mikced

I loved the Realair Legacy back in the day. This version will probably be a mighty nice addon when complete as much as the A2A probably will be. Look forward to try it. Most likely later though. Dont want to be a part time bete tester without compensation and still pay full price for my service/patience. Dont like that approach and never will as common as it seems to get unfortunately.

French Valley I would really love. I try to keep my VFR flying inside the San Diego TAC and with all your San Diego airports and Dreamflight Palomar really not all that many airports are missing now exept French Valley and some otehr smaller ones 🙂

True but SI comes at a higher price for the developer than BATC since its AI based and naturally that cost is forwarded to the end user. Again though, a BMW is more expensive than a Skoda so one has a choice depending on level of want. This said the day BATC VFR feature reaches the level of SI I will switch in a heartbeat with no remorse 😄

It depends what you compare it to. Its about one TV subscription HBO, Netflix or what have you per month. Its my nr 1 hobby and I make at least one VFR flight every day and with a great ATC that does not feel scripted and with plenty of commercial and AI traffic on all surrounding airport its worth every penny to me. I can absolutely see the point about the price though and especially if you dont fly all that much. I will keep my eye on BATC as well and follow the progress as I own it as well.

or just get Say Intensions ATC. Traffic at every airport and no requirement to file any flightplan. Its surprising the S.I guys can do traffic at all airports but not the BATC team. Downside of course is SI is subscription based which might not be suitable for everyone.

I am surprised that every time the question of ATC and AI comes up they seem so passive like there would be nothing more to improve and they keep bringing up very small fixes they have done or will do. Have they even seen S.I and BeyondATC and what can be done. Default ATC it terrible and in no way better than in FSX (actually worse) and they dont seem to cope with this fact at all or dont really care. To me ATC is one of few areas where time stands still, an area they seriously have not wanted to improve and I can not understand why.

Yes true but in that case the goal of the developer has to be to take advantage of the good bits of AI and regulate the bits that try to ”please” the user in an unrealistic fashion.

BATC inject GA traffic but only ones flying strictly IFR flight plans unlike S.I. My opinion is that these two option are miles apart and will remain at least until the second BATC VFR stage. I mean S.I even have an option to change from VFR to IFR mid flight and airpace penetration and so much more. Of course it comes at a price unfortunately, a monthly such 🙂 Only thing for me is that sometimes it feels like S.I is trying to please me too much. If for example for fun if I say that I want to exit a Control Zone via "Donald Duck" it gladly just say cleared to exit the control zone via "Donald Duck". So it feel a bit ureliable in that way.

It seem you are missing some of our best ATC addons then, SI and or BeyondATC. They add plenty of commercial and GA traffic, In fact I flew out of a Tampa Florida GA airport just yesterday and it was full of SI generated moving Cessnas, Pipers, Diamonds and what have you and I only had the Ga slider to 6 out of 11 I believe. Add to that you can setup even more parking spots and it will add more traffic, to an insane level if that is what ones wants. To me the time of static planes is gone and I will not spend a dime on one where its not optional

Chris. I feel the same about static GA as you do about static commercial. I guess it depends on in what area of the airport we usually frequent perhaps and what type of airports. If you fly mostly commercial jets you might not visit the GA apron all that often and it might not matter. I on the other hand spend all my time there as the Cows DA40/42 are my beasts of choise and I want my GA to be as realistic as possible.

You do know that you can use community created profiles for airports in SI. Often times someone has already created a profile for an airport known to have a lot of static airplanes. All you have to do is go in to Taxi Tuner 4 and activate that profile instead of the default, one click. One good example is the profile for Palomar from Dreamflight. With it activated static aircraft and SI can coexist. Also I dont understand your argument that "they are there forever" as that would be a good thing. Sometimes less is more. In fact this logic in my opinion actually the whole problem, they are there and they are phoney. But I wont continue this argument. As I wrote in my initial post your work you decide and I fully respect that. I can just disagree.

Vincent. If you absolutely must keep the static aircraft in your (otherwise very nice) airports you can always Taxi Tune them yourself to remove SI sports where your static aircraft are parked to avoid any conflict with SI. That is what I have done personally for your airports. static + SI however makes the airport look way overcrowded. Speaking of SI it now adds so much GA traffic so with it I can absolutely not see any need for static planes. With that said of course not everyone is a SI user

Drzewiecki is one of the developers who actually provide an option. I have all his Seattle addons. Good stuff

Hi fellow simmers! When I started out with Microsoft Flight Simulator around 1988 at 12 years of age, I believe then it was called Flight Simulator 3 if memory serves me and what a joy it was to start a flight from then Meigs Field to Chicago O'hare or Midway. One had to really imagine and pretend much of what we take for granted today: GSX with passengers, other moving aircraft in your area and ATC. Much of these features of course still not perfect even today as we all know. I believe it was in 2002 with the introduction of MSFS 2002 that AI traffic was first introduced. What a joy seeing other moving traffic around you taking off, land and fly routes. Being a bit of a perfectionist I dont know how many countless hours I spent to make default AI traffic at my frequently used airports just right. You see, back then there was a free tool for it called AIFP by Don Grovestine (RIP) where you could alter AI routes, callsigns etc. Very fun indeed, and what a reward sitting on the ramp seeing the end result! Sometimes even more so than actually flying I hate to admit 🙂 It was around this time, give or take an few years that I began to question the need for the static aircraft from airport developers. To me it really started to feel like a dinosaur, something that was left from a time when we did not have anything better. I started to ask airport developers "hey I would gladly purchase your lovely airfield but can you please make that annoying static aircraft optional first". A few said yes especially when hearing I was not alone, others said absolutely not. My airport my choice! I could not argue with that logic of course but only with my wallet. Jump forward to the day of Vatsim, IVAO, FSLTL, AIG, Say Intentions and BeyondATC. To me now it started to make even less sense for static "phony" aircraft just sitting there often taking valuable ramp space. By the time I noticed even more voices on forums and such for options to disable, or at least make these static aircraft optional and some developers listened. Today some airports have either a control panel where it can be deselected or at least a static aircraft file in the scenery folder that can be deactivated. In conclusion. I ultimately understand that it is up to the airport developer to add whatever they want to their airport and its up to me to either like it or not. My question now in 2026 however is why not try to introduce a new standard in both payware and freeware. Why not let the user have a choice. New standards come (and go) all the time, one major one of course being airport interiors. To some ths has become such a crucial feature that its a Go or No go and airport developers had to listen. I write this because I know many others share my view as well and I have seen endless discussions on forums over the years with very nice user suggestions trying to help fellow simmers (more power to all these helpful people). Often something along the line of "it might just work to do some modifications in the SDK", exclusion rectangles and what have you... oh and yeah it might just break something else in th process. Well the intention is good and the will to help absolutely admirable but lets face it. Why should it have to be so complicated. Make static aircraft optional!

Yes exactly that. It actually stretches on and off all the way south to you KTRM airport. Bit of an immersion killer to be honest.

Is anyone else seeing part of the Palm Springs mountain range just south of the Palm Springs airport look odd compared to the surroundings with photogrametry turned on. I believe this happened after city update 13. Too see it just go to free flight and zoom down to KPSP and check the mountain. Like a bleed through with different colors. Some other people on the official flightsimulator forum confirmed this as well but if everyone sees it perhaps we should let MS/Asobo kniw.

I had no idea there was a payware KTOA for MSFS. Spinoza might not be my favorite developer but way, way better than default. Socal is slowly getting covered with quality airports. Now if only Mr vbazzilio can come to his darn senses and delete all that static aircraft from his airports 🤣

I have seen this too and agree about tje Caravans. Since I use SayIntentions for injecting all AI traffic both commercial and GA i thought first it was a SI thing, but apparently not then.

I found rather much success with SI actually for VFR. Even entry and exit waypoints in and out of control zones in Europe just like in real life. In US you are asked to pen down a number if you accidently fly into class Bravo airspace without a clearance. Adds a lot of VFR AI traffic as well. Is it perfect? absolutely not. I have been waiting as well almost 40 years with this hobby for a good ATC and too me for now SI is the closest it will get. Hate the monthly fee concept but until BeyondATC adds VFR this is the route I will go.

Chris have you tried the free Map Enhancement tool to replace Bing with ArcGis, Google or even Apple maps can be used for a small fee. It was some time since i did fly in south UK but one of them maps provided a very good result.

So I am in the market for a touch screen so I can use air manager to simulate the MCDU in the FSS ERJ. 30 years with MSFS flying GA I figure its time to enjoy some commercial flying 😀. My question is what size touch screen would be realistic for a MCDU. 8 inch perhaps or bigger? Will also buy a 16 or 18 for the ERJ overhead panel but thats a different story. Thank you so much for any advise. Mike