Initial Impressions of Multi Crew ExperienceWell, I installed it last night and did my first test of it. Looks like an eventual real
WOW! It will still take some more voice recognition training to get it close to 100%, but it is not bad at all after only one voice training session. At the moment, I noticed only maybe a 1 fps drop in framerates on the sim, which is not bad on my crap computer.
The biggest drawback I see is the one I'll mention first here. I really want to be able to separate the voices to my comm headset. The program installs into the sim itself, so the sounds for fs2004 come thru the same speakers as all the other sounds. (For FSX, it looks like you MIGHT be able to direct it to a separate headset.) I'd REALLY love this if it could go on a separate machine like my Teamspeak setup. I am waiting for a reply from the developers to see if it can be installed across the network so that I can have the sounds (and the processing load) on a second machine.
There that is out of the way.
With this package you basically get a virtual copilot that shares the workload, voice commands over just about all aspects of the sim, and the ability to talk directly to the default ATC. Not bad.
The flexibility of what you can say to the copilot for any one thing you want him/her to do is absolutely amazing. You don't need to remember very tight precise commands.
The RANGE of things that the copilot can do for/with you is also just about anything YOU can do in the sim.
Say something like "What is the weather?" or "Do you have any idea of the wind direction?" or "What is the active runway?" or "How long is Runway 24?" and you get your answer. Ask "How much fuel is on board now?" and you get the answer. And he/she remembers your name too, or just calls you "Cap'n".
You can create a custom checklist (it comes with a lot of pre-defined ones) and the copilot will run you through the checks and expect the exact correct responses. Blow one and he or she will ask for confirmation. If you missed his call, you can say "Please say that again", and he will. This aspect works 100% coreect on the voice recognition right at the first training! THIS I will use ALL the time!
If you ask for him to do an item more than once, he'll correct you. Ask him the same thing too many times in a row and he'll get annoyed! You say "thanks" and he'll respond with an appropriate offhand remark.
You can say things like "You handle the radios", and he'll take over ATC communications from you. Then you can say, "Contact ground for taxi clearance." and he'll do that for you. Or, if you say that prematurely, he'll tell you we can't do that now. Or say " I have the radios" and you get to talk to ATC directly yourself.
You set up a button for PTT when communicating with the ATC (mines a button on the yoke). The program then adds a subtle but effective sqawk noise to the button. Then you talk to ATC in the standard phraseology (with acceptable variations) to control ALL of the communications with Microsoft's DEFAULT ATC. Hit the PTT and say "Boston Ground, United six five six five ready to copy IFR clearance." and you'll get the clearnace instructions. And so on. AMAZING!!!!
When you get a hand off to Center, just tell the copilot to tune the new comm frequency you want on the radio you desire. He will.
Say, "Please set the heading to two five zero" or "Set heading two five zero" or "Heading two five zero" or a lot of other combinations of that phrase and the heading on the autopilot gets changed and he acknowledges in standard flightdeck manner. "Please turn heading hold on", gets the expected response and confirmation.
If you want to start your pushback (say at a non Aerosoft AES airport), you can talk to the ground mechanic, and then tell them to pushback left or right..... and shortly away you will go, complete with acknowledgements. When you are ready to go, just tell him to disconnect.
Want the cabin doors opened or closed? Just ask the cabin crew, of course.
The voices it uses are default Microsoft SAPI 5.1 voices. So you can play a bit with the speed and tone and such. They aren't too "computerish". And you can buy even more realistic voices if you desire from thrid party SAPI voice vendors.
All in all....... this is pretty darn slick stuff. In the post at the top of this thread I said it would work well in a left seat only simpit. Well........ now I think this will work well in ANY desktop or simpit situation.
The downloadable demo version is fully functional for a time limited duration. It is
WELL worth trying it out for yourself. Be warned however that the documentation that you will find in the program menu once it is installed is
astoundingly large in order to give you all the possibilities this software contains. I have just scratched the surface above.
best,
......................john
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