AI Air Traffic Control Arrives to Home Flight Simulators

Last year, I was fortunate to attend the media launch for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024), which took place at a hotel adjacent to the Grand Canyon National Park Airport (KGCN), a small Class D facility a few miles south of the southern rim in Arizona. MSFS2024 is the highly anticipated follow-up to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, which saw over 15 million unique users fly on the software in less than five years.

That’s an impressive accomplishment for the narrow slice of the gaming world that enjoys flight simulation software titles.

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To attend the launch event, the attendees and I took connecting airline flights into Flagstaff, Arizona (KFLG). It had been nearly 30 years since a family vacation to nearby Sedona brought me to the American Southwest. My now-adult face was glued to the small window of the airline CRJ so I could take in the view of the terrain while on approach to the airport.

The guests of the MSFS2024 launch event were a who’s who in flight simulation, including content creators and journalists, with many traveling from Europe and even a few from Australia. Microsoft planned the one-day event with a sunrise tour of the southern rim so we could see the morning sun’s horizontal rays lighting the Grand Canyon into a wash of color and shadow in a contrast unique to this geography. 

In the afternoon, we were treated to a helicopter tour as the size, scale, and geological time measured in the layers of pancaked rock were best appreciated from the air. These events were purposefully arranged so that we could compare the visual details of the real Grand Canyon with the digital version carefully crafted for MSFS2024. Cirrus was also on-site at the KGCN FBO with the Vision Jet G2+, providing rides to a lucky few attendees and giving the launch an unusual amount of support and credibility from one of general aviation’s most innovative aircraft manufacturers.  

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The MSFS2024 team selected the Grand Canyon due to the difficulty of re-creating the geography digitally. Using satellite and high-resolution aerial imagery with photogrammetry, combined with machine learning and AI to detect terrain variety, the end result compared very well with what I saw using my own standard-issue Mark I eyeballs. The Microsoft development team shared how it took multiple real-world overflights of the canyon at varying times of day to compare observations with what was being built in-sim. The real test is how the terrain looks from the left seat of your sim cockpit.

Suffice it to say, I left the launch event with a desire to try a flight between KFLG and KGCN from my home sim. Unexpectedly, it took nearly a year to tackle this flight as I waited for subsequent MSFS2024 builds to deploy. Like many other users, I found the launch version was not stable enough for regular sim flying and decided to stay on the sidelines until the title could address enough critical fixes to allow for reliable gameplay.

Late this summer, a recent major update improved overall stability and decreased load times sufficiently for me to start flying on MSFS2024 full time. It took a few multihour weekend sessions to set up my control bindings and dial in graphics settings. I had to relearn how to build new control profiles, a task made easier by following some tutorial videos on YouTube.  

It was worth the effort as the graphics in MSFS2024 look better on screen using less CPU and GPU processing compared to MSFS2020. Load times into the simulator have dramatically improved too, getting you from your digital hangar to the tarmac roughly 50 percent faster than before due to many elements being streamed from Microsoft servers. 

To mark the occasion of my official first flight in MSFS2024, I selected the Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corp. (NAMC) YS-11, a new twin-engine turboprop launched in-sim as part of Microsoft’s “Local Legends” collection, where it pairs an airplane with a specific part of the world it has updated with enhanced visual details and bespoke airports.

If you’ve never heard of the YS-11, you’re not alone. It has the distinction of being the only post-war turboprop airliner built in Japan after World War II, a position it held for many years. Powered by two Rolls-Royce Dart engines, the high pitch whine from the left seat on the flight deck is distinct and exciting. 

MSFS2024 has an airplane rental feature, charging a low payment to fly for one 24-hour period so you can try the airplane before you buy. I found the YS-11 easy to start and fun to fly, with handling characteristics between a King Air C90 and the PMDG DC-6. It is neither a beginner nor study-level airplane, occupying the space between those two, allowing you to get into the airplane and follow the checklists through to a straightforward start-up. Given the pattern altitude at KGCN is 8,109 feet, I purposefully selected the YS-11 for the excess power I wanted to have in reserve for that relatively high elevation landing. 

During the MSFS2024 launch event, two YouTube flight simulator content creators—TwoToneMurphy and BlueSimulations—encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and try a new air traffic control (ATC) service called SayIntentions.AI.

As the name suggests, SayIntentions provides artificial intelligence-powered ATC to home flight sim pilots who want a more comprehensive communication experience than the stock system in MSFS. The AI ATC service is built around a large language model (LLM) and has been in continuous development and testing, slowly refining the controllers’ ability to speak in the nuanced language of aviation.

After establishing a test account on SayIntentions, I loaded into the sim.

Using SayIntentions to complete the required Class D communications at KFLG was easy as the software is simply layered over and easily operated from a second monitor connected to your simulator PC so you can access the user interface during your flight. 

Aside from my interest in checking out the Grand Canyon from the air, the flight between Flagstaff and Grand Canyon National Airport is a short 55 nm that can be accomplished in about 20 minutes with most of the twin-engine general aviation fleet in MSFS2024. If you’re short on time but want a satisfying flight, this route is an easy recommendation.

About 15 minutes after departing KFLG, I was 12 miles south of Grand Canyon National Park Airport and preparing the YS-11 to land. Needing extra time to slow down and configure the airplane using the provided digital checklist, I flew out over KGCN for a better look at the geography, setting up for an unusual 10-mile left base for Runway 21. 

The AI SayIntentions controller, with a slightly wooden sounding digital voice, took it all in stride and cleared my YS-11 flight to land as there was no other traffic in the area. I could tell that the controller wasn’t a human, but the male voice was human sounding. I learned later that it was made from a mix of real human recordings and similar to the digitalized voices we interact with today on our smart devices.   

With my landing clearance received, I concentrated on making a stabilized approach.

The YS-11 was predictable in the landing configuration and the relatively calm winds made for a low-stress touchdown. I let the YS-11 roll out the full distance of the runway so I could enjoy the engine noise of the two Rolls-Royce Darts on my taxi back to the parking area. One interesting detail in the cockpit were the two analog rpm gauges, one for each engine, that spin a full rotation for each thousand rpm change. The fast and precise needle movement is sure to catch your attention when you fly it.

Using basic AI ATC during this simple flight was surprisingly normal—a testament to the extensive work that has gone into making the service feel well integrated into the sim. In the February 2025 Issue 955 of FLYING, I discussed the two popular live ATC services that deepen sim immersion by providing real-life interaction between the home sim pilot and a trained human controller. Both VATSIM and PilotEdge are the gold standard for live ATC on your home sim and will activate your pilot brain like no hardware or software can. 

If you fly on VATSIM, most controlling regions—such as Boston or New York Air Route Traffic Control Centers (virtual ARTCCs)—publish their controller availability ahead of time, but you’ll inevitably be on a flight where the controller’s session ends and you’re midway to your destination. 

If this happens, you can tune to the unicom frequency in-sim on 122.8 and self-announce.

But with a SayIntentions subscription, you can connect to the service and complete your flight with minimal interruption. Check out the helpful how-to videos on SayIntentions YouTube playlist to learn how to use the service if your human controller goes offline.

As an example of how fast development occurs in flight simulation, SayIntentions.AI launched IFR and VFR airline traffic injection to their premium-level subscribers then surprised the flight sim community with general aviation traffic injection a few weeks later. The traffic injection service, called “Living World,” is currently limited to sim flights in the United States.

Using published real-world airline flight schedules, SayIntentions displays that traffic in the simulator and enriches the environment by programming the AI conversations to take place at the right time and on the correct frequency. For example, you will hear AI controllers speaking with the AI aircraft they are sequencing for arrival. Then the aircraft is passed over to tower and then to ground controllers for taxiing and gate assignments. 

To give you a sense for the scale of the work involved, SayIntentions’ AI-generated radio communications feature more than 1,500 unique pilot voices with some using local accents. These voices are distinct from the controllers you will hear, which come from a pool of over 800 voices, and like the pilot voices, are adjusted to the geographic location when possible. The AI traffic flow at busy airports in-sim is matched up to the real-world arrival/departure schedules for added realism. 

Often, my flight simulator time happens at night after my kids are asleep and the VATSIM controllers in the Boston ARTCC have signed off for the night. So in my case, the SayIntentions service provides an entertaining option, enlivening the simulator so that my night flights don’t have to be flown in radio silence.

For those of us who have to fly their simulator during off-hours, the SayIntentions service offers a compelling experience that we can use today. I will continue to fly with live ATC like VATSIM or PilotEdge as my primary ATC service, but it is exciting for the flight sim community to have SayIntentions continue its rapid feature set development, improving  and updating it every month. 

Hearing just a small note of frustration or stress in a real human controller’s voice—busily working six IFR flights in unison on a live ATC service—is a level of programming authenticity that will take time to fully replicate. 

Even more exciting is that MSFS2024 is ready and flies as great as it looks in-sim. With winter coming soon to New England, I’m looking forward to diving deeper into MSFS2024 where a world of interesting destinations and unique GA aircraft await. 

This column first appeared in the December Issue 965 of the FLYING print edition.