PlaneEnglish: ARSim

This app is so so so helpful with practicing your radio calls. I used to get so nervous about messing up or saying something silly to tower or on CTAF. It provides great practice for keeping all the numbers and instructions straight in your head without the fear of embarrassment/ judgment from ATC or other pilots! It’s great for when your bored laying in bed, preparing for a check-ride, or you can elevate your chair flying with this extra level of immersion. Either way, you won’t regret it. It is a little pricey for what it is.. but then again what isn’t in aviation? It’s a monthly payment but I think it’s worth every penny, since you’re able to practice radio calls anywhere, anytime and not while you’re paying over $175/hr for your flight training! Plus you can just use it until you get comfortable and proficient! Definitely recommend it to anyone at any level of flight training!

I must say this is a great app and I have learned so much in the past 5 hours of using it. I now know so much vocabulary and how to use it in the real situation. I like how the ATC will also respond to you as well so it like real life. I do have some suggestions though. I feel like for the scenarios, they should be gone through fully until takeoff happens. This is just so your used to getting that whole sequence of events done. Obviously they are gone through in other scenarios but why make it two different scenarios and make you pay for the other one while one is free? I feel like there should be a bit more free things. The app is amazing though and I have learned so much. I hope to come back soon and edit this review so it can be more detailed then 5 hours :)

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It’s an interesting idea. And definitely one of the things I’ve seen a lot of my students struggle with, not to mention myself have problems with is radio interaction and conversations using correct ATC phraseology. Here’s the problem: The communications that this app demands of the user there’s almost no resemblance to what goes on during real world ATC interactions. Yes you got the order and sequence of these things right, but the app punishes you for things you would say in the real world. Eg reporting having ATIS info D in a clearance the app wants you to spell out “with Information Delta”. In the real world you’re just going to simply say “with Delta” and the controller knows exactly what you’re talking about. The more complex Clearance practice is almost useless without available taxi charts, departure procedures, STARs, etc. readily available and reviewed prior to commenting the flight. All in all it’s a neat idea, but it’s still an embryonic stage and needs a lot of improvement.

Look this app is a great tool I wish I had while learning private/instrument coms. The problem is, some things you do not read back to atc in flight are required to read back here which could give the impression to new pilots that you have to read back every piece of detail to atc. An example of this is “hold short 28L landing traffic” you generally don’t say “landing traffic” back to ATC. Another example is when contacting departure, generally you don’t say “contact PHX departure” you would say “ over to departure, good day” Overall this app is great for new pilots which is why I rated it 4/5 stars, but you should not just rely on the app for your atc communications. Once you become more familiar with talking on the radio with atc, you will begin to use your own phraseology to shorten what you have to say without compromising the message. But in general good app!

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Honestly expected much more from this app, besides the shady micro transactions needed to make any real progress on the app, there’s much left to be desired. I got this app to practice repeating tower instructions only to find out I can’t even do that. Scenarios are very limited and the apps algorithm makes it so you always pass just as long as you say the information doesn’t matter the order whatsoever nor how long the radio call takes. You could say utter nonsense and as long as the key words are there you get a perfect score. I’m hesitant to even give this app three stars but it really does have potential although sadly I feel the creators don’t have plans on making it into the app it could be. Unless your just starting flying with no radio experience whatsoever this app will not help you.