AI Aircraft and A no good ATC

Hah, what a timely post Jim. Coincidentally I've been testing my latest ATC experiment after just swinging back to the default ATC of FSX. Like every other addon for our antiquated friend FSX, the various ATC addons I've tried all have their pros and cons.

My latest test was on Pro-ATC/X, but I've returned to one of my favorites (VoxATC). I've even tried Vatsim, but failed my attempt at a radio check and never looked back. I even tried ATC training on Vatsim, but that became too difficult to pick up training and advance at a reasonable speed (they make it almost impossible to get certified - at least at ZMP). With a death in my family and that crippling Cryptowall Virus hitting my computer at the same time, by the time I got back on my feet I never reinstalled the ATC stuff and picked up with that training.

So...that left me with the various ATC addons:

FSX default
RC4
VoxATC
Pro-ATC/x

These are the ones that I've tested anyway. I know there are a few other ones out there so, for those with experience (or other input) feel free to weigh in.

RC4 was a close second to VoxATC (although I don't recall if RC4 can vector you around mountains. Unfortunately VoxATC won't so you have to make sure you use STARS and SIDs to avoid approach control's default vectors.

The best part of VoxATC is it's voice recognition and you use your headset and mic and your own voice to communicate with it.

RC4 has more robotic sounding voices, but I like the FISDO guy who takes your license if you violate too many rules - yep, it gives you a performance review after your flight. It really gets on you if you don't immediately comply with your controller instruction where others will keep repeating the instruction to you until you comply.

Pro-atc has a problem identifying the waypoint you pass and sometimes you have to direct to next wp to prevent doing a circle to catch one that Pro-atc should have recognized. Also - it's a bit more complicated and complex than it needs to be, and rather than so many bells and whistles they might have just worked on the basics until that worked flawlessly.

Now what we need is a dedicated ATC trainer (like Chirs Palmer does for flying with his Aviator-Pro). I'd gladly consider paying for hands-on training if it might get me certified to be an Vatsim ATC or even a better pilot for flying Vatsim.

I've really enjoyed VoxAtc, but still haven't got the STAR thing working exactly right. I need to read up more on it and figure out what I might be doing wrong, as it jumps to different sids and stars than what I had in my flight plan.

Another word on Pro-Atc, it needs parking place at your starting airport for a flight plan to be entered. Unfortunately the newest Orbx PAKT airport has no parking place due to the elevation difference between the parking area and the runways (another limitation with FSX that bleeds over to some of the addons).

Also - I ran out of memory using Pro-ATC and flying into LAX with Ultimate Traffic-2. I blame part of this perhaps on having too high of traffic settings for such a busy airport, but still - I think Pro-ATC was gobbling up a lot of resource to make that happen (and I have a pretty robust system).

FSX should stop you from colliding with ground vehicles and other aircraft (I thought) so it's interesting that you were overrun by a speeding beaver.

My votes are for RC4 - and for those with good mics and headsets, and willing to spend some time doing a little prep for the program, VoxATC, which remains my current favorite.

John

Nope...Don't know anything about it.

John