OnCourse Software

Hi Dave,

I mentioned this earlier but I'm trying to bring it up on your list again because I really miss this feature.

I am now using Multi Crew Experience with PF3 and it is a very immersive experience. While MCE lets me talk to ATC myself I created an extensive Voxkey profile that lets me ask my first officer to talk to ATC.

So now with MCE I have two options I can easily switch during the flight:

1. Press the PTT button and say "Frankfurt Tower, Lufthansa 123 at holding point runway 18, ready for takeoff." In this case I don't want to hear the PF3 pilot voice because I talk to ATC myself.

2. Do not press the PTT button and say "Would you please request takeoff clearance ". In this case I do want to hear the PF3 pilot voice because I told my FO to talk to ATC.

Would you please please support this in PF3 by making it possible to turn the pilot voice on and off during the flight. It would enhance the immersion immensely.

I tried to turn the volume slider all the way to the left but the voice is still there faintly.

Could you perhaps at least change the volume slider so that the voice is completely off when the slider is all the way left?

A more comfortable and elegant solution of course would be a hotkey to mute / unmute the pilot voice.

Since we can individually set the volume of the different sounds during flight I guess this must be possible.

Please.

Regards

Ralf

Added to the list for consideration

Thanks.

Here is another idea how to implement this:

Add an option to the VCP mode selecting menu: "Auto-mute pilot voice in VCP mode 0".
Then - with this option set - automatically mute the pilot voice whenever VCP mode 0 is selected during the flight.

So no new hotkey would be needed.

Ralf

RALF9636 wrote:

Add an option to the VCP mode selecting menu: "Auto-mute pilot voice in VCP mode 0".

No extra hotkey is good, number of available keys is sometimes quite limited.
I suggest "Mute voice for user-initiated transmissions" or something similar, so it will work in VCP mode 1, too, or when the user asks for vectors, gives a position report, etc. in modes 2 or 3.

ThomasAH wrote:

RALF9636 wrote:

Add an option to the VCP mode selecting menu: "Auto-mute pilot voice in VCP mode 0".

No extra hotkey is good, number of available keys is sometimes quite limited.
I suggest "Mute voice for user-initiated transmissions" or something similar, so it will work in VCP mode 1, too, or when the user asks for vectors, gives a position report, etc. in modes 2 or 3.

Might get complicated that way. How would PF3 know if I myself requested vectors or my FO?
I'd be happy if it was connected just to VCP mode 0 so I can easily control it.

RALF9636 wrote:

Might get complicated that way. How would PF3 know if I myself requested vectors or my FO?

Ah, ok ... MCE's FO can do requests, too. I only thought about PF3's VCP.

ThomasAH wrote:

RALF9636 wrote:

Might get complicated that way. How would PF3 know if I myself requested vectors or my FO?

Ah, ok ... MCE's FO can do requests, too. I only thought about PF3's VCP.

Well, actually he can't. All MCE does is send a hotkey that is triggered by a spoken phrase.

But that phrase can either be e.g. "Frankfurt Tower, Lufthansa 123, with you at 3000, to land" which simulates talking to ATC directly (this is what MCE does out of the box).

Or e.g. "Would you please request landing clearance" which simulates advising my FO to talk to ATC (this is what I added to MCE via Voxkey).

In both cases MCE sends the proper hotkey for contacting tower to land. But in the first case the PF3 pilot voice should be silent because I already spoke to ATC whereas in the latter case the PF3 pilot voice should be there simulating my FO who talks to ATC on my advice.

Maybe react to PF3's PTT button:
If it was pressed while another hotkey is pressed (or rather within the GCTimeout), PF3's pilot voice should be silent.
If it wasn't, PF3's voice should be active.
And if PF3's VCP automatically does something, the talking should always be heard, independent from the PTT situation.

Then you just need two different PTT keys: One for talking to PF3+MCE (i.e. to ATC) and one for talking to MCE only (i.e. to your co-pilot)

And for people not using MCE's FO, using different VCP modes becomes possible, e.g. using VCP mode 2 and still being able to request a different altitude via voice.

Nice idea, Thomas!

And no second PTT button would be needed because the communication to the MCE FO is designed as "always open" (and suspended when the PTT button is pressed).

Dave, should I summarize this in the beta wishlist?
(and do you think you could add this in the foreseeable future?)