooner than that, often on stars in the usa where the first transition is much farther away, up to like 210nm on some that i tried. on some european stars the transition is at 90 or 60nm and it gets it properly.. i think it is possible to fix, maybe voxatc can get the destination weather from ASN's snapshot file or something and range won't be a factor.

 

in my tests VOX grabbed the weather quite properly using the default weather in fsx because the destination station is always being written. but default weather is not my cup of tea for sure! anyway i think it is a solveable issue but is def a hassle with ASN. i haven't tried the other engines with it so i dunno about those. 

 

cheers

-andy crosby

I tried it with Opusfsx, FSGRW and ASN demo. It's all the same. It seems it decides on destination winds based on what it is when you save the flight at the start. So, as you said, it is OK with default weather as long as it is a snapshot with no live update. 

 

It is not a big deal. I can do the disable, save and enable. 

 

But the really only problem with otherwise a perfect ATC addon is runway selection. Vox uses only one runway even if there are parallel runways. However, you can assign separate takeoff and landing runways through an AFCAD editor. Bottom line, Vox won't use two runways for takeoffs or two runways for landings.


Naif Almazroa

My Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Youmou0205

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