Quite honestly I feel like FSHud is the most underrated ATC software when compared to SI and BATC. It's recent update with local voice models is much better than the fairly robotic ones it had before. It can be controlled via a remotely operated tablet too if you value your screen real estate. But aside from anything else it handles spacing, go-arounds, and on-the-ground sequencing far better than the others I've tried. The only thing I dislike about it is that it doesn't tell you which way to face after pushback (such as "Face South" or "Face Left" whereas BATC does. Not a dealbreaker though, it would just be nice.

My only real wish is that there was X-Plane support because it is my preferred simulator and its starting to feel "wrong" when I fly without any ATC. The default Laminar ATC really needs to support better voices - I can't be doing with the old style monotonous robots they use.

11 minutes ago, mspencer said:

I wonder if either SI or BATC will look at going with Qwen3-TTS - open source, voice design as easy as Eleven Labs, so much less expensive than premium price AI compute. Could really change the math on both services, the voice quality is excellent.

https://huggingface.co/spaces/Qwen/Qwen3-TTS

Hmmm - it took 17 seconds to generate a 9 second audio clip on that page (including finding a free GPU). ElevenLabs is like lightning in comparison

12 minutes ago, FPVSteve said:

Hmmm - it took 17 seconds to generate a 9 second audio clip on that page (including finding a free GPU). ElevenLabs is like lightning in comparison

Yes, but you wouldn't be using this infrastructure, right - it would be using faster infra if they made it part of the program (or possibly local? haven't done a deep dive yet). It's free and open source to use. Eleven is expensive. 

The developer would have to look at whether this is possible or not for a specific program like FSHud, but certainly it is now possible to get high quality voices for FREE, where previously it was not. So that's progress.

11 hours ago, mspencer said:

I wonder if either SI or BATC will look at going with Qwen3-TTS - open source, voice design as easy as Eleven Labs, so much less expensive than premium price AI compute. Could really change the math on both services, the voice quality is excellent.

https://huggingface.co/spaces/Qwen/Qwen3-TTS

Interesting...

On 1/23/2026 at 11:11 PM, mspencer said:

I wonder if either SI or BATC will look at going with Qwen3-TTS - open source, voice design as easy as Eleven Labs, so much less expensive than premium price AI compute. Could really change the math on both services, the voice quality is excellent.

https://huggingface.co/spaces/Qwen/Qwen3-TTS

They already made their own local model that runs locally on your machine. Its extremely fast but is currently to american and british accents, but its a step in the right direction.

5 hours ago, Lucky38i said:

They already made their own local model that runs locally on your machine. Its extremely fast but is currently to american and british accents, but its a step in the right direction.

Certainly not ready for deployment today - but a great step in the right direction!

Anything that gets these products off the (very expensive) commercial compute roller coaster will be good for customers and enable more features. The biggest issue with SI right now, imo, is that it's got a lot of partially baked features that are interesting, but use a ton of compute. At least this would be a step in the right direction.

Never mind, found my answer. 

Edited January 26Jan 26 by verbal

On 1/16/2026 at 9:11 AM, G-YMML1 said:

I'm kind of puzzled.

For 25 years of flight simming, we were begging for reliable ATC program. Now we have at least 3 reliable products and people are still complaining. Amazing. 

Except they are all far away from reliable. The fact we are in 2026 and still don’t have solid ATC is sad.

I can't speak for the other products, but I tried BATC.  A few months ago.  I gave it three flights, and it failed spectacularly at all three of them. 

In the first, it descended me into terrain. 

In the second, it gave me a vector to a 90 degree intercept of the FAC.

In the third, it pulled me off the arrival to turn me onto downwind for vectors to final... And then told me to switch to tower.  While still on a downwind vector. 

I gave up after that.  But I mean, those aren't inconveniences, they're complete failures of the program's ability to perform even the basics of what it claims to be able to do.

It's bizarre to me that people are complaining about how the *voices* sound, when the program doesn't even work lol.

3 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

I can't speak for the other products, but I tried BATC.  A few months ago.  I gave it three flights, and it failed spectacularly at all three of them. 

In the first, it descended me into terrain. 

In the second, it gave me a vector to a 90 degree intercept of the FAC.

In the third, it pulled me off the arrival to turn me onto downwind for vectors to final... And then told me to switch to tower.  While still on a downwind vector. 

I gave up after that.  But I mean, those aren't inconveniences, they're complete failures of the program's ability to perform even the basics of what it claims to be able to do.

It's bizarre to me that people are complaining about how the *voices* sound, when the program doesn't even work lol.

My feelings exactly. All these products fail spectacularly on a regular basis, and as they are ruining your flight they nag at you relentlessly to follow their disastrous instructions. 

The last time I was using BATC instead of FSHud to check my performance on my default scenario for testing performance (MK Studios LSZH, Live weather, Ini A350 and photogrammetry on, TLOD and OLOD 200), I was absolutely astonished by the huge performance loss of BATC vs. no AI traffic but also vs. FSHud. Of course they are hard to compare but I use settings that result in very comparable amounts of airplanes at least on the airports and while FSHud had only minor impact, almost contributing nothing for the FPS dipping below my 72FPS limit, the FPS tanked massively with BATC and FPS went down to 50-something. Absolutely bad. Hope it was just a one-time observation, because this would definitively render BATC useless in my case, even if I still prefer it over FSHud simply because of the added immersion as it includes pushback of the AI planes. Those 180° turns the planes perform with FSHud is just too much to bear imho, it always instantly ruins every immersion...

4 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

I can't speak for the other products, but I tried BATC.  A few months ago.  I gave it three flights, and it failed spectacularly at all three of them. 

In the first, it descended me into terrain. 

In the second, it gave me a vector to a 90 degree intercept of the FAC.

In the third, it pulled me off the arrival to turn me onto downwind for vectors to final... And then told me to switch to tower.  While still on a downwind vector. 

I gave up after that.  But I mean, those aren't inconveniences, they're complete failures of the program's ability to perform even the basics of what it claims to be able to do.

It's bizarre to me that people are complaining about how the *voices* sound, when the program doesn't even work lol.

Be interesting to know what your flightplans for those 3 flights were please?

I'm still new to BATC, but it is difficult getting it to work for me.  I'm flying GA, so not sure if that's what messes it up.  Mostly, I get told to expect vectors to final, that never end up coming.  I just turn myself, and they usually clear me for landing on short final.  I'm in the Beech A36 so it isn't like I'm so fast that it isn't keeping up.  They point me in the general direction of the approach, but no descent or turn instructions.  I just fly way past and never hear back.  Not sure if there's something I'm doing wrong or if there's a trick.  The program is still active and working, as it usually wakes up to realize I need clearance, and then gives me taxi instructions.  

My latest was at KFLL (Fort Lauderdale).  Not sure if I'm throwing it off not using STARs as well.  Most just aren't realistic for a GA plane.  I'm also not sure if it just doesn't know how to sequence me into the airliner traffic.  

Still not bad for a $30 program, just wondering if people have tips or advice on how to get it working better.  I try to follow sids and stars when possible, but most have altitude restrictions that aren't going to work with my plane.  

Question to those who use BeyondATC. How dense is the AI traffic with BeyondATC? Do you often find yourself second/third in line for landing? 
I'm very happy with the density I get with FSHUD. But I'm bothered by how long it takes to be handed off from tower to departure, and by having to contact tower to cross every runway. Does BeyondATC handle this better?

7 minutes ago, Waffles_ said:

Question to those who use BeyondATC. How dense is the AI traffic with BeyondATC? Do you often find yourself second/third in line for landing? 
I'm very happy with the density I get with FSHUD. But I'm bothered by how long it takes to be handed off from tower to departure, and by having to contact tower to cross every runway. Does Beyond handle this better?

Yes, the AI traffic is getting dense, though not so dense as it is IRL. In EGLL/KJFF you will find yourself in queue. My opinion, that BATC Traffic is well suited for medium hubs, such as EBBR, LIMC, EKCH, ENGM, EFHK, LOWW.  But again, I don't have FSHud, perhaps I should upgrade for FS2024.

Handling is quite fast, you have a priority over other AI planes, just make sure you have Radio Auto Tune set to ON.