Hello Captains and welcome back. I finally did it! After watching many videos, reading even more reviews and speaking with some new friends from the flying club, I decided to pull the trigger and purchased BeyondATC. While I joined VATSIM on day one and before that was a member of SATCO and I do still fly on the VATSIM network occasionally I still wanted to see what all the hype was about in the AI ATC market. As I stated, I researched the two current AI ATC options between BeyondATC and SayIntentions.AI. To be perfectly honest, I’ve been riding the virtual fence and researching the differences between these two products for months now. Really my decision came down to cost and I know that is also why many of you have chosen BeyondATC over SayIntentions.AI.
As I’ve had BeyondATC now for about 6 weeks, my overall experience has been mostly positive. It’s certainly the closest thing you’ll get by way of ATC short of flying on VATSIM, IVAO etc. I fully know that BeyondATC is still an early access product which means there can be and most likely will be bugs from time to time. Is it ready for prime time?
Let’s break this down.
What BeyondATC Gets Right
- Natural-sounding voices: The leap from tinny, outdated voices to neural-quality speech is staggering. For the first time, ATC actually sounds like a person—complete with pacing, tone, and regional flavor. It’s immersive in a way legacy systems never quite achieved.
- Simplified phraseology: While some hardcore VATSIM users may scoff at the more generalized calls, I found it refreshingly intuitive. As someone who’s spent years toggling between FSX, P3D, and MSFS, I appreciate ATC that communicates with clarity and not excessive jargon.
- Performance impact: Given its cloud-based architecture, BeyondATC plays nicely with the rest of my sim setup. I didn’t notice any frame hiccups, even running it alongside FSTL and a dense weather engine.
- Traffic Injection: This has been one area I miss when not flying on VATSIM. I’ve tried several add-on products (including FSTL) but they all fall short in some way or another. So far the way BeyondATC handles the traffic flow has been closer to what I would describe as normal behavior.
Where It Still Falls Short
- Lack of interactivity: This is perhaps the biggest caveat. BeyondATC currently runs on rails—what it says goes, and the pilot (you) follows. There’s no ability to request deviations, alternate approaches, or even ask for a pause if the cat jumps on your keyboard mid-flight. For a sim that prides itself on realism, this feels counterintuitive.
- Procedural nuance: The system often defaults to generic routing and lacks the specificity you’d expect when flying into complex airspace like LAX or Heathrow. VFR isn’t fully implemented yet, and international phraseology standards remain a work in progress.
Where It Might Fit—And Where It Doesn’t
For the simmer who prioritizes immersion and wants to replace stock ATC without diving into the full commitment of PilotEdge or VATSIM, BeyondATC is compelling. It brings life to the cockpit without requiring constant mic management. But for those who crave agency or realism down to the last STAR clearance, it might still feel like a well-produced podcast rather than a conversation.
Final Thoughts
I’m rooting for BeyondATC. The team is clearly passionate, and they’ve already transformed the way synthetic voices are perceived in simulation. But like any good ATC handoff, it needs to coordinate more cleanly with the broader ecosystem of MSFS. I’ll be keeping it installed and checking back after each update. Because sometimes, the promise of hearing ATC that doesn’t sound like a toaster? That’s worth taxiing out for.
Until next time…
Happy Flying!!!
Jerry