Hi,

I just started using MCE with the 737NGXu and P3Dv5.3 and already read through many manuals and watched some youtube windows. Understanding all of them I have some points left which I cannot get to work, but where I'm sure they should work!

1) I would like to do all actions in the cockpit on my own. However I want the copilot to say what I'm doing. E.g. I switch the Autobrake to RTO and I want to have the co pilot say "Autobrake set to RTO". I have "Call-Outs and monitoring" ticked and I have gone  successfully through the checklists together with the FO until engine start. But whatever I do in the cockpit the copilot is saying nothing on my actions. No comment regarding "engine starter cutout" or something similar. 

2) I'm using newest GSX Level 2 and would like to tell the ramp coordinater to call e.g. the catering truck. Saying "crew coordination we want the catering service" does not give a reaction. Engines are stopped and GSX is working. According to the manual something should happen with these trigger words: crew coordination crew coordinator ramp coordinator despatch coordinator Simon Roberto Marko despatch but no reaction with them.

3) Pushback is not possible. I say "Ground are you ready for pushback or ground pushback left?. The sentences are understood fine according to the text feedback line on top of the screen, but I do not get a response either with GSX not activated from the GSX menu or with GSX already activated and oushback truck connected to the plane.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much!

Best regards Andi



 

2 hours ago, 737Andi said:

Hi,

I just started using MCE with the 737NGXu and P3Dv5.3 and already read through many manuals and watched some youtube windows. Understanding all of them I have some points left which I cannot get to work, but where I'm sure they should work!

1) I would like to do all actions in the cockpit on my own. However I want the copilot to say what I'm doing. E.g. I switch the Autobrake to RTO and I want to have the co pilot say "Autobrake set to RTO". I have "Call-Outs and monitoring" ticked and I have gone  successfully through the checklists together with the FO until engine start. But whatever I do in the cockpit the copilot is saying nothing on my actions. No comment regarding "engine starter cutout" or something similar. 

2) I'm using newest GSX Level 2 and would like to tell the ramp coordinater to call e.g. the catering truck. Saying "crew coordination we want the catering service" does not give a reaction. Engines are stopped and GSX is working. According to the manual something should happen with these trigger words: crew coordination crew coordinator ramp coordinator despatch coordinator Simon Roberto Marko despatch but no reaction with them.

3) Pushback is not possible. I say "Ground are you ready for pushback or ground pushback left?. The sentences are understood fine according to the text feedback line on top of the screen, but I do not get a response either with GSX not activated from the GSX menu or with GSX already activated and oushback truck connected to the plane.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much!

Best regards Andi



 

1 - Such feature was never implemented because not only nobody uses it in the real world, but some will want to throw the co-pilot out of the cockpit. Yes, MCE can capture those events with PMDG planes. If there are enough people who wwant that as an option, could be doable.

2 - MCE doesn't use dictation. It's raher a set of speech commands contained in grammar that you are expected to utter. Although we've done our best to have as many variations like

ramp agent we need catering

Simon request catering

Robert we are waiting for catering

...etc... There will always be the odd natural sentence you speak that isn't covered.

Now here is the good news...

Since MCE has a Voxscript capability that also has a side translation feature, here is how you can get your own speech recognized.

In MCE UI go to "Command" tab and click <Voxscript>

Click <New> to creatre a new trigger sentence as you would do for a flow. Type the sentence you mentioned above

crew coordination we want the catering service

The new trigger sentence will be listed. At this point MCE can recognize it but won't know what to make of it.

Select the newly created sentence and click <Edit>

In next screen, enable "Verbose" option so you can hear the reply and click <Edit script commands>

Unlike with a flow, where you are expected to add many commands in a sequence, in this case Voxscript will act as a translator. therefore only need a single command.

Click <Command> button and type one of the many built-in commands that handle catering. Try this one

ramp agent we need catering.

Don't forget to save.

 

That's it, from now on, speaking the command that comes to you naturally, will act as if you spoke "ramp agent we need catering". Like Voxscript acting as a translator. What';s more, the custom sentence doesn't have to mention catering specifically. It can be anything that comes to you naturally, like "get the trucks to feed us", or a sentence in ANY language.

You could have multiple custom sentences by cloning the command tou created and giving it a different trigger sentence.

3 - Before you can interact with mechanic, you're requied to first establish contact with one of these

 

cockpit to ground

ground from flight deck

mechanic from flight deck

engineer from flight deck

ground from cockpit

etc...

Again, if none of the built-in commands comes to you naturally, create one.

Do not forget to relieve mechanic of his duties with

ground you may leave (now)

ground you may disconnect (now)

You cannot establish contact with mechanic when all engines are running. You need to shut at least one down.

 

 

Edited December 17, 20214 yr by FS++
typo

Hi,

thank you for taking the time to answer my questions in detail!

Regarding point 1) Yes I know that it is completely unrealistic that way. However having a complete hardware setup with all switches/buttons in real, it is better for me to have them all synced with the software. So if I would use the FO to perform all tasks, the hardware will not show the same switch positions in the end. Just having the FO just comment important flight actions like "Engine starter cutout and start valve closed" or "Flaps set 5" would be awesome for my setup. Dont get me wrong your program is already fantastic. I love the many options it gives to us 🙂

I'm currently fiddling around with some stuff and was hoping to get some help here.

1) Is there an option to have the FO only listen when pushing a joystick button or key? Muting him over the UI is not that easy and I do not want him to listen all the time. That would be more than awesome. 

2) How would I realize the following with the NGXu using GSX? I would like to say my own text to the ground pushback personal with the final trigger words "..and we will start with engine number 2"
Then I just want the normal GSX pushback truck to arrive without any other actions or replies from MCE.
And on finishing of the procedure I want to say somehting to the walker like "....see you on the left side you may disconnect now" and just have him disconnect and reply somehting cool 🙂
So maybe two separate Voxscripts for each task. 

I tried it with...

[OPTIONS]
Suspend=0
Verbose=0
RequireConfirmation=0

[REPLIES]

[COMPLETED]

[SCRIPT]
Pause=10
mechanic from cockpit
Ground are you ready for pushback
ground start pushback 

However when GSX is starting the push the FO says "Cant hear you" and "we need to start engines before pushback"?! Can I switch that off? 

3) Is there also a command to call the jetway?

4) Any chance to switch the panel lights from the NGXu to full intensity with just one command? Putting them on with "instrument lights on" only puts them on with very low intensity.

Thank you very much!

Best regards Andi

Edited December 17, 20214 yr by 737Andi

2 hours ago, 737Andi said:

Hi,

thank you for taking the time to answer my questions in detail!

Regarding point 1) Yes I know that it is completely unrealistic that way. However having a complete hardware setup with all switches/buttons in real, it is better for me to have them all synced with the software. So if I would use the FO to perform all tasks, the hardware will not show the same switch positions in the end. Just having the FO just comment important flight actions like "Engine starter cutout and start valve closed" or "Flaps set 5" would be awesome for my setup. Dont get me wrong your program is already fantastic. I love the many options it gives to us 🙂

I'm currently fiddling around with some stuff and was hoping to get some help here.

1) Is there an option to have the FO only listen when pushing a joystick button or key? Muting him over the UI is not that easy and I do not want him to listen all the time. That would be more than awesome. 

2) How would I realize the following with the NGXu using GSX? I would like to say my own text to the ground pushback personal with the final trigger words "..and we will start with engine number 2"
Then I just want the normal GSX pushback truck to arrive without any other actions or replies from MCE.
And on finishing of the procedure I want to say somehting to the walker like "....see you on the left side you may disconnect now" and just have him disconnect and reply somehting cool 🙂
So maybe two separate Voxscripts for each task. 

I tried it with...

[OPTIONS]
Suspend=0
Verbose=0
RequireConfirmation=0

[REPLIES]

[COMPLETED]

[SCRIPT]
Pause=10
mechanic from cockpit
Ground are you ready for pushback
ground start pushback 

However when GSX is starting the push the FO says something like "What did you say?" and after that we should not push without starting the engines?! (thats not the exact phrase).

3) Is there also a command to call the jetway?

4) Any chance to switch the panel lights from the NGXu to full intensity with just one command? Putting them on with "instrument lights on" only puts them on with very low intensity.

Thank you very much!

Best regards Andi

You're welcome.

1 - Using a push to talk isn't reliable. We've tried it many, many years ago and decided against it. It takes a few milliseconds for the speech engine to kick in. Not a significant amount of time, but it's unpredictable and enough to put you on edge as you would have to be self conscious everytime you need to say something to ensure you don't speak until speech engine is ready (some audio signal that would say speak now).

In fact, you can experience that with the ATC push to talk. It's generally the hardest feature to master because users press the button and rush their message through, not realizing speeh engine isn't yet ready to take ATC specific speech.

When you hold down PTT switch, all commands for Fo interaction are suspended and those for ATC are enabled. The opposite happens when you release it.

And if you keep pressing and releasing a few hundred times and furiously, it's possible, could end-up leaving the speech engine in an unstable state and require to restart MCE eventually.

Having said that, you may not know this, it is possible to use a key toggle to temporarily disable all MCE speech reco for a while.

The featutre needs to be enabled deliberately, as it could mess up the Demo, with users accidentally pressing Numlock and wondering why the app doesn't understand anything they say.

Go to "General" tab in MCE UI and click <More options>

In "Advanced options" panel, enable option "Numlock mutes reco". From then on, pres and release Numlock, keyboard light comes on and all MCE reco is suspended, toggle a second time to resume. It is possible to assign the ScollLock instead if you can't use Numlock. You would need to set a specific option somewhere else.

In general, because MCE was built over a decade+, we have rounded up all actions that are deemed critical. In the event they are accidentally triggered, FO will want a confirmation first before going ahead with the task. Therefore, no need to be nervous and fear things like "shutdown both engines" or "irs off" (when engines are running). Even "autopilot OFF" requires confirmation once you are airborne, just in case you went for a loo break and the room was noisy.

2 Yes, two separate scripts are needed as you don't know exactly how long the push process will take.

It could be that you were in icing conditions and GSX output a message to the greenbar saying something lik "need to start before pushing" prompting the Fo to remind you about that. Need more info,

3) tere is no built-in command to trigger the Jetway. It's good you brought this up because you could use the other feature named Voxkey to free yourself from keyboard as much as possible

Windows Start->Multi Crew Experience->Voxkey.

Be aware, built-in commands always take precedence over custom ones. Since there are tens of thousands of built-in ones, before you add a new one, speak it a few times to check FO or other crew members aren't reacting to it.

For Prepar3D, you need to open "Prepar3D Demo.vkp" Voxkey profile

You can add one for Jetway. Type a speech command of your choice and tie it to CTRL+J

Add more to drive other things, maybe to control other add-ons that respond to keys. Not suitable for cockpit work though as Voxkey just toggles things without care for initial state or final outcome.

Voxkey is just an editor. When done, close it

Next time you run Prepar3D, MCE will look-up the profile for that sim and make those speech commands available for recognition. Speak the custom sentence and whatever key combination is associted to it will be sent to the relevant simulator.

There are all sorts of speech commands to adjust lighting. Be it PFD, ND, ECAM, CDU or main, pedestal, overhead and Glareshield panels.

The idea is that when you say "increase overhead lighting" or "brighten up overhead panel", FO will increment the lighting a bit.

Just create a custom script to be triggered with a custom command such as "I want all the overhead lighting to maximum" (or whatever you want to say)and within the flow, have multiple commands "increase overhead lighting" in successsion (6 or 7 should get it all the way to max).

Same with FMC CDU

We jave speech commands to press specific buttons. They weren't meant to be used as direct commands to press this or that.

But if you put them in succession, you could have scripts to get FO to fill portions of the CDU infomation. Especially for repetitive flighst where departure and arrival are known.

Example: a flow such as "set me up for a flight from Atlanta to Miami flight level 330".and teach him all the steps he needs to make in CDU to achive that so you only have to enter SIDs and STARs (and be the boss 🙂), as these cannot be automated.

right cdu press init

right cdu press k

right cdu press a

right cdu press t

right cdu press l

rioght cdu press slash

right cdu press k

right cdu press m

right cdu press i

right cdu press a

right cdu press rsk one

etc....

I'm not sure whethe the sequence above is the correct one for the 737 NGX, but you get the idea.😉

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 20214 yr by FS++

Thanks for your reply again.

1) Its working perfectly fine this way. I'm happy 🙂
2) I tried it again in no icing conditions and had the same problem 😞
It would be very helpful if you could point my in the right direction here.
I have the feeling that GSX and MCE commands are somehow crossing each other ?
At KBOS the pushback started without GSX opening and with no pushback tug in front 😞 Plane was rolling back on its own??
In EDDL I got several pop ups and the strange replies.described above.
Is my script below correct at all for use with GSX?
How would a correct working script look like and which further commands do I need to give after I triggered it?
I suppose the quick edit pushback from GSX is not supported, or? Just push left and push right command, correct?

[OPTIONS]
Suspend=0
Verbose=0
RequireConfirmation=0

[REPLIES]

[COMPLETED]

[SCRIPT]
Pause=10
mechanic from cockpit
Ground are you ready for pushback
ground start pushback 

3) Is clear. I will try that.
4) Is working 🙂

 

 

Another question. I found this script fo runway entry.
How is it supposed to work?
 

[OPTIONS]
Suspend=0
Verbose=1
RequireConfirmation=1

[REPLIES]
Reply1=say runway

[COMPLETED]
Completed1=runway entry

[SCRIPT]
pause=1
Notify=runway confirmed
pause=1
sound=readyto.wav

Do I need to say something like "runway 23L confirmed"? 

 

Thank you so much! Your help is greatly appreciated!

Andi

I found this thread regarding point 2. Some other user had exactly the same problem. 

FO is not asking me....

FO: Do you need to start engines before pushback"?

Instead I instantly get the reply

FO: Could you please confirm need to start engines before pushback
 

 

 

Edited December 18, 20214 yr by 737Andi