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FS2 Crew and Pro ATC

Started by Bob Cardone, Jun 01, 2015 15:08

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Bob Cardone (1336)

Wondering if anyone is using FS2 Crew and Pro ATC together. I like the AI chatter on Pro ATC and wondering if that interferes with FS 2 Crew audio control.

Chris Liu (1001)

#1
I use FS2Crew with VATSIM and I turn down FS2Crew's volume so I can hear ATC. I suppose you'd just do the reverse and turn up FS2Crew (although I am referring to the J41 version, I've forgotten how you adjust the FO volume on the Q400 edition).

Bob Cardone (1336)

Well I decided to buy it and install it, and try it on a flight, and after a few minutes I shut it down, but still have this ridiculous noise in back of the cockpit that sounds like theye are renovating the passenger section. Too many voice commands to learn. $30 mistake I'm afraid.  :o

Chris Liu (1001)

#3
FS2Crew voice has a steep learning curve but it is very immersive and rewarding once you've got the hang of it. The instruction manual can be bewildering but the tutorial is better.

I've got a crib/cheat sheet for FS2Crew Q400 at home, I'll upload it when I get a chance (I'll probably post it in the FS2Crew discounts area, so watch that space). It lists all the checklists and Captain/PF flows in order, along with other commands. Really makes things a lot easier! You will still need to read the manual/tutorial a bit to understand setting up and get the Pre-Flight events and briefing going.

It is important to make sure you've run a couple of voice training sessions in Windows to get reasonably speech recognition accuracy. I'm sure the volumes of all the sounds can be adjusted, I just can't remember where. Also make sure you've set the hard and soft mute keys up.

Bob Cardone (1336)

Quote from: Chris Liu on Jun 02, 2015 10:09
FS2Crew voice has a steep learning curve but it is very immersive and rewarding once you've got the hang of it. The instruction manual can be bewildering but the tutorial is better.

I've got a crib/cheat sheet for FS2Crew Q400 at home, I'll upload it when I get a chance (I'll probably post it in the FS2Crew discounts area, so watch that space). It lists all the checklists and Captain/PF flows in order, along with other commands. Really makes things a lot easier! You will still need to read the manual/tutorial a bit to understand setting up and get the Pre-Flight events and briefing going.

It is important to make sure you've run a couple of voice training sessions in Windows to get reasonably speech recognition accuracy. I'm sure the volumes of all the sounds can be adjusted, I just can't remember where. Also make sure you've set the hard and soft mute keys up.


I am not having any problem at all with the voice commands being interpreted by the program. I printed out the tutorial this morning and it is 15 solid pages of scripting in order to conduct a flight , where if you don't use the exact response that the Co Pilot is expecting, he stops responding. To me that is way to complicated and distracting while I am trying to fly the aircraft. I would think that a button controlled version of this program would be 100 times easier to learn and handle in flight.

Chris Liu (1001)

#5
The cheat sheet I've got is only 4 pages, and of those you only actually need 2 to fly. It can definitely be frustrating when the FO refuses to move on, but IIRC you can also say "check" to most of the items. The cheat sheet gives you all the responses in order, I'll try and upload it tonight, hopefully it'll help.

EDIT: The sheet is now available

Bob Cardone (1336)

Well I had some success today. I just skipped the 24 hour checks and used it from the before start flow to landing, and it worked pretty well.

Bob Cardone (1336)

#7
Quote from: Chris Liu on Jun 02, 2015 13:22
The cheat sheet I've got is only 4 pages, and of those you only actually need 2 to fly. It can definitely be frustrating when the FO refuses to move on, but IIRC you can also say "check" to most of the items. The cheat sheet gives you all the responses in order, I'll try and upload it tonight, hopefully it'll help. EDIT: The sheet is now available
Thanks, that's a big help.  I do have one question, On the Below the line checklist there is an item for the PF that says Ref Speeds Switch/bugs   and the reply is supposed to be " As Req'd / set -Cr  [ off set/ increase set]   What do the responses  off set/ or increase set actually mean? 

Chris Liu (1001)

#8
The "ref speeds switch" refers to a switch on the bottom left quarter of the overhead panel labelled "REF SPEEDS", which is set to INCR whenever the aircraft is in icing conditions. This adds 20 knots to the stall warning to account for some ice build-up (because Q400 uses leading edge deicing boots, which allow some ice accumulation before inflating to crack the ice and break it off. An unfortunate side effect is that the small ice build-up can increase the stall speed). Switch position is confirmed by a white "INCR REF SPEED" message at the bottom of the engine display.

"Ref speeds set" means that Vref and Vapp (or Vga) have been set on the speed tape bugs (the controls to set the bugs are just to the left of the speed tape). Remember you need to add 20 knots to your reference speeds if you expect icing conditions during the approach and must set the Ref Speeds switch to Incr before commencing the approach (the ref speeds table is in Majestic's documentation).

On the whole, icing procedures on the Q400 are a little odd, especially compared to jet liners that use hot exhaust gases to de-ice the wing's leading edge.

Bob Cardone (1336)

#9
Still having problems where all of a sudden FS2Crew just refuses to respond on the descent. I wish they had a version that was button controlled for the Q400.

Bob Cardone (1336)

#10
Did three more flights today, and finally gave up on this partially deaf  FS2Crew co-pilot. so on the third flight I fired him on the spot after he had screwed up several times again, and told him to go sit with the passengers and don't touch anything until we land.

Bob Cardone (1336)

#11
I think I finally got the co-pilot issue sorted out. I looked at the  Flight recorder log in the FS 2 Crew control panel and could see the mistakes that were made, for instance when I said "On" in the check list, it thought I said "arm". It also missed climb and "cruise" was interpreted as "cause" . I went into the dictionary in Windows speech recognition program and fixed these errors which was pretty simple and now it seems everything is working correctly.  Now testing it on Flight 528 from EGLC to LEBB.  It was a perfect flight with no co pilot problems at all :) :)

Chris Liu (1001)

#12
Glad to hear you've got everything sorted and FS2Crew is now working well. I had to dictionary train Windows so it could differentiate between "on" and "arm" in my accent too; it certainly doesn't understand my native "rate then, simmer daaahn, if ya can geee us before start checklist naah me duck, that'd be champion" (yes I did check  ;D )!

FS2Crew displays what it "heard" in FSX as red text against a green background at the top of the screen (like an FSX ATIS), not sure if that works in P3D though. FS2Crew won't act on everything it hears (for example if mute is enabled or the phrase is not appropriate at that point in the flight, then it'll ignore it).

Bob Cardone (1336)

Quote from: Chris Liu on Jun 08, 2015 16:57
Glad to hear you've got everything sorted and FS2Crew is now working well. I had to dictionary train Windows so it could differentiate between "on" and "arm" in my accent too; it certainly doesn't understand my native "rate then, simmer daaahn, if ya can geee us before start checklist naah me duck, that'd be champion" (yes I did check  ;D )!

FS2Crew displays what it "heard" in FSX as red text against a green background at the top of the screen (like an FSX ATIS), not sure if that works in P3D though. FS2Crew won't act on everything it hears (for example if mute is enabled or the phrase is not appropriate at that point in the flight, then it'll ignore it).


Have you had the problem at all where the co pilot , when asking for flaps 5, responds with flaps five, but never moves the flaps lever?

Bob Cardone (1336)

#14

Ok, I probably have spent in the last week over 40 hours working with the voice activated   FS 2 Crew program for the Q400, and the problems I am having are directly attributable to the windows speech recognition For instance, no matter what I do , including using the dictionary in speech recognition, I cannot get the program to recognize crosscheck.  It gives me coarse. crosse, krause, etc, but not crosscheck. That is the reason that it keeps making me repeat the  altimeter setting until I finally give up and say skip. So what I decided to do is to go into the dictionary in the Speech recognition program, and there you can add a word like crosscheck. It then gives you a chance to record it, but when I record it I say a totally different sounding and easily recognizable word, in this case "altimeter".  Now you also have to block that word in the dictionary from being used which is simple, you just spell altimeter, and say Prevent this word from being used.  . Now when I say "altimeter", instead of spelling out altimeter since it is prevented from doing that, it spells "crosscheck" in notepad which is the way I can check to see if it is working. For "Select Nav" , the other response I had a major problem with, I used the word "navigate" . So I went to the dictionary, put a new word in  "Nav select" and when it asked me to record it, I said " navigate".  Now everytime I say Navigate, it spells out "sel nav" .  So now when I want to select Nav in the autopilot I just say " Navigate"

You just have to remember the substitute word you are using to take the place of the problematic work that speech recog is having a problem with. And you also have to make sure that the substitute word is also  blocked  from being used in the " Prevent a word from being dictated " menu in the Speech Recog dictionary. Hope that makes sense. To find the problematic words, just go to the Cockpit Voice recorder log and with the checklist, look for the words that it misunderstood and correct them in the speech recog  dictionary.