6 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

People complain the same on the BATC discord sometimes, the answer however is: It‘s correct behaviour (at least for BATC). Many airports in the world do preferential runway operations (be it for mountains on one side, noise abatement for urban areas, shorter taxi routes etc.), i.e. they let aircraft land in tailwinds. Not sure what you mean by „Massive tailwind“, but 5kts of tailwind is generally what most airports with preferential runways use, some even up to 10kts of tailwind. When the runway is long enough, this does not lead to any performance problems for aircraft taking off / landing.
I don‘t know if SI also has these preferential operations in a database (like BATC does), but if they do, what I said above is also true for SI.

Well in this case it was a 20 knot tailwind which is out of limits for the A320. I understand the limit is 10 knots. 

I’d be interested in knowing how BATC and SI handle runway assignments at Vancouver… CYVR.  
 

CYVR has a pair of parallel runways… left and right 8 or 26. I don’t think it’s published anywhere, but the north runway is ALWAYS used for arrivals and the south runway is ALWAYS used for departures. The wind will affect the direction of arrivals/departures (8 or 26) but again, arrivals will always be the north runway (8L or 26R), and departures the south runway (8R or 26L) and almost always 26L in my experience (not sure if it’s for noise reasons more than wind). 

Will either of these ATC apps handle this properly?

24 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

I’d be interested in knowing how BATC and SI handle runway assignments at Vancouver… CYVR.  
 

CYVR has a pair of parallel runways… left and right 8 or 26. I don’t think it’s published anywhere, but the north runway is ALWAYS used for arrivals and the south runway is ALWAYS used for departures. The wind will affect the direction of arrivals/departures (8 or 26) but again, arrivals will always be the north runway (8L or 26R), and departures the south runway (8R or 26L) and almost always 26L in my experience (not sure if it’s for noise reasons more than wind). 

Will either of these ATC apps handle this properly?

I haven't personally flown in / out of CYVR, but I know if they don't handle traffic like you stated, both BATC and SI devs are very open to adding the correct procedures.  That's a plus for both products in my opinion.  I'm sure someone here will be able to answer your question specifically though. 

I do have both products, but I just find myself going back to SI over BATC.  I fly a lot of VFR and SI is great for that.  I also fly a lot of Southwest airlines flights.  I enjoy all that SI has to offer besides the ATC (copilot and cabin crew with Cabin Crisis to add a bit of "unknown" to my flights) so for me, it's a really good, packaged deal for how I sim.  

12 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

I’d be interested in knowing how BATC and SI handle runway assignments at Vancouver… CYVR.  
 

CYVR has a pair of parallel runways… left and right 8 or 26. I don’t think it’s published anywhere, but the north runway is ALWAYS used for arrivals and the south runway is ALWAYS used for departures. The wind will affect the direction of arrivals/departures (8 or 26) but again, arrivals will always be the north runway (8L or 26R), and departures the south runway (8R or 26L) and almost always 26L in my experience (not sure if it’s for noise reasons more than wind). 

Will either of these ATC apps handle this properly?

BATC has it set exactly like that (08R/26L for departures, 08L/26R for arrivals). It has also set a very slight preference for the east flow (08s)  (in very low tailwinds). Probably by some input of a local ATC guy (there are quite a lot of North American ATC controllers on their Discord). 
If of course the typical winds in Vancouver are mostly westerly, you‘ll still see the 26s active more often (in regards to your experience of 26L being active).

2 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

BATC has it set exactly like that (08R/26L for departures, 08L/26R for arrivals). It has also set a very slight preference for the east flow (08s)  (in very low tailwinds). Probably by some input of a local ATC guy (there are quite a lot of North American ATC controllers on their Discord). 
If of course the typical winds in Vancouver are mostly westerly, you‘ll still see the 26s active more often (in regards to your experience of 26L being active).

This is exactly how BATC does it with EGLL Heathrow as well. they follow the published Runway alternation schedule (saves upsetting the King when he's entertaining at Windsor...why they built the castle that close to an airport I'll never know!)

Somewhere there will be a published runway alternation list or similar and if there is BATC will almost certainly use it.
 

(This is for EGLL)

"Runway Alternation

When westerlies are in operation, a runway change can be expected at 1500 LOCAL.
(Please note, when in easterly operations there is no runway alternation - 09L is used for arrivals and 09R for departures)"

The main issue I am having in SI is it's taking multiple app launches to get it fully connected. This is in either 2020 or 24. I just get the blank screen with no buttons.

I am going to try a full reinstall and if that doesn't work I'll open a support ticket.

On 7/26/2025 at 8:00 PM, psolk said:

Right but had you been using SI since 2008 ( I used PF3, some used RC) but if you were using their pricing model  for as long as you have been simming then your cumulative cost of SI would be north of $3,400...

I looked at it for the same lifecycle as MSFS, factored 8 years and I think SI was $1,700 for ATC...  For a full 10 years it was $2,000 

Unfortunately for my personal tastes it's the long term indeterminate costs that put me off... 

Just my opinion though.  

So, what do you use for ATC that's as good as Say Intentions or Beyond ATC? I just looked at BeyondATC pricing and if you "top off" their premium voices monthly the cost to me would be greater than Say Intentions.  I'm retired and fly practically every day. I would go through $29.95 premium voices every month.

Edited July 31, 2025Jul 31 by vp49p3
Mispelling

39 minutes ago, vp49p3 said:

So, what do you use for ATC that's as good as Say Intentions or Beyond ATC? I just looked at BeyondATC pricing and if you "top off" their premium voices monthly the cost to me would be greater than Say Intentions.  I'm retired and fly practically every day. I would go through $29.95 premium voices every month.

I personally use FSHUD.  I had used PF3 for more than a decade and used PFE also by Dave March prior to switching.  

Had I been using SI for the past 20 years instead of PF3/PFE and FSHUD I would have paid $3,600 for ATC alone...   

As it is I probably paid $100 for all three programs combined. 

So basically a $3,500 difference over the lifetime of my simming.  That's an entire system. I could build for the price of SI...  

If I narrow it down to the 10 myr expected lifecycle of MSFS that would be $2,000 for ATC alone. 

Now I can compare that to amortizing the cost of an add on airplane over the life of the sim.  Most expensive add on would probably be $90.  

Cost per year and per day are pennies especially the longer you use them opposed to SI where it just keeps adding up.  

It's one of those things you don't necessarily think of as you use it and then you look back and realize you spent $3-5000 on ATC.  

 

Edited July 31, 2025Jul 31 by psolk

If it were not for the traffic injection on Say  I wouldn't have renewed my subscription. I also use BATC from time to time with the default package. I love the voices with Say, the cabin announcements, etc.so the whole package is slowly coming together.

Say Intentions airliner traffic is now very well done with AI voices.  You also can give SI permission to use your voice as you are flying.  Other SI users in the same area on the same frequency can then hear you and you can hear them.  You can also select recorded audio of the same setup in addition to AI generated voices for traffic  Really interesting to hear other users instead of AI generated voices.  SI has also put GA AI traffic on alpha status.  They are planning to populate GA airports with lots of traffic (such as aircraft flying circuits) and lots of radio chatter in the same manner as airliners.  I also like having my own voice manipulated to sound a little different than me and then used as my AI copilot to take over comms.  I don't know of any other traffic program that comes close to what SI is doing.  I really think the immersion is worth the cost.  I'd rather spend my flight sim dollars on SI instead of less money on less immersive traffic programs just to save a buck.