BATC has never worked well for the style of flying I do.  That would be general aviation point to point with an approach at the destination airport.  It does an awful job of getting me onto the approach.

For the times I flew bizjets using SIDs/STARs i found it to do okay to reasonably well provided my routing was extremely structured.

I thankfully only bought the base product and rarely if ever use it.

Imo FSX did better with vectoring me onto an ILS.

1 hour ago, ryanbatc said:

BATC has never worked well for the style of flying I do.  That would be general aviation point to point with an approach at the destination airport.  It does an awful job of getting me onto the approach.

BATC  makes no claim to do VFR or point to point as you mention at the moment but it is being worked on. ask yourself how well does the built in ATC in any Sim handle other traffic?....not at all unless I'm very much mistaken.
BATC does as well if not better than any other automated ATC out there IMHO. is it perfect? no but then neither is almost anything FS related out there.
I use it on every IFR flight I do short EGLL-EGPH and long KLAX-EGLL as an example and on the whole I have no issues that would casue me to complain.
I've even used it along with FsiPanel and PMDG's 777 to start C&D push back, takeoff, climb to cruise and then get FsiPanel to slew me to TOD and BATC just picked up and gave me the appropriate STAR. Perfect when I don't have time for a 12 hour all in flight and just wnat to practice procedures. 

I don't use VATSIM as it's not really possible with my setup and so BATC fills my FS needs almost perfectly.

BATC works well for me, my only criticism is that its quite forgiving if you don't meet crossing restrictions, speeds, etc. I used to use Radar Contact which was very grumpy, but maybe BATC is closer to real life...? If there is an issue with the approach, I've sometimes found that it's something I'm doing wrong. It's difficult to tell as BATC doesn't complain.

I've started using the Premium voices recently, and I like the way you can just switch them on and off mid-flight. That means you're not wasting money if you're having dinner during the cruise.

55 minutes ago, BrianT said:

BATC  makes no claim to do VFR or point to point as you mention at the moment but it is being worked on. ask yourself how well does the built in ATC in any Sim handle other traffic?....not at all unless I'm very much mistaken.
BATC does as well if not better than any other automated ATC out there IMHO. is it perfect? no but then neither is almost anything FS related out there.
I use it on every IFR flight I do short EGLL-EGPH and long KLAX-EGLL as an example and on the whole I have no issues that would casue me to complain.
I've even used it along with FsiPanel and PMDG's 777 to start C&D push back, takeoff, climb to cruise and then get FsiPanel to slew me to TOD and BATC just picked up and gave me the appropriate STAR. Perfect when I don't have time for a 12 hour all in flight and just wnat to practice procedures. 

I don't use VATSIM as it's not really possible with my setup and so BATC fills my FS needs almost perfectly.

No I do IFR point to point usually with an IAP at the end...it's fails badly every time.  It can't vector worth a darn.  It's fine if you are on airways or sids/stars.

2 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

BATC has never worked well for the style of flying I do.  That would be general aviation point to point with an approach at the destination airport.  It does an awful job of getting me onto the approach.

For the times I flew bizjets using SIDs/STARs i found it to do okay to reasonably well provided my routing was extremely structured.

I thankfully only bought the base product and rarely if ever use it.

Imo FSX did better with vectoring me onto an ILS.

So are you claiming that it doesn't work week with GA aircraft. That is strange because I fly GA aircraft very often , like Pilatus PC12 , Turbine Duke, C 310, Kodiak, and use BATC on each and every flight. Works fine, so I don't understand why it doesn't work for you? 

24 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

So are you claiming that it doesn't work week with GA aircraft. That is strange because I fly GA aircraft very often , like Pilatus PC12 , Turbine Duke, C 310, Kodiak, and use BATC on each and every flight. Works fine, so I don't understand why it doesn't work for you? 

My experience is the same as Ryan's.  Generally, it has flown me too close on the downwind and given me a turn that the aircraft can't do and overshoots.  To me, it's a small fix for them to define a standard traffic pattern entry point and fly the airplane to it, either downwind or base.  In terms of SI, its turns are better though how it gets the airplane there is a bit odd...sort of zig-zagging the airplane back and forth rather than a standard pattern.  

In a larger sense, I like Beyond ATC better.  I feel like they've got the better structured communication, the voices and behaviors are more realistic.  So, the foundation is there.  I think they're so inundated with requests that they may be struggling with focus.  If they get some basics addressed and make a list of what's queued and let people know about it, it would get people to quiet down and add to the focus.  Do little changes, not big ones.  I'd also think about raising the price a bit.  They have that huge advantage over SI which costs way too much, IMO.  The goal has to be to make people want to use it.  Right now, having tried both, I have them both shut off because they drive me bonkers the way they are.

Gregg

I only use it for IFR and air traffic.

I rarely have issues with either of those. Sometimes it will give me a weird vector that makes no sense, but that’s not very common

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

So are you claiming that it doesn't work week with GA aircraft. That is strange because I fly GA aircraft very often , like Pilatus PC12 , Turbine Duke, C 310, Kodiak, and use BATC on each and every flight. Works fine, so I don't understand why it doesn't work for you? 

No Bob it works with all planes but it doesn't provide realistic vectors for approaches.  

It'll assign me an ils only to send me direct to the airport and forget about me.

Or it'll assign me an ils and send me on a vector that makes zero sense - something like a vector inside of the FAF.

if I get assigned a visual approach it will turn me towards a 20 mi final lol.  I'm talking uncontrolled airports here.  

If I stick to structured airways or sids/stars AND flying from towered airport to towered airport it generally does ok 

1 hour ago, ryanbatc said:

No Bob it works with all planes but it doesn't provide realistic vectors for approaches.  

It'll assign me an ils only to send me direct to the airport and forget about me.

Or it'll assign me an ils and send me on a vector that makes zero sense - something like a vector inside of the FAF.

if I get assigned a visual approach it will turn me towards a 20 mi final lol.  I'm talking uncontrolled airports here.  

If I stick to structured airways or sids/stars AND flying from towered airport to towered airport it generally does ok 

I ask myself, what if they built an AI and loaded it with data from Flightaware and just used that data to guide airplanes.  

 

 

18 hours ago, Jetman67 said:

are you trying to impress us with your word wizardry

Heaven forbid we allow someone here that is articulate, unlike many or most others with their 5th grade level language skills that are the norm in internet forums.

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by kholt

18 hours ago, bennyboy75 said:

I'm a big fan of BATC, the user interface is very intuitive and easy to navigate and setting it up is very simple. The implementation of traffic along with impressive premium voices to match controllers/pilots around the globe is also really immersive. I do find however that the actual controlling  - which really is the important bit - can often go awry, with nonsense vectors and being cleared to unsafe altitudes, or even worse cleared to an altitude and then recleared to a higher one once you've already descended through the previous clearance. Quite regularly I will ignore BATC and just find the way to the runway by myself. 

I tried SI last week and although their new traffic implementation is definitely not as good (AI parked over each other) and you don't always have well matched accents, the actual controlling seems to be significantly better. On all of my flights in the last week I have had decent vectoring and sensible altitude clearances. I find the AI cabin crew and copilot a bit gimmicky but they do the job.  

On balance, SI is for me edging ahead. 

I use SI on every flight, or at least I try to.  I've yet to complete a flight though without it completely losing it’s mind.  Some examples are ground controllers at KLAX that issue takeoff clearances on the ground freq, approach controllers talking on clearance delivery, and tower controllers that never tell you to contact departure and suddenly act like they’ve never heard of you if you request clarification.  Another common example that occurs frequently is a tower controller that tells you to land on the reciprocal runway heading after you’ve already been cleared to land and are on short final, gives no clearance as to how they want you to proceed, and still remains silent even after you’ve fully executed a GA procedure to the holding point wondering “what just happened?”.

On the other hand, I’ve found the copilot feature to be far from gimmicky.  I use it to read checklists which works reasonably well.

And the pushback feature is brilliant.  Far, far superior to GSX or anything else on the market.

I know this is still early days in AI ATC.  It can only get better over time, and indeed it has.

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by kholt

I'm a supporter of both BATC and SI, but vastly prefer the latter for every flight. Especially with the way they handle traffic injection. 

Sure, I do wish procedurally it was a little bit stricter, absolutely agree with the others, and there are definitely issues you can run into with things falling through cracks. But the fact that it works with helicopter ops, VFR, IFR, handles missions etc. You launch it once, it sits in the background and doesn't need any attention whatsoever is a huge plus. 

 

18 hours ago, Vitold69 said:

Does FS 2024 ATC still pronounce company name based on plane registration number? I.e. calls all Japanese planes "Air Bosna"

Hmmm, have to check that ... I honestly don't pay much attention to that because I'm focused in trying to listen when they address me... my biggest grip IRL too 🙂

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by jcomm

My general impression is that BATC works great for airliners and larger airports, but has some limitations and quirks that are noticeable if you're flying smaller planes to smaller airports:

• ATC doesn't give out altimeter information on center-to-center transitions below transition level, and if you try to ask, the LLM will only respond with altimeter information for your departure or arrival airports
• ATC reads your entire tailnumber call sign every time. Never abbreviates tail number call signs, and doesn't use aircraft types, e.g. you'll never hear "Piper two four lima."
• If your flight plan doesn't have a STAR, ATC often issues approach vectors and descent instructions 100+ miles away from the airport. (They've already made one update addressing this, so probably they're continuing to work on it.)
• And the big one: you can't use airstrips that aren't in Simbrief, which puts a dent in the "ATC anywhere you want, even if VATSIM doesn't cover it" value of computer ATC.

(As a bonus, Simbrief itself will assign STARs above your cruising altitude and above your plane's service ceiling, because its STAR database doesn't contain altitude constraint data. So for low-altitude planes you need to actually verify your flight plan like a real pilot and not just trust the machine. 😄 You'll need to consult an alternate source of information besides Simbrief to find out whether you can actually use a particular STAR.)

Basically none of that will be relevant if you're in a big airliner.

---

Not to imply that other ATC addons are perfect or anything. The only one that lets you fly IFR to/from any airport you want, Simbrief-be-damned, is Pilot2ATC, but there you have old-school Windows voice recognition and no traffic injection/control.

You'd think FSHud would let you fly anywhere since they have their own airport database and flight planning option as an alternate to Simbrief, but sadly it lacks runway information for (mostly?) the same airports Simbrief lacks, preventing them from being used in FSHud, too. Wish they'd let me add my own runway data.

Overall my favorite is currently SayIntentions, but funnily, the reasons have nothing to do with AI/LLM. SI lets you specify your full callsign and abbreviated callsign, which lets me handle even edge cases like "European tail number plane flying in the U.S." and such. SI does the altimeter information thing on transitions right (at least it did in VFR... hmm.. need to test IFR). And while SI too is limited to Simbrief for IFR, it at least has VFR as a fallback. SI also lets the user choose between readback enforcement (BATC and Pilot2ATC style) or no (loose?) readback enforcement (FSHud style) if you prefer smoothness over mistake corrections, especially if you're in a noisy environment/have a low quality microphone.

Still, all of these programs are under active development and I expect they'll catch up/converge eventually. e.g. BATC already added the in-cockpit volume control feature that SI had first, and BATC is working on VFR now.

---

Phew, that was long. But ATC is complicated so there's a lot to say I suppose.

I didn't realize the page function actually put "Next/Previous" page buttons, thought it was just a line. 😄 Wonder how many people will read past the first page...

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by Magenta Line
Surprised by the page function

On 7/3/2025 at 9:33 AM, Vitold69 said:

Does FS 2024 ATC still pronounce company name based on plane registration number? I.e. calls all Japanese planes "Air Bosna"

Yes