Talk to the tower via push-to-talk — AI-powered VFR radio in German or English for X-Plane 12, running locally on your Mac or through the cloud.
Welly's VFR ATC turns your VFR flights in X-Plane 12 into a real radio conversation: you press the push-to-talk key, speak your call into the microphone, and the tower answers you back by voice — in either German (NfL/BZF) or English (ICAO) VFR phraseology, with realistic reactions even to pilot mistakes.
- 🇩🇪 🇬🇧 Two language profiles — DE (NfL/BZF) & EN (ICAO) — switchable at runtime in the settings; German stays the default. German models VFR radio phraseology per NfL Sprechfunk 2024 (DACH region) with an optional BZF strict mode that checks your readbacks for completeness the way an examiner would. English follows the self-contained ICAO VFR phraseology (ICAO Annex 10 Vol II / Doc 4444 / EASA SERA) — not a translation of the German profile, but its own standard wording and number/callsign pronunciation. The operating interface (menus, buttons, labels) has its own language switch, independent of the spoken phraseology — so you can run the UI in English while training German NfL radio, and the switch applies instantly without a restart.
- 🛬 Traffic pattern — the full pattern flow at controlled and uncontrolled airfields: entry, downwind, base, final, landing, touch-and-go, go-around — including landing sequencing ("you are number two, follow the traffic").
- 🗺️ Cross country — the complete cross-country flight: departure clearance, en-route frequency changes and the approach flow between airfields. The approach controller proactively hands you off to the tower with the destination frequency.
- 🗼 Airfield types — the plugin automatically detects the kind of air traffic service at each airfield and adapts phraseology and flow accordingly:
- Uncontrolled — self-information via UNICOM/CTAF (self-announcements, no clearances).
- With tower — controlled field with clearances over the tower frequency.
- With tower and ground — additionally a separate ground control for taxi clearances.
- With AFIS — airfield with a flight information service (information rather than control): traffic and airfield information without binding clearances.
- 🎙️ Voice radio — natural speech via push-to-talk (keyboard or joystick). Context-aware phraseology hints show you what to say, and the tower politely coaches you on poor radio discipline.
- 🤖 AI support — speech recognition → intent understanding → speech synthesis, plus automatic ATIS broadcasts from live weather and traffic advisories about surrounding aircraft.
- 💻 Local AI & ☁️ Cloud AI — choose your mode at runtime:
- Local (Apple Silicon) — runs 100% offline after a one-time model download. No subscription, no API key, no constant internet.
- OpenAI Cloud (any Mac) — with your own API key.
- Mistral Cloud (any Mac) — with your own API key; speaks German without a US accent.
- 🪟 Windows (cloud-only, fully supported) — a pure cloud build for X-Plane 12 on Windows is included (
win_x64/xp_wellys_vfr_atc.xpl, OpenAI or Mistral, API key in the Windows Credential Manager). Verified end-to-end on real Windows 11 hardware (Shadow cloud PC, Windows 11, NVIDIA GPU): a complete VFR round trip out of Friedrichshafen (EDNY) — plugin loading, microphone/PTT, the full STT→ATC→TTS pipeline and the API key in the Credential Manager all work flawlessly. Local offline AI is not available on Windows (no Apple Silicon / no Metal); the cloud (OpenAI or Mistral, API key required) is the only backend option.
This plugin is first and foremost oriented toward REALITY. The goal is to reproduce VFR radio procedures as authentically as possible — in German per NfL/BZF, in English per ICAO — so that you can train and practice for future exams and tests, such as the BZF. We work continuously toward bringing the phraseology and the ATC flows even closer to real practice.
Disclaimer. Welly's ATC is a practice and training tool for flight simulation. It is not an official certification, not an educational resource in the sense of accredited training, and not a substitute for real exam preparation. We accept no responsibility and give no guarantee whatsoever regarding passing any test or exam. Use is at your own risk; no warranty is given for the correctness of the phraseology shown. Corrections from BZF holders are expressly welcome.
- No IFR — no instrument flight, no IFR clearances, no flight planning, no FMS/routing.
- German & English, no FR/IT — VFR phraseology comes as a German (NfL/BZF, default) and an English (ICAO) profile. Further languages — such as French or Italian for western Switzerland or Ticino — are not planned.
- Local mode on Apple Silicon only — Intel Macs can use the plugin, but only in cloud mode (OpenAI or Mistral, API key required).
- No local offline AI on Windows — the Windows build is fully supported and verified on real Windows 11 hardware, but runs exclusively in cloud mode (OpenAI or Mistral, API key required); local models need Apple Silicon / Metal.
- Not modeled yet — wake-turbulence separation, freely selectable taxi routes (currently always "via Alpha"), large hub airports (LSZH, LSGG …) with a delivery workflow, and a virtual co-pilot / checklist reader.
