I have been reviewing ATC programs and wasn't really planning on giving Pilot2ATC a serious look. I am not really sure why not, to be honest. Maybe the UI looked a bit dated? Well, I decided to give their 10 day free trial a shot, mainly because so many other people selected it from the poll I started. In my opinion if you are considering an add-on ATC program you owe it to yourself to give Pilot2ATC a serious look. First, the creator (Dave) provides exceptional support even before you buy. I literally consumed a lot of his time over the past two days, and he was prompt, courteous and extremely knowledgeable the entire time.

But while support like this is awesome, how is the actual program? I really like it. The immersion is so great that I cannot even imagine flying without it. If you've been on the fence about ATC but think you aren't ready to go that far, you are seriously missing out on an important aspect to flying. 

First, the program only seems daunting in the beginning. I was able to get things setup pretty quickly, thanks to solid documentation and outstanding support. I was able to add more free Windows voices, so ATC had different people on different frequencies. I also was able to update all the runways and gates, so everything worked smoothly. And I added the ATC chatter plugin, which made a huge difference in the immersion. Plus, there was no "training" speech recognition or any of that stuff. It just works. Period. I would say it took me a few hours total to get up to speed with this tool, and so far everything works exactly as advertised. What I really like about the program is the co-pilot can do a lot of the communication load with the ATC, so you can get your feet wet and then gradually ease into it. The built in flight planning is solid, and everything works great with Navigraph. The UI may not be super modern, but it is serviceable and efficient. It had no impact on my enjoyment of the add-on. 

There's just nothing quite like following proper procedures and having the ATC speaking to you when necessary, but not overloading you with unnecessary communication. For example, at one point I was getting a lot of traffic alerts from ATC, but of course there is an option to set the distance before alerts occur. It defaulted to 15 miles, but I changed it to 7 and that sorted out that issue. The chatter add-on works great with P2A as well, and I was even able to set the delay between the recordings. It was a bit too busy to start, but one easy tweak and the amount of chatter is now just right. 

I could go on and on about this add-on but I will just end by saying Dave has a solid tool and provides amazing support. Easily the best $60 I have spend on an MSFS add-on. 

I like it (Pilot2ATC) too.

I don't understand the allure of these other ATC add-ons where you don't actually talk to ATC.  And people say they're great and immersive anyway?  Pressing numbers and keys to talk to ATC?  Well ok.  If that is your cup of tea Pilot2ATC can do that also, but it's sooooo much more fun to actually talk to it.

It is kind of a diction snob though.  For example "United 123, ready for taxi" -- nope.  "United 123, ready to taxi" -- yes.  Personally I find it hard to speak "...to taxi", I tend to get tongue-tied whereas "...for taxi" is so much easier for me to speak.

Yeah, Pilot2ATC appears to be the most well-rounded ATC program out there.  And it's really not as daunting as some make it out to be.  Great tool!

The speech side adds so much to the immersion. Especially when everything just works right. I find it easier too. I have a cheat sheet that Dave provides, and you mostly use the same phrases (assuming the co-pilot is doing the heavy lifting). It is the secret sauce that takes MSFS up several levels in immersion. Not daunting at all. 

It's also in constant development.

15 minutes ago, mikeklimek said:

Yeah, Pilot2ATC appears to be the most well-rounded ATC program out there.  And it's really not as daunting as some make it out to be.  Great tool!

This is how hard it is. I fire up the Honda Jet...

(CallSign) ready to copy IFR clearance.
ATC responds blah blah blah
My co-pilot responds blah blah blah

Then pushback...

(CallSign) ready for pushback
ATC responds
Co-Pilot responds
Click pushback tool

Then taxi...

(CallSign) ready to taxi to runway #
ATC responds
Co-Pilot responds

This is a perfect tool to get your feet wet with real ATC without feeling overwhelmed. After you've sorted out a few things you might want to take over more responsibilities of the co-pilot, or not. I really like the way I am doing it. I fly. Co-pilot yaps with ATC. I occasionally speak too. Not daunting. Not overwhelming. Just about perfect. 

 

 

yep, a great product and Dave is fantastic.  This thing is like a swiss knife- a lot of different functionality (flight planning, moving map, ect..)  Good Stuff

I agree, I've been using it for some years and I also think it's very good.

agree on all  on above posts,  tried  all  the  atc  addons, found this  one  to be  the  best of  them all  

7 minutes ago, pete_auau said:

agree on all  on above posts,  tried  all  the  atc  addons, found this  one  to be  the  best of  them all  

Me to.....great addon.

Pro ATC SR has speech recognition as well, this is what the SR stands for. It pretty much works out of the box. I liked the voices and the interface a whole lot better than what Pilot2Atc offers. 

In the end, all of these programs leave a lot to be desired, especially in terms of the "naturalness" of the voices, the GUIs are usually clunky, something straight out of early 2000.

Does it handle HOLD's?

9 hours ago, RobJC said:

This is how hard it is. I fire up the Honda Jet...

as a SP operation ... or ???

unfortunately only usable in the US. Pilot2ATC still doesn't know European phraseology at all. 

 

Mike

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by mikealpha

10 hours ago, RobJC said:

I fly. Co-pilot yaps with ATC.

This is how it is done in the real world anyway.