12 minutes ago, Ident said:

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.

Crikey, I forgot about that setting. 
Does it work with OpenSky?

47 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

Crikey, I forgot about that setting. 
Does it work with OpenSky?

I dont know..it should be there in the experimental tab. Theres also another setting for standard or professional where it removes the text so you have to listen as there are no "cheats" with providing text to confirm what they say. You will have to ask them to repeat if you dont understand it.

 

I've just done the 24 hour try out for SayIntentions and I have been very impressed. I flew two x 1 hour IFR flights in the Fenix (2024).  It's a lot of fun. Is it worth the price ? I'm still weighing this up. That's an individual question. I suspect I'll end up buying it.  

It got a bit mixed up only sometimes but for the most part it's an incredible use of adaptive AI and this will be such an exciting development space moving forward. It can only improve. I've never used ATC since the FSX days but now it's a very busy experience, especially running FS2Crew at the same time. 

So heres an 8 minute video showing an IFR flight from KSBP to KSBA. This was a return leg as I just landed in SBP and doing a quick turn. I start off showing the voice to text (what SI thinks I say written in text) and then how it does a great job making out what I meant to say. Theres a short blank screen and then I used my Garmin Pilot replay to show the flight profile and top down view as then I try to best put in the audio where the readio calls actually happened since the speed of the replay is fast while the audio clips are played in real time. It only records when the plane is above 40 kts so no taxi footage. Then at the end, I was just having fun with AI and Betsy in our Ops center as SI can be tied to OnAir so you dial in a company freq (you have 3 choices to pick and I use 118.34). I like to call airborne and sometimes will call when I'm pulling up on the ramp. OnAir wants to do more with SI so hopefully in the future we get more options in this area.

So a couple of things about the flight. SBP doesnt have a CLR_DEL freq so you have to use Ground. I called up GND for my IFR Clearance by calling them ground and not sure if that caught them off guard or not because at first they give me taxi instructions to rwy 29 but then when I state I was looking for my clearance, they gave that to me and changed the runway from 29 to 25. Not sure if they did that because MQO VOR was better in line with runway 25 or not.

Also since it was a quick turn I first stated that I wanted to pick up my IFR clearance to SBP (which I was at and just landed at) and then corrected myself for SBA. SI caught that and asked for clarification. A first for me so I was happy to see that it wanted to be clear on my call. I was parked at the red star Air San Luis and my taxi was to rwy 25 via A, B X-rwy 11, M, J to rwy 25. Which was a good route as rwy 29 was active so it did keep me away from cutting that active in half on my taxi route.

Once airborne I had serval targets on my radar screen and Departure called out a Skyhawk that was at my 12 o'clock. So yes while SI doesnt do traffic yet, it does see traffic and understands what that means.

Si will give you a good heads up on what to expect for the approach and I like how they do it out of all the options. I have a feeling they dont have the AI quit smart enough to mimic a pro human controller so they error on the side that is more user friendly. On the ground, that means no hold shorts of actives (fitting bc at the moment, SI doesnt have traffic so in a way the airport is free of conflicts) and in the air, I starting to see being cleared for an approach kinda early than late and less vectoring and more to an established fix.

For this flight, I was told to expect the ILS Rwy 7. Now my flight plan was MQO to GVO and GVO is an IAF for the rwy 7 ILS. SO I was interested to see what it would do. Vector me like we are all used to default ATC doing with setting us up on a 30 degree intercept or what. I know if at any point I can request the published approach from GVO and for now ATC will clear me for that so since SBA was IFR at the time I couldnt cancel and go V so I would have the request as my fallback.

 

I actually got a cleared for the approach fly direct GOYED (I thought they were trying to say GAVIOTA which is the name of the GVO VOR I was flying to) and to descend and maintain 2700. I had to get over the mountain ridge so I just stuck with the full approach from GVO.

Then once on the ground I cleared to the right of rwy 7 as SBA recent renamed all their taxiways and and Atlantic has moved from the green dot (as still seen in the addon scenery I use) to the Yellow Dot. So when I asked for taxi to Atlantic, it did give me the proper taxi route.

 

 

Heres the video:
 

 

 

SO to grade this flight

Clearance A, Taxi A, Tower A, Departure C (I had to ask for climb for higher but not sure if thats bc it was waiting for me to report the traffic), Cruise A, Approach C, Landing handoff A (was right when I was established on the ILS) taxi in A, overall B. There was no real show stoppers and my radio work certainly wasnt ideal overall. This is more or less the kinds of flights I am seeing on SI consistently but that use to not be the case.  

Edited March 26, 20251 yr by Ident

Nice write up and video. I do wish the voices were a bit better, Betsy sounded like she wasn’t havin’ any of that lol. But you’re right, the ability for SI to interpret what you’re asking for is really good. 
 

Were you running a mission through SI? If so, I’ve had a similar issue where the ATC voice and the service voice (in my case the pushback crew) were swapped/bled over to the other role. It’s almost like the AI gets confused as to who they’re supposed to be. I’m sure it’ll get ironed out, but I reported that issue like a month or so ago. 

7 hours ago, V1ROTA7E said:

Nice write up and video. I do wish the voices were a bit better, Betsy sounded like she wasn’t havin’ any of that lol. But you’re right, the ability for SI to interpret what you’re asking for is really good. 
 

Were you running a mission through SI? If so, I’ve had a similar issue where the ATC voice and the service voice (in my case the pushback crew) were swapped/bled over to the other role. It’s almost like the AI gets confused as to who they’re supposed to be. I’m sure it’ll get ironed out, but I reported that issue like a month or so ago. 

No this is just a normal flight for me. I just called her Betsy because she sounded like a Betsy. I've requested that the dispatch be less ATC and more just someone to receive info. However, with it tied to OnAir, I can ask Ops how much fuel is at the airport I am going to, if theres a repair shop there etc and it will provide that info. Thanks for taking the time to watch the video, I tried to make it as short as possible.

The two big take a way's is what you pointed out, how it demonstrates SI trying its best to interpret what the user is saying and best trying to accommodate and that on an overall standing, to me, the flights are getting a passing grade now where it used to not be like that at all. It is still hit or miss but with a few extra radio calls a bad or wrong instruction can be saved.

9 hours ago, Ident said:

I dont know..it should be there in the experimental tab. Theres also another setting for standard or professional where it removes the text so you have to listen as there are no "cheats" with providing text to confirm what they say. You will have to ask them to repeat if you dont understand it.

Ok, thanks. I will test it out later.

If it's a design choice to "fail" on the side of assuming the read back is correct as default I can accept that.

10 hours ago, Ident said:

I dont know..it should be there in the experimental tab.

It's grayed out on OpenSky.

I do revise my opinion that the read back assuming what you said was correct is logical.

Taking off without clearance and it not knowing is on it, however.

When you get a chance can you try taking off without clearance in premium and see if it admonishes you?

1 hour ago, BrammyH said:

It's grayed out on OpenSky.

I do revise my opinion that the read back assuming what you said was correct is logical.

Taking off without clearance and it not knowing is on it, however.

When you get a chance can you try taking off without clearance in premium and see if it admonishes you?

I'll do it at lunch and post the results. Kinda interested myself.

2 hours ago, BrammyH said:

It's grayed out on OpenSky.

I do revise my opinion that the read back assuming what you said was correct is logical.

Taking off without clearance and it not knowing is on it, however.

When you get a chance can you try taking off without clearance in premium and see if it admonishes you?

Certainly room for improvement but its also not a complete stickler for making sure every little j is dotted and every x is crossed. I used KSNA for my destination as it has a few different names and wanted to try all four (Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, John Wayne and Orange County). For ATIS November was current. Seeing that its not a complete stickler I'm going to leave this feature enabled. I dont like that it assumes certain things like the freq that I deliberately read back wrong but speech to texted it as correct. Honestly thats the really only thing that bothered me that wasnt caught. However, no one should try and provide the wrong readback so this was an extreme example. 

I know Simbrief gives runways so it probably reads that and then determines that while I filed that, its not the current active.
 

 

6 minutes ago, Ident said:

Seeing that its not a complete stickler I'm going to leave this feature enabled. I dont like that it assumes certain things like the freq that I deliberately read back wrong but speech to texted it as correct. Honestly thats the really only thing that bothered me that wasnt caught. However, no one should try and provide the wrong readback so this was an extreme example. 

Thanks, these fall into the close enough category and I'd be happy with those results. Also I get why this feature isn't in OpenSky.

I do think the SI with the enforced read back and hiding the text responses is fantastic Vatsim prep.

I have tried both now and am angling towards staying with BATC. 

On a cost level, it seems that when you work it out SI is better value when you do at least 1 flight per day. So if you fly every 2nd day or less then BATC becomes better value. 

SI also has an onward recurring cost which puts into the "subscription mindset" 

I'm not really fussed what's happening with the AI Traffic side of things for each of them.

Edited March 31, 20251 yr by Max Kraus

On 3/26/2025 at 2:38 PM, Ident said:

So heres an 8 minute video showing an IFR flight from KSBP to KSBA. This was a return leg as I just landed in SBP and doing a quick turn. I start off showing the voice to text (what SI thinks I say written in text) and then how it does a great job making out what I meant to say. Theres a short blank screen and then I used my Garmin Pilot replay to show the flight profile and top down view as then I try to best put in the audio where the readio calls actually happened since the speed of the replay is fast while the audio clips are played in real time. It only records when the plane is above 40 kts so no taxi footage. Then at the end, I was just having fun with AI and Betsy in our Ops center as SI can be tied to OnAir so you dial in a company freq (you have 3 choices to pick and I use 118.34). I like to call airborne and sometimes will call when I'm pulling up on the ramp. OnAir wants to do more with SI so hopefully in the future we get more options in this area.

Excellent write up and presentation of how SI worked on this flight - Feel free to keep them coming - I found this very useful in assessing my purchasing options!

1 hour ago, Max Kraus said:

I have tried both now and am angling towards staying with BATC. 

On a cost level, it seems that when you work it out SI is better value when you do at least 1 flight per day. So if you fly every 2nd day or less then BATC becomes better value. 

SI also has an onward recurring cost which puts into the "subscription mindset" 

I'm not really fussed what's happening with the AI Traffic side of things for each of them.

I think you raise some good points that are unique to each individual. For me the cost is less of a concern at the moment - Happy to pay for SI if the experience is better. That said, I am keen to have ATC that controls AI Traffic and at the moment, BATC or FSHUD is the only real option here.

I think I'll give SI another couple of months to start showing their AI Traffic implementation before purchasing. 

I did my flights this weekend in OpenSky. It's honestly not bad now that I've kicked the tires on it. Vectoring seemed a little suspect as one flight it gave me a nice vector that would bring me to my FAF, but then forgot about me. Then last night flying into KACK it wanted to vector me over the airport but under the approach paths.

I also noticed it had the BATC issue of insisting I take off from a runway not appropriate for my airframe. It wanted me to depart runway 8 in KPHL with an a320. Its a 5000' runway.

It does give me new runways and approaches so it's not completely flying the simbrief plan on rails and adapts for weather.

It was nice seeing some MP traffic also. I know it's not sequencing us until the living world stuff comes out.