Best ATC to use with Prepar3d v3.3/v3.4

[LUIS LOPEZ 2]

Hello:

 

You can take a look at pilot2atc:

 

http://pilot2atc.com/

 

It has good reviews although I personally have not used it. It's available for download to all users. There is now a free 10 day trial even though the product is still in Beta.

 

 

Best regards.

 

LUIS LOPEZ

[nealmac 260]

I'll recommend ProATC too. Works extremely well and integrates itself pretty much flawlessly with P3D. Yes it does have some bugs but these should all be fixed with the pending update.

 

Only negative I could say about it, is that you don't have the option of voice control. At least not yet.

 

I've tried Radar Contact and PF3 in the past and I had a lot of trouble trying to get them to work. Not saying there's anything wrong with them (obviously they work for others), but I'm a bit of a simpleton so ProATC was the clear winner for me.

[Pete Dowson 558]

Only negative I could say about it, is that you don't have the option of voice control. At least not yet.

 

As with most of these programs as well as others, you can add voice control yourself. Voice Buddy is one such application, as is Its Your Plane and, of course, the famous "Multi-Crew Experience" add-on.

 

I really don't think the ProATC/X folks should divert themselves to such things when it is already possible. They should concentrate on making the ATC as realistic as it possibly can be. I think next, after the current work on the procedural side, must be the voices -- more of them and in some areas better scripted.

 

Pete

[basementflyguy 156]

I tried Pilot edge for a month, and the controllers are good, but you are talking to one controller all the time, which for  me, kind of broke the immersion . You are also confined to a small area of the US on the west coast, and it is about $20 a month. You better have charts at the ready and know your procedures and airspace restrictions. I think it is more aimed at the active student pilot, and I am kind of past that stage by many decades. :wink:  

 

 

I agree it's to each his own based on what they're looking for. I'm a current student, so I find it really valuable, but I actually started using PE before I started flight training. Many of the folks who use the network are active pilots looking to stay sharp on their IFR skills. It does have a set area, which is the LA TRACON airspace, which is pretty much from the Mexican border, over to Lake Havasu, up to Kanab UT, and over to the CA coast around St. Luis Obispo. There are three Class Bravo airspaces in that TRACON (LAX, San Diego, and Vegas), and many Charlies and Deltas. PE also controls SFO, so there is a fourth Bravo, which allows tubeliner guys to fly SFO / SAN / LAX / LAS type legs with ATC the entire way. There is also an expansion planned for later this year. It will include full-time coverage for SEA, PDX, SLC, DEN, ASE, and PHX. In addition they will have rotating part time coverage for OAK, SJC, RNO, MRY, SMF, GEG, YKM, EGE, and ABQ. This will create a much larger set of longer flights for folks flying twins and jets.

 

For me the number of controlled airports was one of the selling points, even allowing for the single-TRACON coverage area. Every day, 365 days a year, from 8 AM to 11 PM Pacific, there are nearly 40 airports with Ground, Tower, and Arrival / Departure / Center ATC coverage on PE (and for some fields, Clearance, too). With VATSIM I found that, while the area can be global, at any given time in the US there may be only a few airspaces operating, and just a handful of towered airports. Looking right now at the VATSIM network my choices are (at Noon ET on a Thursday) Tower at BOS and Ground at LGA. There are more controllers working Europe, with a few airspaces being controlled in Scandinavia, Russia, and Africa, but nothing in the states. Finally, while some VATSIM controllers really know their stuff, the PE controllers are highly vetted, and many work ATC in the real world. Because commercial flight schools use the PE network the controllers are expected to provide professional coverage, and they do.

 

In terms of traffic, you can usually expect 5-20 other pilots to be on the network at the same time. The radios are never empty. To augment the airspace experience PE also fills the virtual world with hundreds of drones making flights between airports (including military traffic zooming long the military training routes). While the drones don't talk, they do show up in the sim and do require you and ATC to fly avoidance, extend legs, taxi in order, etc. It's cool. You can see the coverage area and the live / drone pilots here (click the "show / hide" drone toggle): http://map.pilotedge.net/map/

 

Which gets to two of Bob's points which I think are important to recognize if you're thinking of trying the service. The first is that PE can't possibly staff the 50-60 stations it would take to cover all of LA TRACON, so they usually have 1-3 controllers working at any given time (and during very busy times, 4-5). Many of the handoffs are from freq to freq with the same controller. If you expect a different voice on each station, you will be disappointed (although, large portions of the real-world US airspace has controllers manning multiple frequencies, so this happens in the real world, too). All told I'd say I have multiple controllers about 50 percent of the time. I've never minded it, but that's a personal preference. You can get a feel for all of this by listening in, as PE posts condensed recordings of the network audio through the day. Here's some tower traffic from last night, and here is some center traffic from the same time. 

 

The second key point is about having your charts ready and your act reasonably together. The PE controllers will expect you to know your stuff. If you're flying VFR, you better understand Echo, Delta, Charlie, and Bravo airspaces, basic ATC procedures, and how to run the radio with correct frequencies (unlike VATSIM, if I plan to tune into John Wayne tower, I will tune my radio to the real-world freq). If you're flying IFR, you better know the plates and how to file, receive, and fly clearances and procedures. It's a forgiving network, and it is a simulation, so when you make mistakes they will coach you up, but just like controllers in the real world (which many of them are) they won't suffer repetitive fools too gladly. Good news is that PE has an extensive (and free) series of online workshops that help you learn all this, and a ratings system to help you develop your skills. As a simmer I found this all very helpful, because I wanted my simulation experience to be realistic. As a student pilot, it's been invaluable.

 

Personally, I love it. I fly GA in the sim and it's a plenty big airspace (more than three hours across edge to edge in a C 182), and when I want to fly somewhere else, I do. And if I want to start outside the network and fly into it, I can pick up the live ATC when I hit the LA TRACON. Most of the time when I sim I want it to be as realistic as it can be, and PE really affords that. I find it's a ton of fun, and after the 14 day trial I was pretty well hooked. It works for me. 

[ukplane4 0]

vatsim or ivao 

[sionalford 1]

I agree it's to each his own based on what they're looking for. I'm a c........

 

 

Nailed it Basement...great experience and worth every dime. 

 

I had a real world pilot friend of mine at the house the other day and he was blown away watching me fly on the network with PE. I flew with him earlier that week in his real airplane and he was blown away that I had no fear of talking to real world controllers. Seeing me fly in PE showed him why.

 

Good stuff!

 

Sion

[Bobsk8 12,531]

Nailed it Basement...great experience and worth every dime. 

 

I had a real world pilot friend of mine at the house the other day and he was blown away watching me fly on the network with PE. I flew with him earlier that week in his real airplane and he was blown away that I had no fear of talking to real world controllers. Seeing me fly in PE showed him why.

 

Good stuff!

 

Sion

 

What is PE, that's one I never heard of ? 

[nam1394 10]

What is PE, that's one I never heard of ?

 

I think they mean Pilot's Edge.

[sionalford 1]

What is PE, that's one I never heard of ? 

 

 

Yes, sorry, Pilot Edge. Great service.

 

Sion

[nealmac 260]

As with most of these programs as well as others, you can add voice control yourself. Voice Buddy is one such application, as is Its Your Plane and, of course, the famous "Multi-Crew Experience" add-on.

 

I really don't think the ProATC/X folks should divert themselves to such things when it is already possible. They should concentrate on making the ATC as realistic as it possibly can be. I think next, after the current work on the procedural side, must be the voices -- more of them and in some areas better scripted.

 

Pete

Yeah, sorry Pete I worded my post badly. I meant to say that it doesn't have the option of voice control from within the interface itself, unlike other ATC software. It's not an issue for me anyway. I'm happy with button control. I was just pointing out that it could be a deal breaker for some people. 

 

I agree 100% with you. I'd much rather they concentrate on bringing out the "realism" aspect of ProATC before looking at things like voice control, and in fairness, from browsing their forum it seems that that is exactly what they are doing. I'm also liking the idea of Marcel's voice packs. However, I'm just about to update to 3.4 so I have a bit of work ahead of me updating that and other addons (including your own FSUIPC) but once I get that done, and get the new version of ProATC I'll look into adding the voice packs.

[DogTagGamer 3]

That is my impression of PF3 also, I had a couple of issues in the very beginning, mostly due to pilot error, and posting on their forum, I would get a reply the next morning. Great support, and I believe it is due for an update before the end of the month. The immersion is what I like about it the most, feels like flying in the real world. 

You just made me a buyer!

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

After spending several years going back and forth between ProATC/X and the various incarnations of PFx (now PF3), I decided to test out the presently "freeware" beta version 7 of VOXATC. I recommend that people try it out also, only because of the integration of the Windows OS Text to Speech and voice recognition capabilities. The beta is still a bit quirky, but VOXATC does a nice job of directing both VFR and IFR flights, along with controlling and communicating with your AI aircraft (UT2, WOAI or in my case My Traffic 6). With P3d 3.4 and Windows 10, the ATC instructions are realistic and aren't constrained to the commonly used prerecorded snippets.