19 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

Too late to edit my own post.

I'm not loving SI at all right now. In fact I'm totally unable to get it going. I thought the trial started when I started a flight but they must have meant when they sent the support email it was active - so I missed that. Ok fine whatever, I paid for 1 month this morning. I feel like it's worth a shot. My account STILL says expired on it lol. The payment went through according to their website. I've tried rebooting and restarting the app, same issue.

I don't always have time to make this stuff work... so I guess it's more waiting, since I've re-opened the ticket I had.

Hopefully I can get it going sometime today (it's my Sunday).

Did you get it to work already? Looking fwd for your comments ...

40 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

I'm not loving SI at all right now. In fact I'm totally unable to get it going. I thought the trial started when I started a flight but they must have meant when they sent the support email it was active - so I missed that. Ok fine whatever, I paid for 1 month this morning. I feel like it's worth a shot. My account STILL says expired on it lol.

Well that IS frustrating. The normal 24 hour trial does start with your first transmission. I point this out for anyone wanting to try it as once you register it's REALLY IMPORTANT to take the time to configure things properly and to your liking. In particular, there are a number of "realism" settings you'll want to look at and set according to your region. The time you take to set things properly will not count against your trial time.

I expect in your case the difference was because it was a "special" extended trial taking you out of the normal flow of things. Hope you can get it sorted.

Don't know if you'll like it or not. If you've kept up with this thread you already know that my initial rose colored glasses have been removed - yet on balance, I still like it more than I don't for the flying I do.

Scott

Alright, I was finally able to give it a go about 2 hours ago.

I missed the trial I guess, but like Scott I decided it's worth 20 bucks for a try at least. Support reached out and saw I made the purchase and ended up giving me the expansion as a trial. I'm not entirely sure what that entails haha. Mostly I just fly GA so I wanted to see how it works. The payment processed fine but for some reason it wasn't working. I think it took about 4-5 hours for them to work it out - that's fine.

I noticed I can't get away with talking how I do irl on the radio... it needed me to speak more slowly and clearly. (A testament to real ATC because I don't have issues understanding most pilots, even foreign ones - we may have poor radio coverage, but everyone can talk fast and it's fine irl). Not a big issue imo, just a learning curve for me on how to "talk" to the app.

My first flight was KGCC - KBIS in the C680 from Skyward (a superb addon would recommend!). I filed through SimBrief (required for IFR) at FL350. I flew it real time. GCC is an uncontrolled airport. I called Denver center for IFR clearance on the ground, I got a release time and void time all in one - pretty realistic I'd say. I tookoff, got radar ID'd by Denver and they climbed me with a few step climb to FL350 and let me go on course pretty fast. About half way to Bismarck, they turned me about 15 degrees right of course (with a heading) and left me there for a long time. It might have been for traffic but they didn't give a reason for the vector. In the USA that's required. I'm going to be a bit more picky since this app is FAR more expensive than BATC. Eventually after a few new center freqs, I was handed over to Minneapolis center (kinda cool lol), and then to Bismarck Approach, they gave me vectors for the ILS 13. Everything to this point went REALLY well imo. But they left me really high. They sent me to 5000 and left me there and gave me my PTAC down to 3600 at the last moment. There is some terrain out there (and antennas) but not really close to the localizer. I'm curious to see how BATC would do... usually that app also leaves me quite high. I don't understand this stuff though. To me, it's just simple math. These apps have access to the airport database, the IAPs. So even if they assume a traditional 3 degree glide path, they could calculate how high and how many miles away from the FAF or IAF I need to be. Maybe it's more complex than this? At any rate, I went to tower at the FAF, landed fine. My plane had an issue I think its SU7 beta lol... I couldn't steer after landing. But I contacted ground anyway and they did a good job getting me to the FBO.

Second flight was KMSP - KRST via FGT. I wanted to try a bit more structure since both are towered airports. This one was maybe a little better because I through it some curveballs hehe, and it really handled them well I'd say. The issue though is that there isn't a good Lancair Legacy SB profile. I tried to make my own but something isnt quite right so I used a BE9L (king air 90) which is kinda similar to the turbocharged LEG2 that I was flying from FSW (also would recommend!). SB gave me 15000 ft which is kinda unrealistic for that short of a flight but whatever I made it work. The curveball #1 was that it taxied me out to 12L at Minneapolis, but I was parked at Signature FBO. So on taxi I asked for a 12R intersection departure because I dont want to taxi a mile to 12L haha. They approved it with some decent phraseology! I switched to tower and got a clearance also with decent phraseology. Airborne, off to departure etc. Plenty of AI traffic in the skies - one parallel me off 12L - fun to watch as well! Couple weird things with Minneapolis Departure... I kept hearing "contact Omaha departure" from a few callsigns. Like no... M98 isn't next to Omaha lol. Anyway I had the turbo legacy so I climbed really fast to 15k. Eventually they hand me off to RST approach... they then turn me to the south quite a bit... a really wide vector for the ILS 13 at RST perhaps? They told me to expect vectors ILS 13, and eventually turned me back with a PTAC. It left me a little high this time, but the worse part was the intercept placement. The angle was fine, they would have had be intercept just outside of the FAF. Very abnormal irl. If someone requested a "Short Approach" then it would be legal and fine. Curveball #2 - I asked them for a 090 heading to join and it was granted. Kinda with weird phraseology but I was fine with it. I went to tower freq and Curveball #3 - I asked tower for a touch and go instead of reading back my landing clearance! Granted! I asked should I make Right or Left traffic on the go? They gave me right. I flew in the downwind, requested a full stop - they said "full stop landing noted" fine but better should be "I have you request" etc. On short final I finally my landing clearance (even though I had asked on base - that's what I do irl if I don't have it). They gave me good taxi instructions to the FBO. I noticed an anomaly though - AI traffic at some 3rd party airports is sunken into the ground. It seemed okay at FlightBeam's MSP though.

Thanks for reading through this - a lot of details and a wall of words LOL.

I'll try some more flights and some VFR stuff eventually...

This was the Vector to final at RST... not okay lol...then I asked for the 090

And the touch and go for one lap to a full stop at RST

https://flic.kr/p/2sCwSHW

I flew a VFR flight tonight... apparently SI doesn't do well when you fly a bizjet to smaller towered airports. It tried to assign me the short runway every time. When I asked for the longer one it said it was unavailable. So I ended up quitting. I went to their discord and got quite some rude responses from one of their support people. I won't name names at the moment. All this for 19 bucks a month lol.

It went sort of like this:

Hey, how does SI know the user's aircraft type? Because I tried to fly the FSReborn Phenom into some local towered airports tonight and it kept assigning me the short runway.

Support said the app assigns the GA runways for pattern work.

Well, irl, GA can be anything from a C172 to a 737 really. I've worked thousands of aircraft in the traffic pattern irl. I finally had to share my credentials with this person because they essentially called me a liar (indirectly) that a phenom would be allowed to fly the traffic pattern. I clarified I wasn't meaning large airports like JFK or BOS, but anything smaller like a Class C or D. They argued with me that I never said class D. I said "local towered airport" which doesn't mean a large class B... but I guess it did to this support person.

They said I should request a support ticket. I told them a GA runway doesn't really exist irl. Sure airports have preferred runways for C172s and stuff, but a Phenom needs more runway, so their app needs more coding to allow for this. And by the way, it's quite common for larger aircraft to call up in the blind, and proceed inbound for closed traffic, it was common at the two airports I've worked ATC at. They then called it "astonishing" that I have 20 years ATC and didn't know airports have GA runways. They don't. US air traffic controllers just put planes where it makes sense. Yes, generally smaller aircraft fly on the shorter runways. But I've put C172's on the 10000ft runways and F16s on the 5500 ft runways - we're very flexible. So they personally attacked my credentials again. Ok, maybe they were having a bad day.

But then he also threatened to ban me (I took a screenshot) LOL. I frankly have no clue why. But wow, SI, you need some FAR better support people! Maybe because I have 20 years of evidence (15 I guess - nearly 5 in enroute) that I've worked all types of aircraft on short and long runways and he didn't like being wrong? It was the most UNPROFESSIONAL conversation I've ever had in flightsim dealing with support.

They literally could have said "Hi, thanks for your query - SI isn't very aware that pattern traffic could be requested by ANY aircraft type, and we'll try to inform our coders, so larger aircraft could request a larger runway. Feel free to open a support ticket here:"

By the way, back in the sim earlier, I said something like "unable runway XX, it's too short." So I tried to explain why I couldn't use the short runway.

Like I said, perhaps this person was having a bad day. Who knows. But so far, my time spent with SI has been a bit rough lol. Thankfully I have much more time to explore the app.

Your experience echoes mine. It’s almost like you get to a point where you need to tell them your qualifications just so they can have a bit of humility…and yes, there are plenty of things that are pretty far off from reality…

at the same time, I get their skepticism because there are a bunch of liars out there…

I think the program is moving in the right direction, there are plenty of little issues, but progress has been fast and consistent, and they’re always revising, iterating, etc. It is expensive, and the voice delay is annoying (probably why you got held high…it would have been on time, but the voice processing delay exacerbated the effect), but I do often find myself asking what I’m actually complaining about…i still use it every flight….even if I’m just out burning virtual holes in the sky.

11 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Like I said, perhaps this person was having a bad day. Who knows. But so far, my time spent with SI has been a bit rough lol. Thankfully I have much more time to explore the app.

Wow. Just, WOW. That is, indeed, unacceptable. I've submitted more than my share of bug reports since I've been using SI but I've never requested a response and I've also yet to interact with their Discord so this does NOT fill me with confidence for my first direct interactions.

There do seems to be some inconsistencies in how things operate that I don't yet understand. For example, while I haven't tried flying the Phenom VFR in SI, I have flown turbine planes (both the Duke and the TBM 850) and haven't gotten the (cough) "GA runway" (where's the eye roll emoji when you need one - cough) yet, even though I have flown into towered airports with shorter runways available. As you might know, the whole GA means VFR AND low and slow, misconception is a pet peeve of mine, so I'm pretty sensitive to this.

Also, in your first report you mention being left high for an approach. I don't think I've had that happen once yet - in fact my biggest issue on descents have all been of the "too low, too soon" variety.

And it's really odd that they can't figure the whole appropriate runway for aircraft type thing out anyway since they are very insistent on you getting the ICAO type set up accurately in configuration. And I agree, SI needs to do a better job of understanding "Unable" and reacting appropriately. I've given up using that word, instead simply requesting my preferred alternative. So far that's MOSTLY worked, but SI simply understanding that unable means UNABLE and offering an alternative would really help.

Anyway, thanks much for your thoughts and insights. I've been looking forward to your reactions from a professional controller's perspective.

Oh, and one other thing... You mentioned the AI not keeping up with your rapid radio cadence. You also mentioned them enabling the trial for the higher tier. From a practical perspective - at least for my use - the main advantage is that higher tier gives you access to the "iris" AI, which in theory is better/faster at the speech recognition thing. You can specifically set "iris" as the default AI in the Pilot Portal under Settings-->Misc. You might try that and see if it helps. With my more - ahem -measured radio technique it's not been necessary and "iris" seems about the same as the other two AI's to me, but YMMV.

Scott

I have some more to write but I wanted to quickly mention that this person emailed me directly and apologized last night. I then wrote a sort of direct email back about our discussion and offered some feedback of the product.

Alas I have to run as it's my Monday. Maybe I'll writeup some if we longer breaks today lol

15 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

But then he also threatened to ban me

Sadly, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about people being banned—or threatened with a ban—for simply asking questions or challenging a response. It’s difficult to tell whether this stems from a few bad apples or reflects company policy. Personally, I’ve submitted two support tickets with them, and both experiences were very positive. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by how much effort they put into investigating my situation and helping address my concerns. 

---

--Looking forward to your assessment of VFR.

12 minutes ago, Ron Lefebvre said:

Sadly, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about people being banned—or threatened with a ban—for simply asking questions or challenging a response. It’s difficult to tell whether this stems from a few bad apples or reflects company policy. Personally, I’ve submitted two support tickets with them, and both experiences were very positive. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by how much effort they put into investigating my situation and helping address my concerns. 

---

--Looking forward to your assessment of VFR.

He did actually say they tweaked it anyone should be able to request a longer runway. I didn't have any issues with the initial assignment but only the fact that atc unabled my request for a longer runway lol

I have been an SI partner level since I first got SI right after it came out. To me the development has been exponential. It's to a point where I wouldn't fly without it. I fly almost every day, and the program is automatically updated without me having to do anything. Now they even have taxi callouts if you want them. My copilot is synthesized from my own voice. I programmed him to have an acerbic wit, which he does. It's now to point where I have conversations with him all the time when on a long haul. Ahhhh....my AI friend.

Edited Tuesday at 04:11 PM2 days by vp49p3
Misspelled word

23 minutes ago, vp49p3 said:

I have been an SI partner level since I first got SI right after it came out. To me the development has been exponential. It's to a point where I wouldn't fly without it. I fly almost every day, and the program is automatically updated without me having to do anything. Now they even have taxi callouts if you want them. My copilot is synthesized from my own voice. I programmed him to have an acerbic wit, which he does. It's now to point where I have conversations with him all the time when on a long haul. Ahhhh....my AI friend.

I'm finding it to be decent, except it's inconsistent with the approach phase. And my experience is in bizjets or GA. I only flew a few airliner flights so far. Just like BATC, SI tends to do much better with structured routes in sim brief. SIDS/STARs etc. For some reason it tends to leave me a little high or really high right before it gives an instrument approach clearance when I'm flying GA - which is mostly point to point with maybe a fix or Victor airway.

I've done about 8 flights so far. Last night I flew a fast bizjet from TEB to PWM via BREZY V39 SOARS JUDDS ENE direct. SB planned the ILS 11, but SI gave me the RNAV 36 it said vectors. On departure from TEB it gave me a 055 heading (which was almost identical to direct KPWM). So it did get me to PWM, but why not just issue "cleared direct PWM?" And why did it skip all the waypoints I had filed? Like awesome, great! Direct lol.... I'll take it. But it didn't ever clear me direct KPWM. And then the approach phase was a mess. It basically did everything except what I thought would be logical (from an ATC's perspective). They vectored me east for quite a while... It gave me an early descent (like fine... that happens irl all the time, not a huge deal) to 6000. But it kept me there. It sent me across the FAC (still at 6000), and then I asked for lower and that I wanted a 180 heading, and it wouldn't allow me to self vector myself. But I told it I was descending to 2000. And I turned anyway. Once I did that it must have given it an idea lol, because then SI gave me a near perfect PTAC.

It just doesn't make sense why it did all that (and didn't). It could have cleared me from ENE, TOSPE, or vectored me onto final from the west. Why do these ATC apps always vector for the RNAV approaches? IRL you're going to get cleared from a transition or IAF. You're only going to get a vector for an RNAV if there's a ton of volume. A caveat though, if there is no T fix, you'll sometimes get a vector outside of the straight in fix, or occasionally a Vector to final. Or if you want to practice you would say "N12345 request full procedure RNAV xx approach."

Overall SI is definitely a step above BATC in quality. People will have to decide for themselves if 20 bucks a month is worth it. Oh I forgot to mention that all of my testing as been with the AI expansion since they had given me a free one week trial of that part. So I don't even know what the regular one is like. I'll keep trying since I bought the 1 month.

Make sure to report those issues in the Discord.

I have been using it since the beginning and use it on every flight. I only fly VFR and sometimes only use it to monitor if I do not feel like using flight following. For those of you that are Flight Simulator Association members, they offer a monthly discount, in my case 17.05 USD, which considering many TV streaming services are close to the price I pay, I do not mind the price. I especially like the new Stream Deck plugin, the display shows what service you are currently tuned in too. SI is not perfect, nothing is, but for a casual VFR flyer like me, adds to my overall experience.

Mike

3 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

On departure from TEB it gave me a 055 heading (which was almost identical to direct KPWM). So it did get me to PWM, but why not just issue "cleared direct PWM?" And why did it skip all the waypoints I had filed?

This is bizarre! I've been flying it for just short of a month now - GA exclusively of course - and I've never gotten anything like this. My clearance (if not flying a SID) is pretty much always radar vectors --> first approach fix, then as filed and that's how the flight has gone from there - every single time unless I request a deviation.

3 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

For some reason it tends to leave me a little high or really high right before it gives an instrument approach clearance when I'm flying GA - which is mostly point to point with maybe a fix or Victor airway.

And this is the second major difference between our experiences. I've yet to be left high for an IAP. My biggest complaint has been exactly the opposite, as I'm often given descents too soon and too low. And while I almost never file direct, my FPs similarly will often contain only 1 or two intermediate fixes, and those are often a LONG way from the destination airport.

As for vectors, I've run the gamut from brilliant, to "why are you vectoring me directly to the FAP?", to "what the...?" though the first two have dominated. But if a vector seems off to me, I can at least usually request and receive something better.

All of which begs the question - what are we doing differently to get such different results?

Scott

1 minute ago, tttocs said:

This is bizarre! I've been flying it for just short of a month now - GA exclusively of course - and I've never gotten anything like this. My clearance (if not flying a SID) is pretty much always radar vectors --> first approach fix, then as filed and that's how the flight has gone from there - every single time unless I request a deviation.

And this is the second major difference between our experiences. I've yet to be left high for an IAP. My biggest complaint has been exactly the opposite, as I'm often given descents too soon and too low. And while I almost never file direct, my FPs similarly will often contain only 1 or two intermediate fixes, and those are often a LONG way from the destination airport.

As for vectors, I've run the gamut from brilliant, to "why are you vectoring me directly to the FAP?", to "what the...?" though the first two have dominated. But if a vector seems off to me, I can at least usually request and receive something better.

All of which begs the question - what are we doing differently to get such different results?

Scott

I imagine you're flying in mountain areas? I stick to local areas or mostly flat places. Wonder if it's something to do with terrain prediction hehe?