ATC Addons Revisited

Ok, It's been a while since I last discussed this, but I've long enjoyed the voice-recognition enhanced ATC Addon VoxATC as my ATC program of choice. This was primarily because it was relatively easy to use, but it had lots of bugs and operational issues with poor to non-existent support. Those problems continue to this day.

Well, I finally got around to looking into an alternative for my ATC program, and after researching those currently available updated to the latest technology, I settled on Pilot2ATC. I'm really sold on this ATC addon after about 5-days into the 10-day free trial period.

While I was going to give a demonstration video, I don't think I can do much better than the Tutorial page offered by the developer. I'll add the link to the bottom of this post.

Anyway, this addon comes with a pretty stiff price as addons go ($60.00 US), but remember that - unlike an expensive aircraft addon, this will likely get more use and not spend any time sitting in your hangar while you fly other aircraft.

Voice recognition and text-to-speech generation has advanced quite a bit, making Pilot2ATC a great addition to your simulation if you don't want to use Vatsim. In fact, I think that Pilot2ATC might be a great intermediate learning tool for going on to Vatsim.

I might note that, in addition to the $60 price tag, if you really want some good voices for your controllers, you will need to invest in some premium voices for your computer. This is especially true if you're using Windows 7 still, as I am. Windows 7 has only 1 default voice (Anna), and it's quite confusing to have her as your copilot and all the ATC controller voices at the same time. You can get about 3 other voices as free downloads from Microsoft, but they're quite robotic sounding. Still, they're better than just one voice, as it's easier to tell that you've been transferred to another controller - even if their voice is a bit robotic.

It's great fun being able to talk into your headset and have the controller voice respond though your earphones. Additionally, the map and flight planning part of Pilot2ATC makes taxiing to and from your gate much easier than trying to remember all those directions and following those confusing signs. It also ensures that the controller will properly guide you along your SIDs and STARs as necessary to ensure that you don't fly into the side of a mountain as some ATC addons will have you do.

Anyway, if you've been looking at possible ATC addons, I think this is worth a look - and it won't cost anything for a 10-day free trial.

<a title="pilot2atc.com/" href="/pilot2atc.com/" target="_blank">pilot2atc.com/
</a>

John

Hey Smitty,

Thanks for the update on Radar Contact. That was the one I used initially before switching to the Voice-activated VoxATC. Sorry to hear the developer stopped supporting. I don't understand why they don't find somebody else to take over their software to keep it going by making it open source. Yes - the voices for Pilot2ATC are very expensive! I finally paid 160 bucks for the text2speech package that comes with 5 of the Ivona voices included. That was still cheaper than the $45 per voice if you bought them individually. High price to pay for my ATC setup, but I really wanted the best voice-activated ATC addon I could get. With the 5 Ivona Voices and the 3 or 4 Microsoft voices including the default Anna, I have a nice variety of very good to moderate-sounding voices to spread across the various ATC positions.

One of the other drawbacks for Pilot2ATC is for those using a single screen with their simulator. The Pilot2ATC window takes up a lot of screen space, although it has a minimize feature to reduce it to a small information strip. I guess that once you get it up and running - and get familiar with the communication protocol, you can just keep it minimized and converse with it verbally like you would on Vatsim. I run 3 monitors with my simulator, so I have plenty of room to put the entire PIlot2ATC window up on my simulator while flying. Also - I might mention that, even with it's moving map and very busy interactive window, Pilot2ATC doesn't seem to have a noticeable hit on my framerates.

Many voices (the 32-bit ones I believe) won't work with Pilot2ATC. None of the voices I have working with VoxATC would work with Pilot2ATC. If they're aren't visible in your Windows Text-to-Speech area of the control panel, then Pilot2ATC won't find them either. I did note a forum thread on making changes in the registry that will allow some of the voices to work with Pilot2ATC, but I didn't explore that option.

I'm also reluctant to jump through too many hoops with changes or addons until I see this FS2020 release this year. I'm expecting that Pilot2ATC will work - or be modified to work with that simulator when it's finally released, and if I choose to go with that simulator.

Another issue with Pilot2ATC is that it has limited interaction with AI traffic. It can report it, but can't control it like VoxATC could. VoxATC had it's own AI traffic that it could control, but it was limited to the default non-real-world liveries and not the nice UTL addon stuff. I did find an interesting thread this morning though that Pete Dowson (FSUIPC Developer), who also appears to be a fan of Pilot2ATC, has added a Freeze option for AI planes while you're taking off or landing to prevent runway incursions with AI traffic, but it's only with P3d sims I believe. I'll have to give that a try on my system.

To see how Pilot2ATC handles a difficult approach - Munich to Innsbrook flight, watch the Pilot2ATC SayIt Tutorial on their Tutorial Page.

John