Can AI Hold Up? BeyondATC & SayIntentions.AI vs VATSIM | MSFS2020

[@BastiSimming]

NEXT VIDEO: for an intriguing sound add-on for MSFS 2020: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZ28dmltZpKoY9U

[@Stoney3K]

One thing I can see in advantage of AI ATC is pretty simple: On VATSIM there's always a chance that controllers go offline or airports don't have a controller once you approach them. I fly regional airports frequently, which tend to have this problem because controllers tend to gravitate to large international hubs.

[@BastiSimming]

Yes, you are absolutely right. Additionally using time acceleration (as I said in the video) is another use case I see for "AI ATC".

[@Isythos]

It would be pretty great if they combined this sort of AI control tower with vatsim to cover empty areas.

[@guiduz3469]

Totally agree

[@Stwutter1973]

Thanks for this. Just FYI - BATC has trouble with 'niner'. 'Nine' always works. Not ideal, but better than constantly repeating yourself and then hitting the auto response.

[@BastiSimming]

Thank you! It was already mentioned here in the comments that this is currently the case...very unfortunate. I will try using "nine" instead of "niner" in my next flight. Thanks for watching and sharing!

[@TBMPilot736]

Yeah, same frustrating issues with handover frequencies and not understanding taxi readbacks. Also really annoying is the lack of prompt assignments to ramps or gates at the arrival airport. BATC please improve the UI.

[@imsvale]

I get the feeling SayIntentions doesn't care if you say things correctly, which means it also won't pick up on incorrect readbacks, whereas BeyondATC is very particular, but needs very specific phrasing. SayIntentions ends up feeling more streamlined because it gives you the illusion it just hears you correctly the first time, whereas BeyondATC is very frustrating when it gets stuck like it often does. I only have the latter myself, and it definitely needs more maturing to get rid of these points of frustration, bizarre instructions etc. Would be interesting to test SayIntentions just saying everything wrong to see how much it actually listens, and how much it simply injects what it expects. If I'm wrong and it actually verifies everything, then I am impressed.

[@BastiSimming]

Yeah I agree with all you said. Will be extremely interesting to see how the two tools will learn from each other because I think they both do stuff very right and also not that right :D

[@LokiDWolf]

I too have BATC and yeah, it got frustrating enough that I would have to sometimes hit the auto-reply just to get pass the call. Yet, I do find it way more realistic. I personally don't care if something answers me about this or that (though I do think it's cool). I'm more so about really learning the rights and wrongs. I really like BATC shows you on the screen how things are said. It's been extremely useful.

[@christiankoke7969]

I had the same issue with SayIntentions. Even if I clearly repeated frequencies wrong it didn't object to it. But according to the devs that is intentional for the time being and corrections by the Atc will be turned on soon

[@ifr-ed]

We verify, but we dont enforce (yet). You can say a waffle recipe and it will not try to correct your amount of flour... :)

[@imsvale]

@@ifr-ed Noted! I expect if you were to turn it on right now, the experience would be more similar to BATC. ;)

[@Rhinozherous]

Thank you very much for this comparison! I am sure it was a lot of work! I like your style, subbed!

[@BastiSimming]

Thanks a ton! It was some work but it really was fun preparing.

[@brandonchappell1535]

i recently got BATC, an while its often updated, the few flights ive done, it can get a bit confused vectoring, ive had it bring me in high/late a few times too. Still worth the money, and it is EA, so im not worried, the dev has a really good approach, very transparent (actually why i went with BATC), and much better than stock atc(which i persevered with for over 3000 hours). Can anyone tell me, IRL, would you tell the controller your ready to decend, or is this a limitation of a 3rd party software in sim?

[@BastiSimming]

Interesting, thanks for sharing! I have the feeling that there is a lot to explore in the area where something is not following the planned flow (detecting this is difficult but handling it gracefully is even harder)

[@adifferentone-b9f]

@@brandonchappell1535 EA? What do you mean by EA? The developers are like the company Electronic Arts or something?

[@brandonchappell1535]

@@adifferentone-b9f No, the products in Early Access, EA. Reading it back i can see why u thought that though haha

[@channelwhywhywhy]

Firstly brilliant video! Thank you. I wonder if BeyondATC has an issue with accents?

[@channelwhywhywhy]

Also I've subbed! Keep the content coming!

[@BastiSimming]

Thank you so much! And regarding your question about accents: yeah, that could very well be. Hard for me to test 😂

[@ThomasGrillo]

Thanks for this comparative look at the three types of ATC available to simmers. :)

[@BastiSimming]

You are welcome! I plan a review in 6 month or so to see how the apps develop

[@belableier]

While both AI-based air control systems are good, I really like VATSIM! However, as a newbie, it can be quite stressful the first time if you mess something up. I’ve never tried VATSIM before, and my only hesitation is because I’m still learning the whole ATC procedure.

[@BastiSimming]

@@belableier you can‘t imagine how nervous I was before my first VATSIM flight. I think I needed a shower afterwards 😂 But it gets easier extremely quickly and you will realize that in almost all situations it is okay to ask (even more than once) to clarify things. The only time a controller got a little firm with me was during an VATSIM event where I didn’t vacate the runway quickly enough but still he was very professional.

[@belableier]

@@BastiSimming Thanks Mate! Would you recommend Vatsim for newbie then? Or should I I go one these AI based ones?

[@BastiSimming]

@@belableier oh I definitely would recommend VATSIM. I would suggest picking an airport and airspace were you feel most comfortable and watch a couple of YT videos with complete flights with VATSIM communication. And also make sure you know your airplane including doing directs and go arounds. SAI and BATC are great tools to prepare for VATSIM but I would not say that they are necessary. Another idea: you can log onto the VATSIM network as an observer and just listen. Also a great way to get to grips with all the processes.

[@belableier]

@@BastiSimming Thank you! You have your well deserved sub here! Keep up the good work! 👍🏻

[@jakew9887]

Excellent presentation. Thanks

[@BastiSimming]

You are welcome! 👋

[@MegaPeedee]

A good comparison. Beyond ATC has to ger rid of that blip and go to using a static sound before I would purchase it. It drives me up the wall listening to that (I hate it in my search engine but at least there I know I can turn it off).

[@BastiSimming]

I am note quite sure but I think you can disable the blip in the settings?

[@o.s.racing]

Really good and fair comparison, probably one of best I've seen. I purchased the supporters pack of BeyondATC and had the same issue of getting it to understand me as well as doing some really weird things on approach to some airports that got me completely lost. That said I think it's a great program indeed. I haven't tried SayIntentions. I'm tempted especially with the price drop and want to fly VFR again which I mostly do, but, and this is only based on me, I don't really fly enough to warrant the monthly fee. I think if you fly enough it would be well worth it though, so it just depends on what you do. I also find SayIntentions comparison page VERY misleading which puts me off them as al business. I would encourage them to focus on a meaningful comparison about the benefits rather than crappy statements like "If your ATC software is a one-time fee, it's not AI". Focus on the benefits in flight such as more natural conversation and ability to go "off piste" and get people back, supporting flight plan changes etc

[@BastiSimming]

Thank you and I'm glad you liked the video. It was fun to make. It is interesting that you mention the homepage of SAI...I agree with your statement about the comparison table on the SAI homepage. I also found it a little strange. I was thinking about putting that into the video, at the end I decided against it since I wanted to focus on the capabilities of the programs. I just checked the SAI homepage and I could not find the table so maybe it is gone?

[@o.s.racing]

@@BastiSimming Its on the pricing page still. I think it's fair enough not to mention it here it doesn't impact the program at all. I just read it and thought it a little unnecessary and some items just untrue which is a bit naughty. I imagine most people into flight sims enough to want to look at these products will be aware of what each do and their shortcomings, but if you were looking at the comparison as someone that had genuinely not seen either you'd be very mislead. It's just unnecessary sloppy marketing

[@ifr-ed]

@@o.s.racing What exactly is untrue?

[@SayIntentionsAI]

​@@o.s.racing please let us know what you find to be untrue and we'll correct it! We are in the midst of changing the website a bunch in preparation for new feature releases. Check back soon to see if it's more to your liking 👍

[@o.s.racing]

@@SayIntentionsAI I appreciate that. I think a refresh of the website would look great! As I say I think you have a great product and I think the price for the advanced features you have is on the money, I just don't get much chance to fly enough to utilise it at the moment. My best advice would be to focus on the amazing things your product does rather than bash other solutions. Some people don't need the most advanced LLM and that's ok, yours sits between those that are have a more limited set of responses and the full VATSIM network, its a great spot to be in!

[@pedroskipr]

Beyond ATC experience is spot on. Exactly what I deal with

[@BastiSimming]

There is definitely some work to be done 😂

[@TheGreatLordDufus]

I was hoping that BATC issue with requiring such exact responses was sorted (or at least better) by now. Will hold off on buying still. Its definitely the better option for my budget, I'm just not that heavily into flight sims to justify the cost of SI. I'm sure SI will be the better option for others who fly more. Particularly when doing flights with no vatsim, or similar, coverage at the time. There certainly should be room for both in the market.

[@BastiSimming]

I think your analysis is spot on. They both have different advantages and also disadvantages and they both give a lot of value to the users. I myself fly a lot with the the PMDG 777 and using time acceleration (I really do not want to sit 11h in front of the computer to fly from Reunion to Paris 😂) and find myself turning on BATC almost automatically when starting a new flight because it is „good enough“ and gives „enough value“ (as I said in the video I am using BATC because I have the premium characters left).

[@jay-rus4437]

I wouldnt mind Vatsim, but had a bad experience on there with a controller. Also its very hit and miss where coverage is available.

[@BastiSimming]

I would give VATSIM another chance…you can have bad luck but at least in Europe (I never left Europe on VATSIM so I am not able to speak to other parts of the VATSIM world) the controllers all in all are very nice. Where has your bad experience been?

[@jay-rus4437]

@@BastiSimming …. First time on vatsim some young controller in boston had a bad attitude. I even typed that it was my first time on, but he was a jerk. Im very analytical, with an engineering and real life flight experience, but I didnt understand how to get my clearance within the system. He wouldnt give it to me verbally, then got an attitude when I asked where to get it from

[@jeroenrutgers-herenius9541]

​@@jay-rus4437don't give up. The majority of controllers and pilots are friendly and helpfull

[@jay-rus4437]

@@jeroenrutgers-herenius9541….well, I mainly fly using A Pilots Life 2, so I have really enjoyed Say Intention as I have full ATC service where my weekly schedule sends me

[@AbsintheBabe]

But does it handle exiting from controlled airspace? A majority of airspace in northern Western Australia is uncontrolled below FL180 or FL245, yet is still heavily used by commercial and charter aviation for mining work. ATC will generally clear aircraft to "leave controlled airspace descending" and after landing pilots are required to contact ATC once grounded to "cancel SARWATCH" (Search and Rescue in case of no contact). After departure from aerodromes uncontrolled airspace pilots need to provide a position report detailing takeoff time, present tracking and estimated time at their next waypoint. Can these kinds of programs handle it? How do they handle regional variations in ATC procedures?

[@BastiSimming]

To be brutally honest: I don‘t know. From what I‘ve heard SAI handles VFR flights in the USA (!!) well but I never tried. Inwould recommend going to the developers discord and just ask. They are responsive!

[@xraycharli]

very good job :-) thank you for your effort. That really give me a picture about it. Well done.

[@BastiSimming]

Happy if the video helped, it was really fun to make.

[@paulwain4248]

Great video and comparison. I’m defo going to give Sayintentions a go and see how I go with it. Currently using BATC so gonna compare the both. Happy to pay for a subscription if it’s better.

[@BastiSimming]

Thanks and I would be very interested in your thoughts of SAI and BATC after you compared them!

[@bradclooney69]

2028 we might have a functioning ATC with live AI traffic

[@BastiSimming]

Well at least we would have it at some point, right?

[@Boradumir]

Since BATC and sayintension don't support traffic injection (yet) I will stay with FSHUD and FSLTL in combination. The voices are not as sexy and I don't use push to talk, but it works, and the injected traffic is pretty nice. Downside... FSLTL uses fr24 data, if the airport is empty in real life it's empty in the sim. If the AI programs evolve, I would go for BATC, since a monthly subscription is a no go to me.

[@BastiSimming]

Thanks for sharing! I think BATC announced that they use FR24 data but do something „clever“ so that you will not sit alone on an airport. That’s at least what I took away from some videos and posts.

[@Boradumir]

@@BastiSimming BATC said, that they will use real word flightplans depending on the day and time. So one would get traffic in relation to the time set in the sim. I like the concept, since you could fly on the other side of the globe and could get realistic traffic. Not like me sitting in Europe, using FSLTL in New Zealand and getting no traffic... because everyone is sleeping over there. 😂🤣

[@beniman292]

I liked the regional accents of sayagain and that it actually welcomed you to Berlin. Beyond felt like you were being yelled at by Americans that didn't understand your accent 😅

[@BastiSimming]

You are totally right, I missed that detail. Nice work by SayIntentions.AI.

[@1212trider]

very nice, only think the IA does not recognise the word "niner" for nine, it should be correct and it will be perfect

[@BastiSimming]

Jap, I agree (but it's unfortunate that "niner" is nit recognised as it is standard phraseology)

[@warnerhsieh2649]

good content! very informative

[@BastiSimming]

Thanks, glad if it helps!

[@adifferentone-b9f]

I retract my last statement. I'm very sorry about that. I didn't realize that you can keep BATC forever, it's not a subscription. Sorry again, in fact I am saving up for it.

[@BastiSimming]

Have fun with BATC!

[@adifferentone-b9f]

@@BastiSimming I hope it isn't too complicated to set up like Pilot2ATC. Oh well, just as long as I can talk to AI that sounds like real people 😅

[@hoojikee]

sehr gut

[@ilarikousa1500]

What is the thing with squawk 1000? Germany local procedure?

[@BastiSimming]

As far as I know it is a procedure not only local to Germany but to parts of Europe. It means the ground stations will use the (unique) identifier of an MODE-S transponder to identify the plane.

[@EthanolEnthusiast]

EU

[@AnthonyRobson-tl6zs]

had the same issue get computer to say it

[@BastiSimming]

Thanks for sharing. Yeah, it is really annoying…

[@jayhamm34]

Are these virtual or are you actually talking to real people? Thanks, I am looking for an integration where I am not actually talking to real people.

[@BastiSimming]

VATSIM are real people while the rest sie AI generated

[@TheMicj38]

BeyondATC doesn't like you saying "niner" even though it uses that pronunciation itself. "nine" works fine though. Its a well known bug they are working on

[@BastiSimming]

Good to know, thanks. If it is indeed well known I wish even more that there would be some kind of fallback mechanism to be honest. Looking forward to the fix 👍

[@rotorfib8719]

Nice comparison! Im surprised there are not more videos including FSHud. It does at least as good as these and includes traffic. Just no voice recognition 😕 so I just pretend my PNF is doing all the coms.

[@BastiSimming]

I think you are the second person to mention FSHud, maybe I will post another video and see how it compares to the tools shown here. Thanks!

[@FTStratLP]

Beyond ATC is not really AI. They are using canned phrases like default ATC does. Say Intensions is real AI though.

[@BastiSimming]

What do you define as „Real AI“?

[@Parascuba]

all done by voice no text?

[@BastiSimming]

As far as I know you can use direct text entry on SayIntentions.AI and on VATSIM and you can use the responses from the list in the lower right corner in BeyondATC…but to be honest: text is very cumbersome in my experience

[@Parascuba]

@@BastiSimming good to know about text, i'm 100% deaf

[@BastiSimming]

@@Parascuba Understood, than of course text input is very important. I think that Beyond ATC is best than because you just have to scroll and click. One important thing to know is that you can activate auto response (I think in both tools) which is kind of realistic if you are in a 2 Person Cockpit.

[@BastiSimming]

@@Parascuba Would you be willing to talk / text about FlightSim's and how they handle accessibility from your perspective? I would be very interested in exploring this topic. You can reach me via the mail here [e-mail], I would really appreciate it.

[@StigBSivertsen]

I found B-ATC to be crap!

[@BastiSimming]

That's too bad that your experience is so bad. As you can see in the video I find that BATC has its strong points and its weak points.

[@flightvision]

The AI products make clear errors and are just plain annoying in my opinion. Thank you for the comparison!

[@BastiSimming]

You are welcome, I am glad if the video helps!

[@andybeer4476]

"Niner" versteht Beyond ATC nicht, muss "Nine" sein, dann geht es

[@BastiSimming]

Werde ich mal ausprobieren, danke

[@ifr-ed]

Falls Du Interesse an etwas tiefgehenderen Informationen zu SI haben möchtest, sprich mich gerne auf den offiziellen Kanälen an. Speziell das Thema Taxi Instructions würde mich bei Dir wirklich mal interessieren, das kann eigentlich so nicht sein :)

[@BastiSimming]

@@ifr-ed Ja klar, gern. Wie erreiche ich dich denn im Discord am besten?

[@ifr-ed]

@@BastiSimming Hast es ja geschafft und Kollege McCracken hat Dich ja schon unter seine Fittiche genommen :)

[@briand9446]

Beyond ATC voice recognition has been much better than that, but in the last three weeks it has gotten much worse. I'm sure it will be fixed. I have both and with SayIntentions price reduction and the fact that you do not feel alone because of the multiplayer I would choose SayIntentions right now. The monthly payment could be a deal breaker for some. Beyond Atc is good and has alot of promise but it feels a little narrow in what you can say which is fine most times until something does not go as planned. SayIntentions deals with things that do not follow the script much better.

[@BastiSimming]

That is very interesting and also a little sad to hear that there is a regression in the quality of BATC voice recognition…would be interesting to know how that happened….thanks for sharing!

[@Atlasworkinprogress]

​@@BastiSimming BeyondATC switched to a new AI model and they are working on getting it up to the quality of the old AI model. When the new model works, it's fantastic. They moved from a general LLM to one focused on Aviation phraseology.

[@BastiSimming]

@@Atlasworkinprogress Interesting, thanks for sharing! Are you sure it‘s an LLM? Because I remember that somewhere on the page BATC said they do not use an LLM (because of the associated costs). Nevertheless I hope they fix it soon. I am using up my Premium Credits (currently on route to LFPG coming from FMEE) and it would be nice to not have to rely on the generated response so frequently…

[@Atlasworkinprogress]

@@BastiSimming You are correct. I misread the notes. They replaced their entire Voice Recognition backend. Here is the patch notes: Minor Update 1.0.48.EA - Started replacement of our entire speech recognition backend service. This is an ongoing effort to replace our current AI model with a custom trained AI model that uses a massive dataset of 'pilot speak' to achieve better speech recognition. You should notice a improvement immediately, and it should only continue to improve over the coming weeks/months as we feed it more data. ---- Though as they quickly found out it was not the immediate improvement the devs thought it would be. (User feedback was very quick to tell them it was wonky, to say the least). I said LLM as that is generally what I think of when things of generative AI.

[@sky173]

Great video, but I'll stick with VATSIM. :)

[@BastiSimming]

Thanks for watching! I also will stick with ihr VATSIM for all realtime flights 👍

[@ColinDyckes]

It'll be BeyondATC for me but not until traffic injection and VFR are available. They also need to accept the correct phonetic pronunciation for numbers. From other videos it seems that American ATC use the correct pronunciation (zero, wun, too, tree, fower, fife....niner) but American pilots have never been taught it.

[@BastiSimming]

Hmm yeah maybe albeit other comments suggest that BeyondATC has been better in recognizing „niners“ in the past…hope it will get fixed soon.

[@jay-rus4437]

All the beeps and tones with BATC is annoying. I switched to SI some weeks back, and much prefer it. They have also reduced cost to $20 per month

[@BastiSimming]

Ah interesting, I have the complete opposite view. I find the audio cues helpful but it seems this comes down to personal preference. And yes, SAI reduced the cost (I only cited the new price of 20USD in the video).

[@mlx39996]

you can turn off the beeps and tones!

[@jay-rus4437]

@@mlx39996….nice. Didnt know that. Also interesting to hear that others seem to like them.

[@Wild_Duck19]

The atc says negative because you saying "one two one nye nine eight" and he think you said 121.998!

[@BastiSimming]

When exactly do I say that you think?

[@Wild_Duck19]

Hello! At 5:18

[@BastiSimming]

@@Wild_Duck19 Hmm as far as I hear it I say exactly the same thing as BATC („one two one decimal niner eight“). As others said BATC seems to not not like „niner“ currently which is of course wrong since it is standard phrasing.