THANK you guys!!!

Checking email ASAP!

41 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

For how long, until the beta is over? 

 

From what I can find, forever.

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

For how long, until the beta is over? 

 

I believe you are BATC...what do you use for traffic? I just got BATC and need to add AI plane models.

1 hour ago, beechcaptain said:

@Watsi - This is in the works at SI and might be of interest to you (more info on their website):

 

This is already functional.

To be honest. SI is still very much a WIP. It has plenty of quirks and occasional glitches and personally I would have been happier if the effort was more focused on improving core ATC rather than various "skyops" and virtual tour guides. Having said that I think it has a huge potential going forward.

30 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

From what I can find, forever.

So they charge around $200 a year for ATC, but this program they are giving away for free.  Huh?

1 minute ago, Bobsk8 said:

So they charge around $200 a year for ATC, but this program they are giving away for free.  Huh?

Yep, it's sort of a  dumbed down version, so to speak.  It offers a good experience but the subscription based "premium" version offers a  whole lot more.  

Once you have the opportunity to try the free version, you will get a good taste of their ai based atc.  Then, understand that the subscription version builds a lot on top of that.

 

I don't know if it's me but I have not had one single glitchless flight with SI. Either I get left too high on approach, or it zones out altogether. The pushback feature needs several goes to get it right and I've grown to hate the Tour guide. It's repetetive and irritating. If she tells me one more anecdote about her ex boyfriend I'll kick her out. 

I really think it's overhyped and does not really deliver, full of meaningless gimmicks and they really need to concentrate on delivering the basics. Solid AI, terrain awareness and traffic. 

I've used it for every flight in the last two weeks, hoping it will improve or I'll begin to enjoy it. 

I was going to go on about the positives in order to sound less rabid and more balanced, but as I type this I realise I'm actually really hacked off with it. 

I'm gonna go back to vectoring myself!

 

6 minutes ago, beechcaptain said:

Yep, it's sort of a  dumbed down version, so to speak.  It offers a good experience but the subscription based "premium" version offers a  whole lot more.  

Once you have the opportunity to try the free version, you will get a good taste of their ai based atc.  Then, understand that the subscription version builds a lot on top of that.

 

So what is  the cost of the premium version then?

18 minutes ago, ha5mvo said:

To be honest. SI is still very much a WIP. It has plenty of quirks and occasional glitches and personally I would have been happier if the effort was more focused on improving core ATC rather than various "skyops" and virtual tour guides. Having said that I think it has a huge potential going forward.

I guess I could say the same about BATC. 🙃

2 minutes ago, Watsi said:

I guess I could say the same about BATC. 🙃

Yep. I own that too. It seems to do a better job with vectoring in my experience. Although the basic voices are pretty Meh!

I appreciate it's not a simple task to make an AI ATC program and hat's off to those that are trying to deliver one.

 

So I stuck to my word and got BATC today. I added FSSTL for traffic models. I had an OnAir flight from an uncontrolled field on Cape Cod 5B6 to Boston Logan to do. Its MVFR and Im in the A2A Comanche so I was trying to stay below the weather on my cruise alt. During setup I found I could not set what speakers to hear the audio. I could select the mic but no speakers. I have my default speakers set to my overhead speaker. In FS I have the sound set to my main big speakers and ATC with PE and SI to my headset. It worked out having the BATC going to my overhead speaker as I can hear it clearly even with the A20 headset on but found it odd that there was no option for sound only mic.

I started off being impressed with BATC picking up my clearance and getting a void time. The ATC voice sounded good. Enroute I started picking up ice and requested lower wanting to go from 3k down to 2k on the cruise but ATC wasnt helping. Wasnt getting any replies to my request. Then I stated I wanted to change my destination to Plymouth and once again...crickets. I barelly made it into Plymouth with plenty of ice for a superbowl parties worth to fill a cooler with. After letting it melt I decided to try just a VFR flight into Boston as I was just 30nm away. Could not get away from a scripted format. 

Getting close to KBOS I could see the AI on my GarminPilot app and the ATC voices still sounded great but the AI sounded very robotic. The AI did great following instructions and the spacing was great, meanwhile I couldnt get a Class B entry clearance no matter what I tried. So I just busted the airspace and after trying to get a landing clearance just landed as well without it. As soon as I touched down, now Tower is willing to talk to me saying stop my roll, I have no take off clearance. At shut down, I turned off the radios and was still able to hear all the radio calls.

 

When BATC was being premiered I was really rooting for them. I still am. I feel we need options and I think they are doing great with actual AI traffic. I also feel if you fly airlines, BATC might look more appealing. I discovered that the reason the ATC sounded good but the AI sounded robotic was because I had 50 something free good voices being used by ATC and the AI was using the free voices. So If I really wanted to use BATC, I would be paying for the better voices as I just deal with the robot ones.

I'm not trying to find a winner as it seems all ATC options have pros and cons. That said, if I had to list best to least it would be PilotEdge, VATSIM, SI and then BATC. One other thing that was weird was while using BATC, twice on two different flights OnAir dropped my flight because I all of a sudden lost 41 gallons of fuel. Once on the ground before the flight and then once in cruise. Not saying that was from BATC but I've never had that problem in the 250 hours of flying OnAir.

Verdict is that there is no best ATC as they all come with a variety of caveats. Being that all AI ATC is dumb in their current states, SI shows the most promise for ease of use for the end user. They also seem to have the best debugging log system. Heres an example of the two ways you can go back and review your flight and since each flight has its own identity, its easy to report a bug or problem and they can see what happened to fix it.

In addition, I tried to pull up ATIS at other airport like when I was going to BOS and need to divert and tried to get ATIS at Plymouth but it seems BATC only does ATIS at the airport you have filed to land at. So yeah, I can list many other areas where SI has an advantage but when it all comes down to just good ATC, theres no true winner. Except PilotEdge as long as you like flying in a given area.

 

 

5 hours ago, Ident said:

I just sent you a message for your email addy. As an SI member I have 10 codes to give out.

 

OpenSky is by Invitation ONLY

While it's in beta, we're limiting OpenSky signups exclusively to those who've received an invitation code. In other words, you've got a hot commodity! Note that we will be adding more invite codes to your account as the rollout progresses, so don't hesitate to put them to good use.

Watch our announcement video to learn more:

How to Share Your Invite Codes:

1. Log in to your Pilot Portal: https://portal.sayintentions.ai/portal/
2. Navigate to the Invite Codes section.
3. Enter the email address of the person you wish to invite.

 

We're excited to see what you and your network think of OpenSky. Thank you for being part of our journey!

I'll take one! Please PM me if you'd like me to try it out. Thanks.

23 minutes ago, CFIJose said:

I'll take one! Please PM me if you'd like me to try it out. Thanks.

Im headed to a Superbowl party now. PM me your email address and I'll send the invite out tomorrow am.

1 hour ago, Ident said:

Im headed to a Superbowl party now. PM me your email address and I'll send the invite out tomorrow am.

I'm also watching and predict that it's going to be a bad day for the Chiefs offense. Bucs beatdown all over again.

@Ident, A Big Thank You for the kind offer !

Yesterday late evening I was finally able to do my first ATC flight with SI !

I liked it !