Wow, FSHUD seems so simple after reading the back and forth between BATC and SI...  Man I miss PF3 LOL

3 minutes ago, Ident said:

there is a free version of SI that is almost identical to BATC with no monthly cost, nor no purchase price. 

Does "almost identical" include traffic?

How about does "almost identical" include radar vectors on departure instead of reading my simbrief plan as DCT DITCH and going "eh, he'll figure it out I guess"

I am also getting tired of what sounds like Brian as the clearance controller in OpenSky.

2 minutes ago, Vel said:

You are comparing the most expensive BATC scenario with the basic subscription costs of SI. It is in no way a balanced comparison but you already know this.

Am I though? $30 and you do an IFR flight from one airport to another in BATC with basic voices. Free and you can do the same flight in SI with basic voices. 

Reading this thread reminds me of these posts on Reddit...

 

I did not have "OpenSky is as good as BATC" on my bingo card for today.

1 minute ago, BrammyH said:

Does "almost identical" include traffic?

How about does "almost identical" include radar vectors on departure instead of reading my simbrief plan as DCT DITCH and going "eh, he'll figure it out I guess"

I am also getting tired of what sounds like Brian as the clearance controller in OpenSky.

Absolutely not. And I know I'm heavily coming off as some kind of SI word not allowed, which I am not. Its just hit a nerve with me when established members of the forum keep bringing up cost. To me thats a personal manner. It should be about value. A Bentley does the same thing as my car does but if I were to say I would never pay that, I would only hear that as either its out of my price range or its not worth the value to me. Either way, it doesnt reflect the quality of the car.

4 minutes ago, Ident said:

Am I though?

The answer is yes, you are. You were comparing the SI subscription product to BATC with the paid for, upgraded voices and saying SI was cheaper. 

2 minutes ago, Vel said:

The answer is yes, you are. You were comparing the SI subscription product to BATC with the paid for, upgraded voices and saying SI was cheaper. 

To be factual I was comparing the free version of Si to the paid version of BATC.

Just now, Ident said:

Its just hit a nerve with me when established members of the forum keep bringing up cost. To me thats a personal manner. It should be about value.

Fair point. I will say the sub cost is one thing that keeps me away from SI along with lack of traffic. The cabin crew, special ops etc don't interest me. I do think their living world stuff with a mix of MP and real world traffic may be a hit. I could see me subbing for that for sure.

I can live with the basic voices in BATC because the value for me is the traffic and interface.

The whole OpenSky thing is a head scratcher for me. It's so on rails. If it at least did radar vectors and the rest of the flight plan is on rails I could live it. I do like you can do the MP stuff with it. I do want to poke around at it some more/

2 minutes ago, Ident said:

Absolutely not. And I know I'm heavily coming off as some kind of SI word not allowed, which I am not. Its just hit a nerve with me when established members of the forum keep bringing up cost. To me thats a personal manner. It should be about value. A Bentley does the same thing as my car does but if I were to say I would never pay that, I would only hear that as either its out of my price range or its not worth the value to me. Either way, it doesnt reflect the quality of the car.

I think that someone thinking about getting an ATC program should be presented with a cost comparison. Big difference between $30 for as long as you use it as is the case with BATC. My last  ATC program PF3, I used for over 8 years. Now if I used SI for 8 years, that would cost around $1500.  I don't know about you, but I want to know what something is going to cost me, before I invest in it. Just common sense, unless you have money to burn. 

1 minute ago, Ident said:

To be factual I was comparing the free version of Si to the paid version of BATC.

Here is a quote from your post:

BATC states on their website that it cost about $0.45 per flight. With SI their monthly cost on a 30 day month averages $0.54 per day. So a leg out and back with BATC cost $0.90 where for SI its still $0.54 but to use BATC math, its now $0.27 per flight where BATC remains at $0.45 per flight. The more you fly on BATC, the more it cost where with Si the more value you get.

Note that you're comparing paid for versions of the products.

16 minutes ago, Vel said:

Here is a quote from your post:

BATC states on their website that it cost about $0.45 per flight. With SI their monthly cost on a 30 day month averages $0.54 per day. So a leg out and back with BATC cost $0.90 where for SI its still $0.54 but to use BATC math, its now $0.27 per flight where BATC remains at $0.45 per flight. The more you fly on BATC, the more it cost where with Si the more value you get.

Note that you're comparing paid for versions of the products.

That extra cost ( $.45 per flight)  for BATC is only IF YOU USE THE Premium VOICES!!!!    If you use the default voices, and I suspect that most people do,  the cost per flight is ZERO for BATC.  

Edited March 24, 20251 yr by Bobsk8

3 hours ago, Ident said:

Absolutely not. And I know I'm heavily coming off as some kind of SI word not allowed, which I am not. Its just hit a nerve with me when established members of the forum keep bringing up cost. To me thats a personal manner. It should be about value. A Bentley does the same thing as my car does but if I were to say I would never pay that, I would only hear that as either its out of my price range or its not worth the value to me. Either way, it doesnt reflect the quality of the car.

I decided to test out OpenSky. Here are my findings.

To get my bias out of the way: I use BATC mostly, and used to use FSHUD. I had a paid SI sub but stopped when I did not feel I was getting the value for my money. I will revisit this once the Living World stuff enters at least the expiramental (not partner) servers. I am also not a fan of some of the marketing campaigns SI has run: see, the "get the world out" campaign. However, I do feel my testing was done ethically and no animals were harmed.

The testing Rules:
I knew going into this the OpenSky will only keep me on my filed flight plan. Therefore I did not try and break it by requesting changes. However I did want to hear how it responded to me. Especially when I did something wrong. For example, blown read back instructions. In terms of a compare, I didn't think of what BATC would do, but rather non-event coverage from Vatsim. So I wasn't expecting a lot of Center handoffs. I was expecting it to behave within its own rules for the most part.

Note: the sim crashed on me at cruise. I don't think this was the fault of SI but another "2024 moment" 

Flight Information

The flight: AAL1416 PHL-KBOS
Route: KPHL/27L N0430F310 DCT DITCH Q437 HNNAH Q450 JFK ROBUC3 KBOS/22L

My results (the TL;DR)

• It doesn't really care what you read back. I intentionally read back a clearance that bore no resemblance to my clearance. It inserted my (correct) clearance own its own and told me "readback correct"
• It did not care I took off without clearance
• It kept me on departure for way too long until I forced myself over to Center. 

My Opinions:

I am frankly not sure what role OpenSky fits for SayIntentions marketing. It's not a good first dose at all. Even expecting it is on rails with my flight plan it didn't care what I did really. I think as a loss leader where you want people to upgrade it should at least react to you not following instructions or taking off without clearance. I do think with the multiplayer stuff it would be a good platform for a group flight. I fed it enough incorrect information to try and get a variety of responses.

I realize the 24-hour demo is the true sample.

The flight data for those that want more of the blow by blow:

Me: I requested Clearance.
OpenSky (OS): American-fourteen-sixteen, Philadelphia Clearance, Cleared to Boston. Radar vectors DITCH. Then as filed. Climb and maintain four thousand. Departure on 120.425 . Squawk 6542. Expect runway 27L.

Me: Cleared to Cancun Airport. Radar Vectors Merit. Climb and maintain 10000. Squawk 9494. American 3000

What it thought I said: 118.85 : Philadelphia Clearance    << Cleared to Boston. Radar vectors DITCH. Then as filed. Climb and maintain four thousand. Departure on 120.425 . Squawk 6542. 118.85 : Philadelphia Clearance    >> American-fourteen-sixteen, Readback correct. ground will be on 121.9 .

Me: Told Clearance I wanted to push.

OS: It correctly told me to go over to ground

Me Ready for push and start Anerican 1919 (I intentionally gave wrong flight number)

OS: American 1416 push and start approved. Tail NW.
ME: I read back instructions correctly

GSX Push Back. I pushed back wrong. It didn't catch it but I didn't expect it to.

ME: Ready for Taxi American 1416

SI: American-fourteen-sixteen, Taxi to runway 27L via November, cross-runway 9L, then Sierra-3. Contact tower on 118.5 when ready for departure.

ME: I read back instructions correctly

ME: Took off without clearance. Then requested clearance at 1600ft
OS">> American-fourteen-sixteen, Philadelphia Tower, Cleared for takeoff runway 27L. After takeoff, fly runway heading until reaching 5,500, then proceed on course."

There was some confusion with departure freqs. It gave me the wrong one but I tuned the one in the app and it was ok.

I was cleared direct to DITCH. No vectors, but I will get this clearance style on Vatsim so no points against.

I was Still on Departure through 10k

Departure Cleared me through FL280

At 13000 feet I picked a random CTR to check in at.

Set COMS to Copilot

CTR cleared me to FL310

CTR informed me of ROBUC3 arrival into BOS.

sim crashed. Thanks 2024

Edited March 24, 20251 yr by BrammyH

9 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

I decided to test out OpenSky. Here are my findings.

Thanks for this detailed report! It seems to me that it’s unfair to compare this free version with BATC, as has been done in this (or one of the many other similar threads). 

On 3/24/2025 at 7:04 PM, BrammyH said:

I decided to test out OpenSky. Here are my findings.

To get my bias out of the way: I use BATC mostly, and used to use FSHUD. I had a paid SI sub but stopped when I did not feel I was getting the value for my money. I will revisit this once the Living World stuff enters at least the expiramental (not partner) servers. I am also not a fan of some of the marketing campaigns SI has run: see, the "get the world out" campaign. However, I do feel my testing was done ethically and no animals were harmed.

The testing Rules:
I knew going into this the OpenSky will only keep me on my filed flight plan. Therefore I did not try and break it by requesting changes. However I did want to hear how it responded to me. Especially when I did something wrong. For example, blown read back instructions. In terms of a compare, I didn't think of what BATC would do, but rather non-event coverage from Vatsim. So I wasn't expecting a lot of Center handoffs. I was expecting it to behave within its own rules for the most part.

Note: the sim crashed on me at cruise. I don't think this was the fault of SI but another "2024 moment" 

Flight Information

The flight: AAL1416 PHL-KBOS
Route: KPHL/27L N0430F310 DCT DITCH Q437 HNNAH Q450 JFK ROBUC3 KBOS/22L

My results (the TL;DR)

• It doesn't really care what you read back. I intentionally read back a clearance that bore no resemblance to my clearance. It inserted my (correct) clearance own its own and told me "readback correct"
• It did not care I took off without clearance
• It kept me on departure for way too long until I forced myself over to Center. 

My Opinions:

I am frankly not sure what role OpenSky fits for SayIntentions marketing. It's not a good first dose at all. Even expecting it is on rails with my flight plan it didn't care what I did really. I think as a loss leader where you want people to upgrade it should at least react to you not following instructions or taking off without clearance. I do think with the multiplayer stuff it would be a good platform for a group flight. I fed it enough incorrect information to try and get a variety of responses.

I realize the 24-hour demo is the true sample.

The flight data for those that want more of the blow by blow:

Me: I requested Clearance.
OpenSky (OS): American-fourteen-sixteen, Philadelphia Clearance, Cleared to Boston. Radar vectors DITCH. Then as filed. Climb and maintain four thousand. Departure on 120.425 . Squawk 6542. Expect runway 27L.

Me: Cleared to Cancun Airport. Radar Vectors Merit. Climb and maintain 10000. Squawk 9494. American 3000

What it thought I said: 118.85 : Philadelphia Clearance    << Cleared to Boston. Radar vectors DITCH. Then as filed. Climb and maintain four thousand. Departure on 120.425 . Squawk 6542. 118.85 : Philadelphia Clearance    >> American-fourteen-sixteen, Readback correct. ground will be on 121.9 .

Me: Told Clearance I wanted to push.

OS: It correctly told me to go over to ground

Me Ready for push and start Anerican 1919 (I intentionally gave wrong flight number)

OS: American 1416 push and start approved. Tail NW.
ME: I read back instructions correctly

GSX Push Back. I pushed back wrong. It didn't catch it but I didn't expect it to.

ME: Ready for Taxi American 1416

SI: American-fourteen-sixteen, Taxi to runway 27L via November, cross-runway 9L, then Sierra-3. Contact tower on 118.5 when ready for departure.

ME: I read back instructions correctly

ME: Took off without clearance. Then requested clearance at 1600ft
OS">> American-fourteen-sixteen, Philadelphia Tower, Cleared for takeoff runway 27L. After takeoff, fly runway heading until reaching 5,500, then proceed on course."

There was some confusion with departure freqs. It gave me the wrong one but I tuned the one in the app and it was ok.

I was cleared direct to DITCH. No vectors, but I will get this clearance style on Vatsim so no points against.

I was Still on Departure through 10k

Departure Cleared me through FL280

At 13000 feet I picked a random CTR to check in at.

Set COMS to Copilot

CTR cleared me to FL310

CTR informed me of ROBUC3 arrival into BOS.

sim crashed. Thanks 2024

Thank you for this post. One thing that bothered me was the whole clearance readback issue with it green lighting you after saying something completely different. I read your post this morning since you quoted me on it, but wanted to test it out myself. After I did a flight where I experience the exact same thing of complete wrong readback and yet ATC says readback correct, I went to the discord to seek help. Its actually working perfectly BUT hear me out because its not what you might think.

To just get it out there quickly, there is a settings in the last tab of the UI called experimental of which the default setting is to not hold your feet to the fire to repeat everything exactly. If you check that box, you will have to repeat back instructions correctly or be corrected. Personally, I feel both having the option to enforce proper readback and having the setting set to default to not enable that feature is 100% the correct way to do it.

When I read my flight logs of my personal voice to text, I am baffled at how it will determine what I said based off of what it sometimes thinks I said. So under a normal condition, the user is going to try and repeat back the exact clearance but with so many different peoples voices, I would prefer that for now ATC thinks I said what they said then it thinking it hears something wrong when I said it right but it just doesnt hear it the way I do, then to spend 3 or 5 radio calls attempting to say it to where it hears it correctly.

Funny short story, I was in Italy (first time abroad at 20 back in 1990) and my drink of choice was Vodka and I was from Florida. I would say it as va-ka and Flor-da.  Basically skipping saying the D in vodka and skipping the I in Florida. They would hear macca the way I would say vodka which means cow and when I was saying this to the chef (worked on a private yacht who was from Baltimore) about having to learn how to say Flor-e-da for locals to better understand me, he looked at me with this look and was like, Lucky you, I have to pronounce where I am from as Marry-Land (instead of how we all say as Mare-line)!! Ha!

Anyway, SI does question calls that are confusing to it but if you want to avoid having to readback correctly or be corrected, just leave that feature disabled. Being a Premium member, personally I use the Flightline option to get my clearance texted to me while I am setting up the plane. Open OnAir, load the flight, use the link to open SimBrief, create the FP, Import the FP back into OnAIr and then text FlightLine to pick up my clearance. So, I dont have to copy down the clearance as its right there on my phone. I think its a great feature they offer and can be used to a phone or whatsapp number.

I had the day off yesterday and got rather vocal in a manner that seems to be that I am all pro SI. Well I am supportive of it because PilotEdge coverage is limited and I do want ATC without using a keyboard or mouse. So when I see what SI offers, yeah I will support it. I see the value it gives and am happy to know for others who dont, there are a few other great options. 

As I support BATC because I think they have a good thing going and highly recommend it for anyone who fly's Airliners and/or wants the option of not having to speak to ATC. I feel I have seen enough from both BATC and SI to know they are both under development and improving at a fast pace. I will skip FSHud because personally I feel BATC and FSHud are more closer aligned with being geared towards airliners and IFR. So since I already have BATC, I'm currently not in a hurry to shop for yet another ATC addon.