X-Plane 11.30 has a revised, flexible ATC voice system for improved realism. ATC commands can now be prefaced with your tail-number, your airline, flight number and more. The old system had just over 100 phrases that could be spoken. The new system already has over 50,000 and they will continue to grow with the system.

The new ATC system allows us to regenerate phrases rapidly between updates. Because of this, we have created a public database of the spoken phrases and will allow the community to customize the pronunciation of airports, airlines, manufacturers, models and VORs so that over time you will have a more realistic experience.

Another interesting feature of the latest update is the ability to listen to ATC on COM1 and COM2 simultaneously. As you tune to real world frequencies, you can catch a controller mid-instruction just like in real life.

But why the focus on the audio? Because the ATC audio has been a bottleneck of developing new features. Every new ATC feature requires new ATC phraseology, and the new flexible audio system will adapt as quickly to new features as we can make them. A great example of this is the new “line up and wait” skill that tower controllers now have to mirror real world procedures. This will improve airport runway occupancy rates in the sim, allowing traffic to move more efficiently.

The tutorial video below shows the revised ATC system, and goes through the steps to set up a flight plan and contact ATC for clearance & taxi instructions.