X-Plane 11.30 ATC

X-Plane 11.30 has a revised ATC voice system that is more flexible than ever before. This video goes through the steps to set up a flight plan and contact ATC for clearance & taxi instructions.

Transcript below:

Hello there, this is Jennifer Roberts with a tutorial on using X-Plane 11. Today we’ll take a look at ATC, including the changes coming in the X-Plane 11.30 update. This video was recorded using a preview copy of X-Plane 11.30b1.

First let’s take a look at the Air Traffic Control settings: you can have text, verbal, or both types of ATC messages depending on what you enable here. By default, ATC text & verbal messages should be enabled.

I’ve started a flight at the demo airport Seattle-Tacoma (KSEA). I’m on a GA ramp with our default C172. We’ll walk through the steps on setting up a flight plan and contacting ATC for
clearance & taxi instructions.

To get started, press the return or enter key to bring up the ATC screen. Note that if you hit the enter key and you get a box like this

It is a chat box and means you have multiplayer enabled. Turn it off in network settings to get ATC back.

Press the button “file flight plan” to specify the info about your flight. X-Plane 11.30 has a revised ATC voice system that is much more flexible than ever before. This also means there are a few new fields in this window.

The Aircraft Identification box will list our C172’s tail number by default, but you can change this if you wish. Pick the aircraft manufacturer and model from the drop downs--these are new fields that ATC will use to identify your aircraft when they talk with you.

You can specify the airline and flight number if you wish, but I will leave them empty as they’re not required for our purposes now. The Departure ICAO is filled in for us with our current location, so we’ll fill in our destination airport, which is going to be the nearby Boeing Field (KBFI). I’ll fill in my enroute altitude as 3000. I’m going to leave the route blank because we want to go direct, but you could also enter any NDB/VOR/FIX/Airway to get real routings.

I’m going to go ahead and check the “auto-tune recommended frequencies” box. When combined with the departure wizard which is enabled by default, it makes the ATC process straightforward and easy to use. You can always tune your radios by hand or by double clicking on a line in the ATC window if you prefer.

Let’s “Request altimeter”. Now we need to read back the transmission--note that when I press the “readback transmission” button while ATC is talking I hear a beep--this indicates the line is in use and I have to wait and try again. You can also use the “repeat last transmission” button if you need to hear ATC’s instructions again.

Now we can “request clearance” and read back those instructions. The auto-tune option has already switched our COM 1 freq for us, so we can also request taxi now as well. Acknowledge the clearance as before and then look around you. You’ll see yellow arrows painted on the ground directing you to where you should go. Where the arrows stop, you must also stop and wait for further instructions.

Taxi to where the arrows are taking you. When you reach the side of the runway, ground will instruct you to contact the tower, and autotune the tower freq once you respond.

Check in with this new controller. This is how you tell the controller you’re now on their frequency waiting for their command. If there are AI aircraft using the runway, you will have to wait until they are done. This may take some time! At that time, Tower will call you and give you your takeoff clearance. Respond and then depart. Unless otherwise instructed, fly the runway heading up to your cleared altitude of 3,000 feet.

Once you’re in the air you’ll have additional options to cancel your flight plan and to request missed approach.

At some point, you will be handed off to the center controller on 124.20. Check in as you did before. Continue on your heading and altitude and eventually Center will begin vectoring you to an approach at your destination of KBFI.

Once the approach is set up, you will be handed off to KBFI’s tower for landing and the process continues until you’ve arrived back at the gate.

Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time!

[matthewmcgee]

I appreciate the effort to improve ATC. However, I must admit to being extremely underwhelmed. The robotic voice and the painfully slow tempo are just embarrassing for 2018.

[patrickmusson]

Jennifer Roberts, how refreshing it is to hear a female voice in a flight-sim video in a virtual world mostly populated by male simmers. I hope that in the future more women take up this excellent hobby. Thank you for an excellent tutorial. I have just taken the plunge and bought X-Plane having flown mostly FSX and other MS sims since the 80s. Well done and well presented, this video is. I hope you do more videos to get XP newbies like myself a leg-up understanding the workings of this great looking simulator.

[jagjet]

Rather than bitch about a good faith attempt to make a product better, I would like to single out Jennifer Roberts who always tries to give us helpful tips. As a 30 plus year veteran of the National Aerospace System, I can tell you there is still a lot to do but, without paying for limited coverage areas with sometimes well meaning controllers, this ain't bad.

Jennifer, sometime back I called Randy on the non 800 number to ask for some help. Today you solved my problem in the first 2 minutes of the video. Due to a menu issue I inadvertently selected multi player and had that Chat dialog box. When I described the condition to Randy he said I had broke the ATC system and that was my problem. I thought he would know the problem but he responded, I had done this and he couldn't help.

Thanks so much for your video today and keep up the good work and pleasant way you deal with all of us Sim breakers, we really don't do these things on purpose.

Robert Phelps
Captain CE-500, 525(s), 650, 750, IAI 1125, CL 60 and about 400 other great toys...

[Xenthera]

Laminar, please don't take these comments as us talking trash about ATC. Have one of your software developers take notes of what people are saying in the comments and create a to-do list of things that the people want improved. A company earns my complete respect when they listen to the consumer.

[tonycheng]

When X-Plane 12 comes out, I hope the ATC doesn’t direct you to the mountain and I hope there is a departure and approach frequency

[flacwby]

I haven't played in about a year and a half and this ATC update is much better than it used to be.

[spy]

Laminar, with respect, this is 2018.
MS Flight simulator had better sounding atc voices years & years ago. I think you spend far too much time & resources on VR. Make your weather environment & atc better & you’ll have the best flight sim on the market.

[vcentral]

1. There is no tower control when I just want to fly touch-and-go.
2. Voice is synthesize which presents no life
3. ATC vector as of 11.2x still horrible, I will never get to my destination safely.

[Dearestandme]

FSX in the ATC voice department was ahead of its time. I hope x-plane will catch up someday. I refuse to use the ATC in X-plane until the voices are realistic. Now if only Jennifer's voice was part of ATC....

[planesplanes]

This aviation nut is so grateful to have x-plane. Wonderful hobby. Thank you Laminar.

[ronaldm]

Other than the addition of a couple of fields to select the aircraft brand and model, this video does not show anything new about ATC.For instance, have they gotten rid of the annoying requests to change heading, then to resume own navigation, all through any flight?Does ATC still steer you into mountains?Does it still tell you to maintain flight level 340 when you are right above the destination airport?That's the kind of info I was looking for, about this upcoming release; not how to use ATC, which everybody already knows.

[jefar]

Xplane ATC vectoring planes into mountains is our motto lol

[BruceR]

Gave the new ATC a spin yesterday. Much improved but was dumbfounded when I was told to REPORT THE FIELD IN SIGHT while flying in IMC. They had me flying at 2000ft and the field was 700 overcast.

[PEPcessna]

What if you want to do a VFR departure or flight will you still be able to talk to atc without having to file a flight plan?

[ksmith]

Jennifer: Beautiful voice, clear articulation, nicely modulated.

[bcourter]

Wow. It’s still terrible. FSX was light years ahead of this over 10 years ago.

[TheAntorian]

X-Plane 11 needs to add VFR ATC. As a student pilot its disappointing to see that this feature isn't in the program. Once I learn IFR perhaps I'll appreciate this more but for now I'm left wanting. It would also be great to use the ATC without having to file a flight plan.

[Driver]

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t see any differences. You still can’t fly vfr, request altitude change, or many of the basics.

The only difference in the voices is it sounds like the computer talking back was in a busy bar.

Fsx had a great system more than 10 years ago. There has to be someone out there with experience in that field that can help. X-plane is years above when it comes to realism, but decades behind in atc.

[jeffreyreicher]

Your videos are excellent. I have recently installed X-Plane because of all the good things I’ve heard and read about it. I’ve flown fsx for over 25 years. In comparison X-Plane could improve on it’s flight school. As I said your videos are excellent but having a much better flight school in the X-Plane program is much better than watching a video. If not for my prior sim flight training in fsx, X-Plane would be rather frustrating to fly. As it is, I’m finding X-Plane a bit overwhelming. The atc voice in fsx is far superior in realism when compared to X-Plane. I hope in future updates it improves. Either way keep up with these great videos.

[AccOriginal]

in one of the past dev streams we got something more promised about how realistic the voice would be. it's definetly an improvement, but not what we got promised, so I'm a bit disappointed.