1 hour ago, Gazzareth said:

It will tell you to descend (normally). You have the option to request early, that's all.

In my case it is the other way around. 9 out 10 times I have to call ready for descent. ATC usually is too late for me. I guess it also depends on the plane you fly.

1 hour ago, Gazzareth said:

It will tell you to descend (normally). You have the option to request early, that's all.

You can use it if you want do descend early, and in earlier versions was very much needed. Now not so much as it's better at giving you clearance to descend.

 

G

I ask for descend early many times, so I can find out the approach that BATC is going to use, and then I can set my GPS or FMC  up for the arrival and approach. Then, I keep going on my cruise altitude until I reach TD. BATC never complains when I do that. 

3 hours ago, Noel said:

Here's another question:  in the RW is it typical that Clearance does not tell the pilot which runway they will be cleared to TO from?  Every once in a while BATC gives this, but usually as you know it shows up in the banner, not spoken.  Just checking if that's typical at least in the US, for clearance to not state the departure runway.

No, clearance delivery generally doesn't state the departure runway, and that's because it's always on the ATIS. You will always listen to the ATIS before you call clearance delivery, and that's where you would find out where you will be leaving from. In the case of multiple runways in use simultaneously (e.g. parallel departures), ground control will tell you your assigned runway with your taxi instructions.

The ground controllers will generally always know what runway you want, based on the history of many flights of the same type departing day after day after day to the same destination, but occasionally you'll have a need for a specific runway based on performance factors. Asking for a different runway doesn't impact your clearance, and thus clearance delivery won't get involved with runway assignment, unless of course the new runway requires a different SID. If that's the case, you'd let clearance delivery know, and they would pass the information on to ground control. But in real world ops, you (or your dispatcher) would know this ahead of time and would file for the preferred SID.

 

 

Edited March 30, 20251 yr by prolixindec

20 minutes ago, prolixindec said:

But in real world ops, your dispatcher would know this ahead of time and would file for the preferred runway and SID

Thanks that helps a lot.  I guess that is why, the multiple runways mentioned in ATIS, I've heard it mentioned by ATC only occasionally.  Near as I can tell its need for 'custom' configs by airport exists is because the BATC dispatcher doesn't know this ahead of time?  I put on their feedback site to give users the option to override it's landing or departure requirements--but that would only be in situations as you mention, for performance reasons or other.  FSHud does this but still instructs where you *should* go according ATIS initially, giving you the option to overrided.

I am tad more intrigued. Is Beyond ATC the only ATC program that controls AI traffic?  It would take a lot for me to move away from pilot2atc. It does everything, and everything extremely well. The free voices I have now from Windows are even better than my paid versions. 🙂   

Anywho, does BATC control IFR and VFR planes (GA)? 

Does it vector you into mountains etc? Does it follow SID/STARs, airways etc? 

If lets say I fly a flight following at a small airport to a large one, would it start out with small GA planes around me taking off etc and as I land I will see bigger/IFR planes towards the larger airport? 

I have AIG installed for liveries but I find it injects waaaayyy too many planes around me. Doesn't matter how I filter, AIflow/ground etc. Too many. Setting the percentage helps a bit obviously. Does BATC not overburden your system with 100+ planes you don't even see?

7 hours ago, Sonosusto said:

I am tad more intrigued. Is Beyond ATC the only ATC program that controls AI traffic?  It would take a lot for me to move away from pilot2atc. It does everything, and everything extremely well. The free voices I have now from Windows are even better than my paid versions. 🙂   

 

FSHUD also controls AI Traffic. I purchased both FSHUD and BATC - Both have their pros and cons. I had been using Pilot2ATC for over 10 years but to be honest, both FSHUD and BATC are far better both in what they deliver and how they work. 

7 hours ago, Sonosusto said:

Anywho, does BATC control IFR and VFR planes (GA)? 

IFR only for now. VFR is on the roadmap but I doubt if we'll see it this year.
But I wouldn't say 'IFR planes' or 'VFR planes'... BATC offers ATC for IFR plans. It can control GA without any problem but only when they fly IFR. VFR doesn't equal GA (as a lot of people seem to think).

 

7 hours ago, Sonosusto said:

Does it vector you into mountains etc? Does it follow SID/STARs, airways etc? 

Well, I am not sure about vectoring you into a mountain but it will sometimes tell you to descent way too early making flying into a mountain a possibility if you don't pay attention. It follows SIDs and STARs etc, so anything you plan in SimBrief.

  

7 hours ago, Sonosusto said:

would it start out with small GA planes around me taking off etc and as I land I will see bigger/IFR planes towards the larger airport

So that would be a no.

  

7 hours ago, Sonosusto said:

Does BATC not overburden your system with 100+ planes you don't even see?

You can sort of set the amount of traffic you want. There are seperate sliders for traffic on ground, taking off, landing and in cruise. You can't really set a number of traffic (like FSHud can) so it's a bit hit and miss (and a cause of confusion for many): sometimes you get a lof of traffic and sometimes there hardly is anyone around you.

Edited March 31, 20251 yr by mistolip

4 hours ago, mistolip said:

IFR only for now. VFR is on the roadmap but I doubt if we'll see it this year.
But I wouldn't say 'IFR planes' or 'VFR planes'... BATC offers ATC for IFR plans. It can control GA without any problem but only when they fly IFR. VFR doesn't equal GA (as a lot of people seem to think).

 

 

I see that so often where people ask if an ATC works with GA aircraft. I have never flown a GA aircraft in flight sim, VFR, I always file an IFR flightplan, and BATC works great with IFR. 

Thanks for all the replies. I will look a bit more into it. I am starting to trend towards using other ATC programs now. Having less traffic but controlled by the ATC program would be cool.

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

I see that so often where people ask if an ATC works with GA aircraft. I have never flown a GA aircraft in flight sim, VFR, I always file an IFR flightplan, and BATC works great with IFR. 

Bob, I thought about that. I could always just pretend its an advanced flight following or something. 🙂  Since we all pretend here anyway. 

Now is it possible to still see GA traffic around me flying? Even with a mod or something while using one of these programs?

Does BATC use the liveries/planes/models from AIG etc? Or do you have to use the AT traffic manager or FLSTL injector to use BATC? I am having trouble finding all of this information. Its so sporadic.

Edited March 31, 20251 yr by Sonosusto

double post

Edited March 31, 20251 yr by Sonosusto

6 hours ago, mistolip said:

Well, I am not sure about vectoring you into a mountain but it will sometimes tell you to descent way too early making flying into a mountain a possibility if you don't pay attention

And on occasion will tell you descend to UNDER the arrival airport, like it did yesterday to me 9mi out from KRNO 🙃.  It's really a fabulous program but I use it in atypical ways to improve performance, improve the cost of Premium voices and in that context it's great.  I DL'd SayIntentions but decided it wasn't for me anyway since I don't use a mic and again, BATC w/ it's Premium voices is fabulous despite some odd ATC which surely is improving steadily.

There's been some criticism of FSHud voices - which I fully agree with. But I'd like to mention that BATC is not that much better (basic voices). Some of the regional accents (in particular Asian ones) I can hardly comprehend at all. 

Kelo? Lema?

 

 

On 3/31/2025 at 4:36 PM, Sonosusto said:

Now is it possible to still see GA traffic around me flying

Not really. The draw distance of aircraft traffic is really poor. GA aircraft are not visible until they are on top of you.

OK, let's hear the Asian voices in FShud now.  That should be funny. 

28 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Some of the regional accents (in particular Asian ones) I can hardly comprehend at all.

Yep. I stopped using regional accents. English only for me now. Works fine. I just pretend all ATC personel has had a mandatory course in proper English. (Which they should in real life too imho 😉 ).

Edited April 2, 20251 yr by mistolip