Well I am happy in my sim with basics. PSXT and real traffic. Pro ATC is not the best, but it works, just as good as all AI apps that don’t work. 

So I've had another poor flight on SI.  Cairo to Amman (both add on airports, I'm not sure if this is a No-No or not really).  

Had to ask the pushback guy about three times again for pushback, and he kept telling me to release my parking brake.  It was released.  This is every single flight.

As soon as I started taxying I followed the lit path and there were two aircraft  coming straight towards me.  Immersion killer.  I managed to avoid them by taking other taxiways.  

At top of descent I did my usual "Amman Control, Golf Lima Alpha November Golf, Ready for Descent", and I got asked which altitude I wanted.  I stated the altitude at the end of my flight plan (I had not been assigned a STAR yet).  

On reaching the end of my flight plan, I requested a STAR, which was given.  Then I immediately got vectored to join the ILS approach.  Fair enough.  I shouldn't have to ask which STAR to expect by the time I had descended to 13,000 feet.  That's way too late!  

If I switch so BATC, can I expect anything better at all? Does it have iPad integration? (I don't have multiple screens and don't want them).  Does it separate during taxi?  Will it know what I mean by "ready for descent"?  

Perhaps it's just my poor flying.  I have all my ATPLs done IRL so I'm not a complete word not allowed here.  I've paid well over $250 for this over the year or two, and the product isn't getting any better at all.  

Am I stuffing it up by using add on airports?  I know they seem to have everything mapped out by the community.  These aren't unknown, random airfields.  Maybe my airmanship is dreadful, but I never used to get these problems.  

Edited December 12, 2025Dec 12 by Langeveldt

1 hour ago, Langeveldt said:

If I switch so BATC, can I expect anything better at all? Does it have iPad integration? (I don't have multiple screens and don't want them).  Does it separate during taxi?  Will it know what I mean by "ready for descent"?  

In some parts yes, definately, in others it has its own issues. But it is still considered Early Access. I assume they want to keep it in there until they have fully functioning support for VFR traffic and Seperation.

 

Why would you need a second screen for BeyondATC? It has a toolbar plugin.

 

Seperation is not really a thing yet. It kind of works during taxi, but not very reliably. I've had it happen that an arriving aircraft taxied itself right into my way where I was just having a push back and then having no way to go.

 

And yes, it will react to your "ready for descent".

 

The issues it has that once assigned an approach and a runway you can neither ask for a change nor a shortcut. And directs are currently limited to a range of 160NM. 

Or that you will hear ai aircraft being assigned approaches for an airport that is so far away that it should be done by a different center controller. That kind of stuff will eat into your premium voice characters if you use them. 

I also suggested to the developers that once CPDLC goes public they should simulate AI using it as well in the sense that center and ai stop talking to each other. This was met with the fear that this will lead to more support requests about it because people are too word not allowed to understand that CPLDC is used for exactly this reason: To have less talk over frequency.

 

I tried both and vastly prefer BeyondATC, despite its own issues. 

Edited December 13, 2025Dec 13 by Farlis

20 minutes ago, Langeveldt said:

If I switch so BATC, can I expect anything better at all? Does it have iPad integration? (I don't have multiple screens and don't want them).  Does it separate during taxi?  Will it know what I mean by "ready for descent"?  

Can you expect anything better - in my experience, for airliner flying. Yes. FSHud is also really good in terms of just pure airliner ATC (no chit chat or random conversations that SI apparently does. BATC can do a little bit of that, but I haven't heard any in a long while)

Ipad integration - no. FsHud does, though. 

Separate during taxi - again, depends. I won't say it's perfect, but certainly in my experience (I only used SI for one month and dumped it), it's not worse. Others can chime in here. FSHud seems to do a better job here. 

Will it know "ready for descent". Yes, the basic ATC handling in both BATC and FSHud is quite good. 

Given that you've already spent $250 and aren't super price sensitive.. do what I did and buy all three and try em out. I have settled on BATC and FsHud, SI just was too .. let's just call it .. "performative hustle culture"

Edited December 13, 2025Dec 13 by JonathanC

Thank you for the replies, both

9 hours ago, Langeveldt said:

So I've had another poor flight on SI.  Cairo to Amman (both add on airports, I'm not sure if this is a No-No or not really).  

Had to ask the pushback guy about three times again for pushback, and he kept telling me to release my parking brake.  It was released.  This is every single flight.

As soon as I started taxying I followed the lit path and there were two aircraft  coming straight towards me.  Immersion killer.  I managed to avoid them by taking other taxiways.  

At top of descent I did my usual "Amman Control, Golf Lima Alpha November Golf, Ready for Descent", and I got asked which altitude I wanted.  I stated the altitude at the end of my flight plan (I had not been assigned a STAR yet).  

On reaching the end of my flight plan, I requested a STAR, which was given.  Then I immediately got vectored to join the ILS approach.  Fair enough.  I shouldn't have to ask which STAR to expect by the time I had descended to 13,000 feet.  That's way too late!  

If I switch so BATC, can I expect anything better at all? Does it have iPad integration? (I don't have multiple screens and don't want them).  Does it separate during taxi?  Will it know what I mean by "ready for descent"?  

Perhaps it's just my poor flying.  I have all my ATPLs done IRL so I'm not a complete word not allowed here.  I've paid well over $250 for this over the year or two, and the product isn't getting any better at all.  

Am I stuffing it up by using add on airports?  I know they seem to have everything mapped out by the community.  These aren't unknown, random airfields.  Maybe my airmanship is dreadful, but I never used to get these problems.  

1) iPad support no

2) separation between taxi - yes, but sometimes it fails (about 1/30 flights for me, but I‘m not always on big hubs either)

3) „ready for descent“ - yes. Since it‘s scripted for the core ATC functions, it will never do stuff that LLMs do like forget your state or simply misunderstand you intentions. That‘s pretty reliable.

Further questions, just hop on to the BATC discord, there‘s almost 50000 people on there 🙂

Has anyone else noticed a distinct drop in the variety of voices in Say Intentions?  Lately I've been hearing the same voices over and over.  Some time ago it seemed they used many mote distinct voices.  Also, how is the voice variety in BATC?

 

8 minutes ago, vp49p3 said:

Has anyone else noticed a distinct drop in the variety of voices in Say Intentions?  Lately I've been hearing the same voices over and over.  Some time ago it seemed they used many mote distinct voices.  Also, how is the voice variety in BATC?

 

About BATC:
250+ premium voices (with well-made accents from all over the world; the only lacking region I've found is Arabia, where it's very often one of two voices); or several hundred free local voices (US- and British English only at the moment). There's also 100+ free basic voices (with accents from all over the world, but the accents are rather bad because it's free technology), but they might be phased out eventually and be replaced entirely by local voices only.
I watch A330Driver a lot (he uses SI) and another major difference seems that SI uses *only* accent-free (US/british) voices for the AI traffic voices, which I find very immersion breaking (e.g. the Chinese airline guy talking with Texas accent); BATC's AI traffic (with premium or basic voices) has the correct accent for the actual airline, e.g. a Lufthansa at KJFK will talk with a proper german accent.

Edited December 13, 2025Dec 13 by Fiorentoni

Accents are something that never bothered me with ATC. I am quite happy to hear British and American accents all day long 

2 hours ago, vp49p3 said:

Has anyone else noticed a distinct drop in the variety of voices in Say Intentions?  Lately I've been hearing the same voices over and over.  Some time ago it seemed they used many mote distinct voices.  Also, how is the voice variety in BATC?

 

The voices are really the best part. Even the free voices have accents and all and are perfectly usable. Then the local LLM voice thing is improving very fast. 
 

and of course premium voices are excellent. I usually set the ATC to premium for take off and landing, while traffic is set to basic or local depending on how I feel. In flight I switch ATC to basic. This works great and in fact many times I forget ATC is on basic voices in the next flight. 

The premium BATC voices are excellent and add great immersion, especially when flying through many countries or at large airports with many international airlines.  It’s something I have no problem paying for

4 hours ago, vp49p3 said:

Has anyone else noticed a distinct drop in the variety of voices in Say Intentions?  Lately I've been hearing the same voices over and over. 

Yes !!

Drives me mad because 4 months ago, SI was SO much better than it is now.   now I get the same accents over and over again (especially in the UK) and silly random things like a Tower Controller in England, who has a southern English accent (good) but then the next time they speak they've turned into an Indian with a think Gujurat accent, or a deep south USA guy!  There is just NO stability with SI any more.

And they are just DEAF to us.  I sent off another email to Brian 2 days ago, requesting that he check out this thread to see how some of us are perceiving SI at the moment............ nothing.

Another thing that drives me mad is that I hear the same recorded conversations between (real) users and the AI again and again, day after day.  There seem to be plenty of people using SI and I'm sure most of them must have "share my audio" ticked, yet even flying in London I hear the same conversations and know exactly what is going to be said.   Some of these recorded ATC conversations are 1 year old!!

It's just dead.

Edited December 13, 2025Dec 13 by JYW

11 minutes ago, JYW said:

Yes !!

Drives me mad because 4 months ago, SI was SO much better than it is now.   now I get the same accents over and over again (especially in the UK) and silly random things like a Tower Controller in England, who has a southern English accent (good) but then the next time they speak they've turned into a think Indian accent or a deep south USA guy!  There is just NO stability with SI any more.

And they are just DEAF to us.  I sent off another email to Brian 2 days ago, requesting that he check out this thread to see how some of us are perceiving SI at the moment............ nothing.

Another thing that drives me mad is that I hear the same recorded conversations between (real) users and the AI again and again, day after day.  There seem to be plenty of people using SI and I'm sure most of them must have "share my audio" ticked, yet even flying in London I hear the same conversations and know exactly what is going to be said.   Some of these recorded ATC conversations are 1 year old!!

It's just dead.

you should of started your email with 'i am thinking of cancelling my sub'... he would have replied sharpish lol

41 minutes ago, JYW said:

Yes !!

Drives me mad because 4 months ago, SI was SO much better than it is now.   now I get the same accents over and over again (especially in the UK) and silly random things like a Tower Controller in England, who has a southern English accent (good) but then the next time they speak they've turned into an Indian with a think Gujurat accent, or a deep south USA guy!  There is just NO stability with SI any more.

And they are just DEAF to us.  I sent off another email to Brian 2 days ago, requesting that he check out this thread to see how some of us are perceiving SI at the moment............ nothing.

Another thing that drives me mad is that I hear the same recorded conversations between (real) users and the AI again and again, day after day.  There seem to be plenty of people using SI and I'm sure most of them must have "share my audio" ticked, yet even flying in London I hear the same conversations and know exactly what is going to be said.   Some of these recorded ATC conversations are 1 year old!!

It's just dead.

I think what happened is that they were having a net loss since traffic was implemented (and voice generation costs were multiplied by x 50 or so) and therefore had to do cost cuts whereever possible. This could also mean drastically reducing the amount of voices for AI traffic and use only the cheapest ones (or even free ones).

52 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

I think what happened is that they were having a net loss since traffic was implemented (and voice generation costs were multiplied by x 50 or so) and therefore had to do cost cuts whereever possible. This could also mean drastically reducing the amount of voices for AI traffic and use only the cheapest ones (or even free ones).

Agree--this looks most likely.