Q: What is Multi Crew Experience?
A: Multi Crew Experience is a new add-on to the award winning, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, FSX, Prepar3D and FS9 software. It adds the missing elements, like crew coordination, interactive checklist reading, realistic ATC operation, call-outs and warnings against deviation from standards, as well as extras, like user interface voice control.
Q: Who may benefit from this application:
A: Anyone who wants to make the home flight simulation experience as real as it can get. Trainee pilots can use it as a tool to practice multi crew interaction and ATC phraseology.
One of the bad aspects of home flight simulation, is that it makes you breed bad habits, like trying to fly a B747 on your own, or looking for keyboard key strokes to interact with ATC.
For non native English speakers, this constitutes a great practice tool. If you are seeking an international career, as an airline pilot, you must interact well with other crew members, in English.
You don't need to be fluent in English though. Just need to be familiar with aviation terminology.
What better tool to boost your confidence!
Q: How does it work?
A: Multi Crew Experience builds on Microsoft SAPI 5® outstanding technology, that brings speech recognition, as well as speech synthesis to the windows® platform. We have choosen a modular design, that allows you to use, some, or all the features, according to your needs. This makes it easier to integrate. It will also play nicely, when used alongside other third party add-ons. It is fully multithreaded, and was designed with performance in mind.
Q: Does it work with Asobo/Microsoft MSFS?
A: Yes it does, in addition to Pepar3D and FSX.
Q: What are the system requirements?
A: The requirements are the same as those specified for running Microsoft Flight Smulator 2020, FSX, PreparD or FS9, depending on which simulator version you use, as well as a headset with good quality microphone.
Q: Does it require an English version of Windows?
A: No, this application has been tested, and expected to work on almost any language localized version of Windows 10.
For Vista or Windows 7 localized versions, like Spanish or French, you will need Vista, Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise, to be able to download and install the free Microsoft English language pack. The alternative is to use a free third party tool called Vistalizator, that would help you run MCE under any operating system and Language.
Q: Do I need to be a native English speaker to use the software?
A: Although it helps, the answer is no. You will be surprised to learn about the poor grasp of the English language among real world pilots around the world. Though you need to know what heading, speed, altitude, flaps...mean. We are talking 200 to 300 words overall.
Q: Can I use MCE with a networked Radar Contact setup:
A: Yes, but because MCE has no way of finding out if RC4 is running or indeed installed, you need to make a few changes to the mce.ini configuration file. Open the file C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\Multi Crew Experience\mce.ini using Notepad. Look at the section titled [ATC], and change things to look like...
[ATC]
UseRadioNoise=1
SecondaryNeedAtcWindow=0
atc1=1
atc2=0
atc3=1
atc4=1
atc5=0
UseRadarContact=1
IgnoreRC4Registry=1
Save the file.
The next time you start MCE, it will prompt you to provide the RC4 installation network path. Please do so, and it will be saved.
In a networked scenario, you must make sure Radar contact is started first, flight plan loaded, and "Start RC" button pressed, before attempting to start MCE.
Q: Do i have to be online to use this product?
A: No, this is a desktop application. Therefore you don't need an Internet connection at all.
Q: What is this "DIALOG MODE" thing?
A: Whenever a flight simulator dialog box is displayed (weather dialog, aircraft dialog, etc), MCE switches to "DIALOG MODE", a state where only commands to interact with dialog boxes are enabled. You will not be able to interact with co-pilot in that mode. As soon as the dialog is closed, MCE will revert to "FLIGHT MODE". If for some reason, MCE is stuck in dialog mode, right click the user interface, then select "Force Flight Mode" option in drop down menu.
Q: Does MCE interface with Radar Contact or ProFlight Emulator ATC?
A: Starting from Version V2.0 you can interact with Radar Contact ATC as well as Pro Flight Emulator (PF3/PFE) ATC using speech recognition.