Every SkyCrew release, newest first, all the way back to v0.0.1. New aircraft profiles, new commands, and fixes — verified against real flights before they ship.
✈️ New Aircraft: Beechcraft King Air 350
The default MSFS Beechcraft King Air 350 is now supported. Your Copilot flies its FCU: heading, altitude, and vertical speed selection, heading hold, NAV, approach, level change, altitude hold, and VNAV.
Retractable gear and full flap control: "flaps up," "flaps 15," or "flaps 35" (this aircraft's full-flaps setting).
"Optimize engine" (or "feather the prop") repositions the propeller levers together to find the peak-RPM point, the same technique as "Optimize fuel" on the Cessna 172/400/Bonanza — this aircraft has no leanable mixture, so the propeller levers do the job instead.
"Monitor speed [X]" holds a target airspeed with the throttles, since this twin turboprop has no autothrottle of its own.
This aircraft's autopilot disconnect bar latches out when pulled — Your Copilot automatically pushes it back in before re-engaging, so a spoken "autopilot on" always works after a disconnect, matching the real aircraft's own procedure.
✈️ New Aircraft: Airbus A400M Cargo
The default MSFS Airbus A400M Atlas (four-engine turboprop cargo) is now supported. Your Copilot flies its Airbus-style FCU: heading, altitude, speed, and vertical-speed selection, plus heading select, managed NAV, selected-speed, and vertical-speed modes.
Retractable gear and a six-position flap lever: "flaps up," "flaps 1/2/3/4," and "flaps 5" (or "flaps full").
Autopilot on/off via the AP1 channel, correctly reading the aircraft's own engagement state.
Because the A400M has its own working autothrottle, the "monitor speed" and "optimize fuel/engine" commands aren't used on this airframe.
✈️ New Aircraft: Boeing 747-8i
The default MSFS Boeing 747-8i is now fully supported. Your Copilot can now fly the FCU heading/altitude/speed/vertical-speed selectors, engage LNAV/VNAV/HDG SEL/V·S/LOC/APP/Level Change/Speed Hold, engage and disconnect the autopilot, arm/disarm the autothrottle, raise/lower the gear, set the parking brake, and command every flap detent (1, 5, 10, 20, 25, 30).
✈️ New Aircraft: Beechcraft Bonanza G36
The default MSFS Beechcraft Bonanza G36 is now supported. Your Copilot flies its Garmin G1000 autopilot: heading, altitude, and speed selection, vertical speed, heading hold, NAV, approach, level change, altitude hold, and — new this release — VNAV.
Retractable gear: "gear up" and "gear down" both work — the first piston single in the fleet with real retractable gear.
Flaps: say "flaps up,""flaps 10" for the approach setting, or "flaps down" (or "flaps 30") for full landing flaps.
"Optimize fuel" leans the mixture to peak RPM automatically, same as the Cessna 172 and 400.
"Monitor speed [X]" holds a target airspeed with the throttle, since this aircraft has no autothrottle of its own.
🔐 Use the App and the Dashboard at the Same Time
Signing in to the website no longer logs you out of the app. Before, your account allowed only one active session, so logging in to the dashboard would sign you out of SkyCrew (and the other way around). The app and the dashboard now each keep their own session, so you can stay signed in to both at once.
Your account still can't be shared around. Signing in on a second app — or a second browser — still ends the previous session of that same kind, so you get exactly one app login and one dashboard login at a time, not an unlimited number of devices.
✈️ Supported-Aircraft List Corrections
The in-app "Supported Aircraft" list is now up to date. The FlyByWire A32NX, FlyByWire A380X, and Airbus A320neo V2 VIP are now correctly shown as Supported. These aircraft already worked with Your Copilot — only the list itself was out of date.
🎖️ "Test Pilot" Badge for Early Members
Alpha and beta accounts now wear a "Test Pilot" badge. If you signed up while SkyCrew is still in testing, a small "Test Pilot" badge appears next to your callsign in the sidebar — a permanent thank-you for flying the early builds. It stays with your account for good, no matter what plan you're on later.
Membership tiers renamed. Account levels are now Cadet, First Officer, and Captain (replacing the old Free/Pro naming) — visible on your dashboard. Nothing in your copilot changes; there are still no paid-only features today.
Groundwork, not gatekeeping. This release lays the account-platform plumbing for future member perks. Your copilot, voice, and all aircraft features remain fully available exactly as before.
✈️ iniBuilds A320neo V2 VIP Support
The A320neo V2 VIP is now a supported aircraft. This is the stock MSFS 2024 "A320neo V2 VIP," built on iniBuilds' study-level systems — Your Copilot commands are wired to its real FCU: heading, altitude, speed and vertical speed selection, HDG/NAV and altitude/speed mode engagement, localizer and approach capture, autopilot and autothrust, landing gear, flaps 1/2/3/up/down, and the parking brake.
Setting values updates the real FCU display: say "set heading 270", "set altitude 11000", "set speed 250", or "set vertical speed minus 800" and both the autopilot target and the number on the FCU update together.
Autopilot and autothrottle: "autopilot on/off" and "arm/disarm the autothrottle" both work, and repeating a command never accidentally reverses it.
One known gap: the real A320's FCU has no standalone "ALT hold" button at all (only the ALT knob's own push/pull) - the Commands page shows it grayed out.
✈️ PMDG 777-300ER — Full Flap Lever Support
Every Detent Now Works by Voice: The 777's flap lever has more positions than a simple up/down. You can now say "flaps 1", "flaps 5", "flaps 15", "flaps 20", or "flaps 25", in addition to "flaps up" and "flaps down" — each one moves the lever straight to that exact detent, matching the real aircraft's flap panel.
"Flaps 30" Is Its Own Command: On the 777, the lever's numbered "30" position is now a distinct command from "flaps down" — both reach the same fully-extended setting, so either phrasing works, matching how crews actually call out this detent.
✈️ FlyByWire A380X Support
The FlyByWire A380X is now a supported aircraft. Your Copilot commands are wired to its FCU: heading, altitude, speed and vertical speed selection, HDG/NAV and altitude/speed mode engagement, localizer and approach capture, autopilot and autothrust, landing gear, all five flap detents, and the parking brake.
Setting values updates the real FCU display: say "set heading 270", "set altitude 9000", "set speed 220", or "set vertical speed minus 1200" and both the autopilot target and the number on the FCU update together.
One known gap: the standalone FCU "ALT" hold button has no effect on this airframe (confirmed non-functional in the addon itself, not a SkyCrew limitation) - the Commands page shows it grayed out.
✈️ FlyByWire A32NX (A320neo) Support
The FlyByWire A32NX (Airbus A320neo) is now a supported aircraft. Your Copilot commands are wired to its FCU: heading, altitude, speed and vertical speed selection, HDG/NAV and altitude/speed mode engagement, localizer and approach capture, autopilot and autothrust, landing gear, all five flap detents, and the parking brake.
Setting values updates the real FCU display: say "set heading 210", "set altitude 16000", "set speed 220", or "set vertical speed minus 1200" and both the autopilot target and the number on the FCU update together.
One known gap: the real A320's FCU has no standalone "ALT hold" button at all (only the ALT knob's own push/pull) - the Commands page shows it grayed out.
✈️ Airbus A310 Support
The stock MSFS 2024 Airbus A310 is now a supported aircraft. Your Copilot commands are wired to its real cockpit: autopilot modes (altitude hold, level change, NAV, approach, localizer), the flight-control unit selectors, landing gear, flaps, and the parking brake.
Setting values works properly: say "set heading 270", "set altitude 12500", "set speed 250", or "set vertical speed minus 1500" and the Copilot dials each selector to the exact value — including altitudes with hundreds like 12,500 ft.
Landing gear behaves correctly: the A310's three-position gear lever is handled properly — "gear down" always reaches the fully-down position and "gear up" the fully-up position, and asking again when it's already there does nothing.
Flaps: the A310's four flap positions (0 / 15 / 20 / full) all work.
🕹️ Automatic Speed Hold, Now on the Cessna 172, 400, 208B, DA40 NG, and Vision Jet
Cessna 172 Skyhawk: The 172 has no autothrottle either, so the same "monitor speed" / "maintain speed" command from the Citation CJ4 now works here too — say "maintain speed 100" and the Copilot works the single throttle to reach and hold that airspeed, live-tuned in flight for a clean, non-oscillating hold. The Skyhawk's fixed-pitch prop behaves very differently from the CJ4's jet engines, so it gets its own purpose-built control logic.
Cessna 400 Corvalis: Say "maintain speed 150" and the Copilot works the throttle to hold that airspeed between 100 and 200 knots — this turbocharged, constant-speed-prop single gets its own tuned control logic too.
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan: Say "maintain speed 150" to hold that airspeed between 120 and 170 knots — a clean, non-oscillating hold, purpose-built for this turboprop.
Diamond DA40 NG: Say "maintain speed 120" to hold that airspeed between 60 and 170 knots — this diesel FADEC single gets its own purpose-built control logic too, live-tuned to a clean, non-oscillating hold.
Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet (fallback): The Vision Jet already has a real autothrottle, so here "monitor speed" is a backup for when you don't want to rely on it — turn the autothrottle off yourself, then say "maintain speed 150" and the Copilot holds the target itself, between 60 and 250 knots. If the real autothrottle is still armed, the Copilot notices the throttle isn't responding to its own commands and automatically stops monitoring rather than fight it. Speed capture is accurate, but the hold can show a mild, ongoing airspeed wobble on this airframe while we continue tuning it in a future update — safe to use, just not perfectly smooth yet.
🟢 More Reliable "Game Status" Indicator
Fixed: Stuck on "Offline" at Startup: Occasionally, if the simulator was already running when SkyCrew launched, the status pill could stay stuck on "Offline" for the whole session even though the connection was actually fine underneath. The pill now double-checks itself right after the window finishes loading, so it always reflects the real connection state.
🎙️ Fixed: "70" Sometimes Misheard as "17"
Speed commands are now corrected automatically: Speech recognition would occasionally mishear "seventy" as "seventeen" (a common mix-up between the two words). Since 17 knots is never a realistic target speed, SkyCrew now recognizes this specific mix-up and corrects it to 70 automatically instead of ignoring the command.
🔐 AvioLogix Account Login
Sign In With Your AvioLogix Account: SkyCrew now opens with a sign-in screen. Use the same email/callsign and password as your AvioLogix dashboard account — one account works everywhere.
New Pilot? Register on the Website: Selecting "Register" opens the AvioLogix sign-up page in your browser. Once your account is created, come back and sign in here.
Stay Signed In: SkyCrew securely remembers your session between launches, so you won't need to sign in every time you open the app.
🚦 Commands That Match Your Aircraft
"Command Unavailable" Instead of Silent Misfires: If you ask for something the current aircraft simply doesn't have, the Copilot now clearly responds "Command Unavailable" rather than doing nothing (or, worse, firing the wrong system). On the Cessna Citation CJ4 this covers the localizer, the autothrottle, and Airbus-style flap detents (Flaps 1/2/3) — none of which exist on that jet.
CJ4 Navigation Mode: The Citation CJ4 has no separate VNAV button — it flies its lateral path through LNAV — so a "navigation mode" request is now correctly handled as LNAV instead of trying to trigger a mode the aircraft doesn't have.
🔊 More Varied Copilot Voice
Every Recorded Response Now Gets Used: The Copilot now automatically detects how many voice clips exist for each command and picks from all of them, instead of assuming a fixed number. Commands that have more recordings sound more varied, and none of the recorded lines go unused anymore.
🕹️ Automatic Speed Hold on the Citation CJ4
"Monitor Speed" — a Stand-in Autothrottle: The Citation CJ4 has no autothrottle, so the Copilot can now hold a target airspeed for you by working the throttles itself. Say "monitor speed 250" or "maintain speed 210" and it works both throttles together to reach and hold that speed. It anticipates the jet's slow spool-up — easing the throttles off before the speed arrives rather than chasing it — so it captures the target with barely any overshoot and then holds it steady, instead of hunting back and forth. Flight-tuned on the CJ4: settles within 1–3 knots and stays there.
Ask and It'll Prompt You: If you say "monitor speed" without a number, the Copilot asks you for the target and listens for your answer.
Stop It Any Time: Say "stop speed monitoring" whenever you want to take the throttles back yourself.
🧰 Under-the-Hood Improvement
One File Per Aircraft: Each supported aircraft's voice-command mapping now lives in its own self-contained module. Fine-tuning one airframe can no longer have any side effect on another, which makes adding new aircraft and adjusting existing ones faster and safer.
No Change to How Anything Works: This is purely an internal code reorganization — every voice command behaves exactly as before on all aircraft, verified by the full automated test suite.
🛠️ Aircraft Command Fixes
PMDG 777 — Heading Select Now Engages Correctly: "Set heading" now dials the value into the MCP window and pushes the HDG SEL switch, matching the real aircraft's control flow — previously the switch was never actually pressed, so the new heading was set but never followed.
PMDG 777 — Heading Hold Corrected: "Heading hold" now simply engages HDG HOLD (which follows the current track), instead of incorrectly trying to select a heading first.
PMDG 777 — Quieter Startup: A harmless SimConnect message that used to appear in the background log on load has been silenced.
Cessna 400 Corvalis — Altitude Preselect Fixed: "Set altitude" now reliably dials in the target altitude on this aircraft, resolving a long-standing issue where the preselect display could get stuck or fail to update.
🏷️ Supported Aircraft List
New "Checklist" Tag: The Supported Aircraft popup now flags which airframes have a full interactive checklist set with a cyan Checklist tag — currently the iniBuilds Airbus A350-1000 and the Cessna 172 Skyhawk G1000.
✈️ Six New Supported Aircraft
PMDG 777-300ER: Full voice control of the MCP/FCU — heading, altitude, speed, vertical speed, autopilot, autothrottle, gear, flaps, and parking brake — mapped directly onto PMDG's own control interface.
Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet: Full autopilot and flap control, including this aircraft's unique three-position flap lever.
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan (incl. floats): Full autopilot control tuned for its turboprop/G1000 avionics.
Cessna 400 Corvalis: Full autopilot control, plus the piston mixture-leaning "Optimize Fuel" command.
Diamond DA40 NG: Full autopilot control for this diesel-engined single.
Cessna Citation CJ4: Core autopilot, gear, and flap control (speed and lateral-nav commands are still being worked out on this aircraft's custom avionics — see Known Issues below).
The Commands page and Supported Aircraft list now reflect exactly which commands apply to each of these airframes, automatically graying out anything that isn't fitted (like autothrottle on a fixed-gear single).
🛠️ Real-Cockpit Behavior Fixes
PMDG 777 Gear: Fixed the gear lever not lowering in flight — now reproduces the exact click behavior of the physical lever.
PMDG 777 Autothrottle: Arming now waits the few seconds the real aircraft needs before engaging, so the engage step actually takes.
PMDG 777 Autopilot Disconnect: "Autopilot off" now silences the disconnect warning automatically, instead of leaving it sounding.
PMDG 777 Parking Brake: Releasing it now also simulates toe-brake pressure, matching how this aircraft's ratchet actually releases.
Vision Jet Flaps: Fixed flaps not moving at all — now correctly drives this aircraft's flap lever directly.
Altitude Preselect Reliability: Fixed several G1000/G3000-family aircraft (Cessna 208B, 400, Vision Jet) either ignoring the first altitude command or overshooting and taking a long time to settle.
🛡️ Fewer False Warnings
No More Spurious Alerts on Load or Aircraft Swap: Loading into a flight or switching aircraft could briefly show wildly wrong altitude/speed while things settle — this was incorrectly triggering the overspeed and altimeter-setting voice warnings. The Copilot now recognizes this settling period and holds off on warnings until your instruments are genuinely stable.
⚡ More Reliable GPU Model Switching
Fixed a Stuck-on-Big-Model Bug: Under certain conditions the Copilot could get stuck on the larger GPU model even when video memory ran tight, instead of stepping down to protect your simulator's performance. Video memory is now checked more robustly on every check, so it reliably steps down (and back up) as conditions change.
📋 Known Issues (Being Worked On)
PMDG 777 Dashboard: The Copilot dashboard doesn't yet show the 777's autopilot mode lights or selected heading/altitude — this needs a deeper integration with PMDG's own data system and is planned for an upcoming release.
CJ4 Speed & Lateral Nav: These two commands don't yet work on the Citation CJ4 due to its custom autopilot software — under investigation.
🚀 New Name, Same Copilot
FSCopilot Is Now SkyCrew: The app has been renamed to SkyCrew, part of the new AvioLogix family of aviation tools. Everything you already use works exactly the same — the wake word is still "copilot" and every voice command is unchanged.
SkyChat: The built-in AI chat window opened from the header — formerly CoChat — is now called SkyChat.
Fresh Start: Because SkyCrew has a new app identity, it uses a new settings folder. The voice models download once more on first launch, and you may want to re-check your Settings.
⚡ New: GPU Acceleration for the Voice Engine
Opt-In Toggle: Under Settings → AI Engine, a new GPU Acceleration switch lets your graphics card run a bigger, sharper command model. It's on by default but only does anything if a compatible GPU with spare video memory is detected — otherwise the Copilot simply stays on the CPU model.
Bigger, Smarter Model on the GPU: With acceleration on, the Copilot loads the larger Llama-3.2-3B model on your GPU while you fly — noticeably better at understanding intent and ignoring casual conversation — and, on a capable card, it responds faster than the CPU model despite being three times the size.
Never Steals Your Sim's Memory: The Copilot watches your free video memory the whole flight. If the simulator needs more (higher graphics settings, dense scenery, other add-ons), it automatically steps down — first to the small model on the GPU, then back to the CPU model — so it never causes stutters. When memory frees up, it steps back up.
Always-On Safety Net: The lightweight CPU model stays loaded and warm at all times as a fallback, so a command is never lost during a switch or if the GPU model hiccups.
NVIDIA and AMD/Intel: Uses CUDA on NVIDIA cards for the best speed, and Vulkan on AMD/Intel (and as a fallback), so most modern GPUs are covered.
See What's Running: Two new pills in the sidebar show the active model (3B GPU / 1B GPU / 1B CPU) and backend (CUDA / Vulkan / CPU) at a glance.
🧠 More Reasoning Headroom
Handles Longer Commands: The Copilot's reasoning headroom has been doubled, so even a long, detailed spoken command is handled smoothly.
Every Aircraft Verified: Command recognition was checked side-by-side across the CPU and GPU models for every supported aircraft, including the Airbus A350 — all commands are recognized identically either way.
🎯 Smarter, More Accurate Video-Memory Awareness
Matches What Windows Sees: The Copilot now reads your video memory the same way Windows' own Task Manager does, so it always has an accurate picture of what's actually free on your card — for NVIDIA and AMD/Intel alike.
Reliable Model Switching: This makes stepping between the bigger GPU model and the lighter fallback more responsive and dependable as your video memory usage changes while you fly.
New: VRAM Safety Margin Slider: Under Settings → AI Engine, a new slider lets you choose exactly how much video memory to always keep free for the simulator (in MB). Raise it for extra headroom on demanding scenery; lower it to use the bigger model more often. Applies immediately, no restart needed.
📦 Smaller, Faster Installer
Much Smaller Download: The installer no longer bundles the voice/AI models directly, cutting it down dramatically so it downloads and installs faster.
One-Time Setup on First Launch: The first time you open SkyCrew after installing, it automatically downloads and sets up the voice models in the background, with a real progress bar on the startup screen. This happens only once — every launch after that starts up exactly as before.
Same Capabilities: Nothing about voice recognition, command understanding, or GPU acceleration changes — this only affects how the models get onto your PC.
📋 Cessna C172SP G1000 Checklist Cleanup
One Combined Preflight Checklist: The separate Flight Prep and Exterior checklists are now a single Preflight checklist, with the exterior walk-around items (covers, chocks, pitot cover) grouped under their own Exterior heading at the bottom.
Clearer Naming: The Cabin checklist is now titled Before Engine Start, matching the real-world checklist name.
🎙️ Fewer Accidental Voice Activations
Switching Modes Mid-Sentence No Longer Fires: If you turn off Auto Listening (switch to Push-to-Talk), or stop the Copilot, while it's still listening to you, the half-heard sentence is now discarded instead of being run as a command.
Background Noise Won't Trigger Commands: Non-speech sounds the recognizer labels as noise — keyboard clicks, wind, taps — are now reliably ignored rather than occasionally being turned into a command (previously possible in Push-to-Talk).
Talking Around Aviation Terms Is Safer: Simply mentioning a word like "altitude", "speed" or "heading" in conversation — without actually asking to engage it — no longer switches on that autopilot mode. A mode is only engaged when you clearly ask for it ("engage altitude hold", "capture altitude", "altitude hold") — which matters when several people are talking on the flight deck.
🧭 Streamlined Copilot Page
Overview Tab Removed: The Copilot page now opens straight on the Aircraft dashboard, with Weather and Airport alongside it.
Buttons Moved Up: The Aircraft/Weather/Airport buttons now sit at the top of the Copilot page, right below the response bar, instead of the bottom.
📋 New: Checklists Menu
Organized by Flight Phase: Checklists now sit under three fixed tabs — Preflight, Inflight and Postflight — with a second row of buttons underneath for the individual checklists in the selected phase.
Automatically Matches Your Aircraft: The three phase tabs stay the same for every plane, but the checklists beneath them are specific to whatever you're currently flying — no manual selection needed.
Full Cessna C172SP G1000 Set: The complete Skyhawk checklists are now in — Flight Prep, Exterior, Cabin, Engine Start, After Engine Start, Before Taxi and Before Takeoff; Normal Takeoff, Climb, Cruise, Descent, ILS Approach, Before Landing, Go Around and Normal Landing; plus After Landing, After Parking and Securing Aircraft.
Tick Items Off as You Go: Click any line to check it off. Each checklist shows a live progress bar and count, the menu button tracks how far you are, and a finished checklist gets a green tick. Reset just the current checklist or all of them with a button.
Critical Items Stand Out: Must-verify values are highlighted (bracketed, in green), the same way the printed reference card bolds them.
Extra Reference Info: Where a checklist carries supporting detail — traffic-pattern speeds and altitudes, the top-of-descent formula, approach notes — it's shown below a divider at the bottom of the list.
Progress Is Per-Flight: Your ticks are remembered while you fly, reset automatically when you switch aircraft (a new airframe means a new flight), and aren't kept between app restarts.
Scales With the Window: Rows resize cleanly as you shrink or grow the app — dotted leaders reflow, and long reference values wrap instead of being pushed off the right edge.
✈️ New: iniBuilds A350-1000 Checklists
Loads With the Aircraft: The full iniBuilds A350 checklist set now appears automatically whenever you're flying the A350, using the same phase tabs, tick-off progress and reset buttons as the Cessna.
Complete Preflight Flow: Flight Prep gathers the entire cockpit setup into one list (preliminary panel, power-up, OIS & MFD, all three overhead panels, centre panel, pedestal, FMS init and glareshield), followed by Before Push & Start, Engine Start, After Engine Start, Taxi, Before Takeoff, Lineup and Takeoff.
Inflight & Arrival: After Takeoff, Climb, Cruise, Before TOD, OANS & BTV, Descent, a combined Approach list (Before Intercepting ILS and ILS Approach shown as separate blocks) and Landing.
Postflight: After Landing, Taxi In, Turning Into Gate & Engine Shutdown, and Securing the Aircraft.
Critical Items Identified for You: The Airbus reference card has no bold text, so the must-verify items — takeoff configuration, gear down, flaps, altimeter/BARO settings, engine start and cabin/slides — were researched and flagged, highlighted in green just like the Cessna set.
OANS & BTV Explained: The A350's Onboard Airport Navigation System and Brake-to-Vacate autobrake get their own arrival-prep checklist, with a short note explaining what each one does.
🛩️ New Aircraft: Cessna C172SP G1000
Dedicated Profile: The Cessna 172 Skyhawk G1000 now has its own command profile, selected automatically whenever you're flying one, with every command tailored to how this specific aircraft actually works.
Listed as Supported: The C172SP now appears in the Supported section of the Supported Aircraft list (header button), tagged Supported and In Development as its profile is refined in real flights — it was previously listed as Unsupported.
Commands Page Matches the Aircraft: While flying the C172SP, the Commands page grays out things this airframe can't do — Gear Up/Down (it's fixed-gear), Speed Set/Hold (speed is flown on the throttle, not the autopilot), Localizer (it uses Approach mode only) and the Autothrottle commands (not equipped) — so the list always reflects what you can actually ask for.
🎚️ Cessna Flap Commands (10° / 20° / 30°)
Flaps 10°: Say "flaps 10", "flaps ten", or "set flaps to 10" for the first notch — the usual take-off setting.
Flaps 20°: Say "flaps 20", "flaps twenty", or "set flaps to 20" for the second notch, commonly used on approach.
Flaps 30°: Say "flaps 30", "flaps thirty", or "set flaps to 30" for full flaps — the same as "flaps down", "full flaps" or "landing flaps".
Precise & Cessna-Specific: Each notch is driven the way the sim expects for this airframe, so it lands exactly where you asked. The 10° and 20° settings are exclusive to the C172SP and appear grayed out on other aircraft.
⛽ New Cessna Command: Optimize Fuel
Say "Optimize Fuel" or "Lean the Mixture": On the C172SP, the Copilot leans the mixture lever step by step while watching engine RPM — the same "lean to peak RPM" technique a pilot flies by hand — then settles the lever right where RPM peaks for your current altitude.
Finds the True Peak: It keeps adjusting through the flat part of the curve near the top and only settles once RPM has clearly started to fall again, so it reaches the genuine maximum instead of stopping a little short.
Works Either Direction: If the mixture is already too lean for the current altitude (common after a descent), it enriches instead — always searching toward more power, whichever way that is.
Runs in the Background: The search takes a little while and doesn't stop the Copilot from hearing other commands meanwhile; you'll get a spoken confirmation when it's done. Exclusive to the C172SP.
🎯 Cessna Autopilot Altitude Fix
No More Manual Knob Nudge: On the C172SP G1000, the autopilot altitude preselect could sit on "-----" and ignore voice-set altitudes until you manually turned the ALT SEL knob once. The Copilot now turns that knob for you — the same technique used for the A350's autopilot dials — so a spoken altitude takes effect right away. If you ever see the dashes linger, let us know.
🧠 Sharper, More Reliable Recognition
Cessna Flap Numbers: "flaps 20", "flaps 10" and "flaps 30" could occasionally be misheard as an unrelated command or the wrong notch, especially when the mic caught "flaps" a little unclearly. Flap positions are now read directly from what you said rather than left to the AI's guess — the same dependable approach already used for headings, altitudes and speeds.
Flaps vs. Gear: A rarer mix-up where "flaps down" could reach for the landing gear is now closed — the Copilot confirms which system you named before acting.
Autopilot vs. Autothrottle: The safeguards that keep autopilot and autothrottle commands from crossing over now cover the single-word "autothrottle" as well as "auto throttle", in both directions — so one system can never be toggled when you meant the other.
🎚️ Adjustable Voice Sensitivity
Three New Sliders under Settings → Voice Sensitivity: Background Noise Gate (how loud audio must be to register while idle), Minimum Speech Length (how much speech is needed before capturing), and Silence Before Processing (how long a pause ends your command).
Apply Instantly: Changes take effect immediately — even while the Copilot is already sitting in Standby waiting for you — with no restart and no need to "speak one command first". Raise the silence timeout if it cuts you off mid-sentence, or the noise gate if a busy room keeps waking it.
🔥 Faster Startup — Instant First Command
No More Slow First Command: The very first spoken command used to take much longer than the rest, because the engine had to prepare itself once before it could answer. That one-time step now happens automatically during startup, so your first real command is as quick as every one after it.
"Engine Warmup" Indicator: While that preparation runs, the status pill reads "Engine Warmup…" and switches to "Standby" the moment the Copilot is ready to listen. Voice listening only begins once warmup is finished.
📋 Command Details Popup — Scrollable & Reliable
Always Opens on First Click: The Details button on the Commands page now opens reliably every time, no matter how often you revisit the tab.
Scrollable, Always-Visible Close: Long phrase lists now scroll inside the popup, and the Close button stays pinned on screen instead of being pushed off the bottom.
🎧 Logo Audio — Click to Stop & Clearer Cues
Click to Stop: Clicking the logo while a voice line plays now fades it out and stops, instead of jumping to the next clip. Click again once it's quiet for the next line.
Visual Cues: The logo ring is green on hover while idle (click to play) and red on hover while playing (click to stop), and glows purple, pulsing with the voice, while a line plays.
🇫🇷 New Airbus A350 Voice Commands
Open Descent: Say "open descent" or "OP DES" to pull the altitude knob and engage Open Descent mode on the A350 — the aircraft sets the throttles to idle and descends smoothly at your selected speed.
Open Climb: Say "open climb" or "OP CLB" to engage Open Climb mode — the A350 climbs toward the selected altitude at your selected speed. Uses the same FCU knob pull as Open Descent; the aircraft works out whether to climb or descend from where the target altitude is set.
VNAV: Say "engage VNAV" or "vertical navigation" to push the altitude knob and hand vertical guidance over to the Flight Management System, which will follow the planned vertical profile automatically.
Airbus-Only: These three commands are specific to the iniBuilds A350 and have no effect on Boeing aircraft or the default simulator planes, where they simply aren't supported.
🔔 Automatic Altimeter Reminders
Climbing Through Transition Altitude: When you climb through the transition altitude, the Copilot now speaks up and reminds you to set standard pressure (STD / 1013 / 29.92) — the same reminder your real-world First Officer would give.
Descending Through Transition Altitude: Coming back down, when you pass through the transition altitude on descent, the Copilot reminds you to set the local QNH so your altimeter reads correctly for the approach.
Uses Your Settings: The altitude at which these reminders fire respects whatever transition altitude you've set in Settings — so it adapts correctly whether you're flying in the US, Europe, or Japan.
No False Alarms at Startup: The reminders won't fire when you first connect to the sim or while the flight is still loading — only once you're actually airborne and crossing the transition.
📋 Smarter Commands Page
Shows What's Available for Your Aircraft: The Commands page now knows which aircraft you're flying and sorts the list accordingly. Commands that work with your current plane appear at the top, highlighted as normal. Commands that don't apply to your aircraft are quietly moved to the bottom and dimmed, so you're never left guessing what you can actually say.
Boeing 737: While flying a 737, the Airbus-specific commands (like Open Descent, VNAV, and the Airbus flap detents) will appear grayed out at the bottom — they're still listed for reference, but clearly marked as not available.
Airbus A350: While flying the A350, all commands are available and shown normally.
Unknown Aircraft: If you're in an aircraft without a dedicated profile — or not yet flying — all commands show equally, so nothing is accidentally hidden.
Updates as You Fly: Switch aircraft mid-session and the Commands page updates itself automatically to reflect your new plane.
🎚️ Speed Hold Fixed for the Default 737 MAX 8 BBJ
Now Presses the Real Button: The default "737 MAX 8 BBJ" uses a different type of cockpit input than most aircraft, and the SPEED hold command was being sent in a way this aircraft quietly ignores. It's now sent correctly — the same as physically pressing the SPEED button on the MCP.
Other Aircraft Unaffected: Aircraft that don't use this newer input system continue to work exactly as before, with an automatic fallback.
🗂️ Streamlined Header Navigation
Updates & Info Moved to the Header: The Updates and Info navigation buttons have moved out of the sidebar and into the app header, sitting to the left of the clock. The sidebar is now cleaner and focused on the core operational tabs — Copilot, Commands, and Settings.
Always in Reach: Because the header is always visible regardless of which view is open, Updates and Info are now accessible without first navigating away from whatever page you're on.
Active State Tracking: Whichever header or sidebar button you last clicked stays highlighted, so it's always clear which view is currently open.
💬 SkyChat
Direct Access to the Built-In AI: A new SkyChat button in the header opens the local LLaMA chat interface in a standalone popup window — the same interface previously only reachable through the link on the Info page, now a single click away from anywhere in the app.
Independent Window: The chat opens in its own window so you can position it on a second monitor or keep it open alongside the Copilot dashboard without losing your place.
Always Local: The chat still runs entirely on your computer — no internet connection, no data sent anywhere.
✈️ Supported Aircraft Browser
Know What Works Before You Fly: A new Supported Aircraft button in the header opens a popup listing every aircraft we've considered, organized into clear tiers so you know exactly what to expect before choosing a plane.
Supported: Aircraft with a dedicated command profile — currently the default Boeing 737 MAX 8 BBJ and the iniBuilds Airbus A350-1000. Both are flagged as actively supported but still in alpha development.
Possibly Compatible: The iniBuilds A350-900 and A350-900 ULR share the same cockpit controls as the supported A350-1000 and are expected to work, but haven't been confirmed in a live flight session yet.
Unsupported: Every default MSFS aircraft and a selection of popular addons are listed for reference. They carry an Unsupported tag, but a note makes clear that basic autopilot, gear, and flap commands may still respond through standard simulator connections.
🛩️ Automatic Aircraft Detection
Adapts to What You're Flying: Copilot now reads the airframe you're in and selects a matching command profile, so the same voice commands can be carried out the way each specific aircraft expects - rather than assuming a single default cockpit.
Switches Live: The detection refreshes while you fly, so swapping aircraft mid-session re-selects the right profile on its own, with no app restart needed.
Safe Fallback: Any aircraft without a dedicated profile - and any moment before the airframe name has been read from the sim - simply uses the proven default mapping, so nothing is left without a usable command set.
🇫🇷 First Addon Profile: iniBuilds Airbus A350
Full Flap Detent Support: The A350's flap lever positions (0, 1, 2, 3, FULL) are now fully supported. You can command "flaps up" (0), "flaps one," "flaps two," "flaps three," or "flaps full" (or "flaps down") directly, moving away from the generic Boeing-style notch range used in the default mapping.
Airbus-Tailored LNAV: Engaging NAV no longer runs the default 737's "prime heading hold first" workaround, which doesn't apply to the Airbus and would have left it in selected heading - the A350 couples NAV directly.
Airbus-Tailored Speed Engagement: The SPEED command no longer force-arms the autothrottle first (an Airbus autothrust is always armed), so it won't needlessly toggle the A/THR arm state the way the 737 sequence required.
Shared Controls Unchanged: Parking brake continues to use the standard simulator event that works across aircraft, so only the genuinely Airbus-specific behavior is overridden.
🎛️ Self-Correcting FCU Knobs
Turns Itself to the Right Value: The A350's speed, heading, altitude and vertical speed selectors are physical rotary knobs with no "type in a number" input - asking for "speed 250" now turns the knob, checks where it actually landed, and keeps turning until the selected value matches what you asked for, exactly the way you'd dial it in by hand.
Adapts as It Goes: The knobs speed up the faster they're turned, so a fixed number of clicks could never land precisely - the Copilot now measures how far each turn actually moved the value and recalculates on the fly, correcting itself in real time rather than guessing a click count up front.
Vertical Speed Engages Automatically: The one exception - "descend at 2000" (or "climb at...") now dials the rate in and starts the climb/descent right away, since there's no useful reason to set a vertical speed without flying it. No separate "vertical speed mode" command needed afterward.
Working Landing Gear: Gear up/down now actually moves the A350's gear lever - it was previously being sent through a control the aircraft doesn't listen to and silently did nothing.
Autopilot & Autothrottle Fixed: "Autopilot on/off" and "arm/disarm the autothrottle" had been working backwards or not at all on the A350; both now press the correct physical FCU button every time.
🧩 Built to Grow
Extensible by Design: Each aircraft profile starts from the default command mapping and overrides only what that airframe does differently, so supporting another addon is a matter of adding its detection rule and the handful of commands that differ.
First Step, Not the Last: This is the groundwork for broader addon-aircraft support; A350-specific behavior is best-effort against the iniBuilds systems and will keep being refined release over release.
🛬 Fixed "Descend/Climb and Maintain" Altitude Clearances
ATC Phrasing Now Recognized: Saying "descend and maintain 5000 feet" or "climb and maintain flight level 350" - phrasing that never says the word "altitude" - was being misheard as Altitude Hold, Vertical Speed, or other unrelated commands. It's now deterministically recognized as Set Altitude with the correct value, regardless of what the AI model guesses.
FLC Engages Correctly: Saying "flight level change please" or "level change please" was being misread as Altitude Hold, because the phrase shares the words "flight level" with the Set Altitude command. It's now deterministically recognized as Level Change (FLC), regardless of what the AI model guesses.
🔢 Fixed Spoken Numbers With "Thousand" / "Hundred"
Correct Values Now Parsed: Numbers spoken as words with a magnitude, like "five thousand" or "twenty five hundred", were being parsed as just the leading digit (e.g. "minus five thousand" became -5 instead of -5000). Altitude, vertical speed, heading and airspeed commands now parse these correctly.
Plural Forms Too: "Altitude two thousand" was sometimes transcribed as "two thousands" (plural), which dropped the magnitude entirely and set 200 ft instead of 2,000 ft. Plural "thousands"/"hundreds" are now recognized the same as the singular form.
🗑️ Removed VNAV Voice Command
Non-Functional Feature Removed: VNAV had no real effect in the simulator - SimConnect has no standard event for it - so the voice command, wake words and related code have been removed entirely.
⚙️ New Default Settings
Push-to-Talk Key: The default push-to-talk key (used on a brand-new install, before you've chosen your own) is now Space instead of C.
Copilot Volume: The default Copilot volume (on a brand-new install) is now 50% instead of 25%.
⚙️ New Settings Page
Dedicated Settings Tab: A new "Settings" menu button opens a proper settings page, replacing values that were previously baked into the app's configuration files.
Saved to Your PC: Your choices are now stored in a persistent data file on your computer, so they're remembered across restarts and survive updates.
🪟 Remembers Where You Left It
Saved Window Position: A new "Remember App Position" option (on by default, under General) reopens the window at the same size and place - and on the same monitor - you last used.
Multi-Monitor Safe: If the monitor it was last on is no longer connected, the window falls back to a sensible default instead of opening off-screen.
🔊 Adjustable Copilot Volume
Volume Slider: The Voice section adds a "Copilot" slider (0-100%) to set the Copilot's voice and interface volume, which used to be fixed in the configuration.
Live & Persistent: The change is audible immediately as you drag and is saved for next time. Defaults to 25% if nothing has been set yet.
🎙️ Push-to-Talk Listening
Auto Listening Toggle: "Copilot Auto Listening" (on by default) keeps the continuous voice-activated behavior. Turn it off to switch to push-to-talk.
Push-to-Talk Key: Set your own key (default C) in the "Push To Talk Key" field - click it and press the key you want. The field shows it's scanning and grays out while Auto Listening is on.
Press Once, Then Speak: In push-to-talk mode a single key press arms listening; it captures your command and returns to Standby on its own - no need to hold the key down. Just press again for the next command.
No Wake Word Needed: Because the key press is the trigger, push-to-talk mode no longer needs a wake word - say "engage the brakes" directly instead of "please engage the brakes".
🛫 Altitude & Vertical Speed by Voice
Set Altitude: Say "set altitude 210" to dial the autopilot's selected altitude to flight level 210 (21,000 ft). Numbers can be spoken as a whole value or digit by digit, just like headings.
Altitude Hold: "Engage altitude hold" switches on the autopilot's altitude hold mode.
Set Vertical Speed: "Set vertical speed 1500" sets the climb rate and starts the climb or descent toward the selected altitude - say "descend" or "minus" for a descent (e.g. "vertical speed minus 1000"). No separate command is needed to engage it.
Vertical Speed Mode: "Engage vertical speed" is still available on its own, for re-arming V/S mode without changing the rate already dialed in.
🎛️ Autopilot Configuration Panel
Every Mode at a Glance: A new "Autopilot Configuration" panel on the Copilot page shows the live state of every autopilot selector - Heading (HDG), Nav / Lateral (LNAV), Vertical Nav (VNAV), Level Change (FLC), Altitude Hold (ALT), Vertical Speed (V/S), Localizer (LOC), Approach (APP), Speed Hold (SPD) and the Autothrottle (AT) - each lit up when it's engaged.
Selected Values Too: Where a mode carries a target, the panel shows it alongside - the selected heading, altitude, vertical speed and airspeed - so you can read back exactly what the autopilot is set to.
Honest About Limits: VNAV isn't reported the same way by every aircraft, so it's shown as "N/A" rather than guessing, and the Localizer indicator lights only when the autopilot is actually tracking a tuned localizer.
📐 Altitude & Heading Reference Cues
Ground Height Beside Altitude: The Altitude tile now shows the terrain elevation below you ("GND") right next to your altitude, so you can read your height against the ground at a glance.
Target Altitude Cue: When a new altitude is selected on the autopilot, a small colored reminder appears under your current altitude - green with an up arrow when you need to climb, amber with a down arrow when you need to descend - showing the value you're heading for.
Target Heading Cue: The Heading tile does the same: set a new heading bug and the target heading shows underneath in a distinct color as a visual reference for the turn you need to fly.
🌦️ Weather, Airport & Runway Data
Live Weather: A new panel shows the wind (direction and speed), temperature, QNH, the set altimeter, visibility and current conditions (rain, snow, in-cloud) read straight from the sim.
Landing Wind: It works out the headwind (or tailwind) and crosswind component for a landing flown on your current heading, with a quick warning color for a strong crosswind.
Nearest Airport: Shows the closest airport's ICAO code, field elevation, and its distance and bearing from you.
Radios & ILS: Lists your tuned COM (ATC) and NAV frequencies, and when an ILS is tuned it shows its identifier, frequency, localizer course and whether a glideslope is available.
🛩️ More Autopilot Voice Commands
Lateral & Vertical Nav: Say "engage LNAV" to follow the flight plan track (the NAV / LNAV button) and "engage VNAV" for vertical navigation.
Localizer & Approach: "Capture the localizer" arms the LOC (or VOR LOC) button, and "arm approach" engages APP to capture the localizer and glideslope.
Level Change: "Engage level change" switches on the FLC button.
Set Speed: "Set speed 250" dials the autopilot's selected airspeed - spoken whole or digit by digit, with the number anywhere in the sentence, just like headings and altitudes.
🎚️ Autothrottle Arm & Speed Hold
Arm / Disarm by Voice: "Arm the autothrottle" (or "engage the autothrottle") arms the MCP A/T switch; "disarm the autothrottle" (or "turn off the autothrottle") disarms it.
Speed Hold Button: "Speed hold" or "engage speed mode" presses the MCP SPEED button to couple the autothrottle to your selected airspeed.
Arms Itself First: On the 737 the autothrottle has to be armed before SPEED does anything, so Speed Hold now arms it automatically if it isn't already, then engages SPEED a moment later - the same sequence a pilot would fly by hand.
🧭 More Reliable LNAV Engagement
Primes Heading Mode First: The default 737 has a known quirk where LNAV won't actually couple unless a lateral mode (HDG) is already active. Engaging LNAV by voice now switches on heading hold first, then arms LNAV a moment later - reproducing the sequence that's been confirmed to work.
📏 Accurate Ground Distance
True Height Above Terrain: The "GND" reading next to your altitude previously showed raw terrain elevation, which could even read negative near sea level. It now shows your actual geometric height above the ground, correct no matter how the altimeter is set.
🌍 Configurable Transition Altitudes
No Longer Hardcoded: The altimeter transition reminder used to assume a fixed 10,000 ft (Europe/default) or 18,000 ft (North America). These are now adjustable sliders in Settings, in 1,000 ft steps.
New Japan Zone: Added a third example zone (14,000 ft) to show the setting supports more than just the original two regions.
🔇 No More Talking Over Itself
Mic Pauses for the Reply: Copilot now measures the exact length of its own spoken response and pauses the microphone for precisely that long, so it can no longer pick up its own voice and misread it as your next command - a loop that could previously chain commands together unintentionally.
Instant Cutover: If a reply starts playing while the mic is mid-listen, that listen is interrupted immediately rather than waiting for the next check.
🧠 Sharper Command Recognition
Autothrottle vs. Autopilot: "Autothrottle" and "autopilot" sound similar enough that the AI was occasionally confusing the two - a real risk, since that could silently flip the actual autopilot instead of just arming the autothrottle. A dedicated safety check now catches any such mix-up before it can act, regardless of what the AI itself concluded.
Speed Set vs. Speed Hold: Whether you spoke an actual number now reliably decides between dialing in a speed value and pressing the SPEED hold button, the same proven approach already used for altitude and vertical speed.
🎙️ Listens Only When You Speak
Waits Quietly in Standby: The Copilot now sits quietly in "Standby" and only starts listening the moment it hears your voice. Before, it switched to "Listening" as soon as it opened and stayed there the whole time.
Ignores Background Noise: A running fan, cabin hum, or air conditioning won't set it off any more - it waits for an actual voice before it starts paying attention.
Catches Your First Word: It no longer clips the start of what you say, so the opening word of your command always comes through.
⚡ Easier on Your PC
Less Work in the Background: Now that it isn't recording and processing sound non-stop, the Copilot uses far less of your computer while you're not talking to it - leaving more power for the sim.
🅿️ Parking Brake Now Works
Set & Release: Asking to set or release the parking brake now actually works in the sim. Before, the Copilot heard you but nothing happened.
No More Mix-Ups: "Apply the brakes" and "release the brakes" sometimes got swapped - the Copilot now does exactly what you asked.
Fewer Missed Commands: Clear gear, flap, and brake commands no longer get dropped now and then - when what you say is clear, the Copilot acts on it.
🧭 Set Heading by Voice
Dial In Any Heading: Say "set heading 251", "turn heading 030", or "fly heading 180" and the Copilot dials the autopilot's heading bug to that exact value.
Understands Numbers However You Say Them: Works whether the heading comes out as one number ("two fifty one"), spelled out digit by digit with pauses ("two... five... one"), or with a leading zero ("zero three zero") - they all land on the same heading.
Speaks Pilot, Not Just English: Also recognizes radio-style pronunciations ("tree", "fife", "niner") instead of requiring textbook English.
🔒 Engage Heading Hold
Hands-Free HDG Mode: Saying "engage heading hold", "hold heading", or "activate heading hold" switches on the autopilot's heading hold mode, just like pressing the HDG button on the panel.
🛫 Autopilot On / Off by Voice
Engage or Disengage on Command: Say "autopilot on" (or "engage the autopilot", "activate autopilot", "enable the autopilot") to switch it on, and "autopilot off" (or "disengage the autopilot", "deactivate autopilot", "disable the autopilot") to switch it off.
No Toggle, No Guessing: Flipping the autopilot the wrong way mid-flight is the last mistake you want, so this one never works like a toggle - it only acts when your words clearly say "on" or "off", and a vague or ambiguous phrase is ignored rather than guessed at.
🟠 Altimeter Transition Reminder
Spots a Missed Switch: When you climb past the transition altitude with the altimeter still on a local pressure setting, the Altimeter tile on the Copilot page turns bright orange and reads "SET STD" - a heads-up to switch to standard before a tool like vRAAS calls it out.
Confirms When Set: The moment you switch to standard, the orange warning turns into a green "ALT STD OK" check, so you know it's sorted.
Works Both Ways: Coming back down, if you drop below the transition altitude with the altimeter still on standard, it warns you again - this time to set the local pressure (QNH).
Knows Where You Are: The transition altitude now sets itself from your position - 18,000 ft over the US and Canada, 10,000 ft over Europe and elsewhere - so the reminder fires at the right height wherever you fly.
🟠 Speed Limit Warning
Catches an Overspeed Below 10,000 ft: The speed restriction most controlled airspace enforces near busy, low-altitude traffic is 250 kts below 10,000 ft. Drift a few knots over (250-255 kts) and the Airspeed tile turns orange as a quiet heads-up - no sound, since that's within the margin of a brief excursion while leveling off.
Turns Red For a Real Overspeed: Push past 255 kts and the tile turns red and pulses instead, showing a "REDUCE SPEED" warning.
Speaks Up If It Lasts: Stay above 255 kts for more than 15 seconds and the Copilot also plays a spoken "reduce speed" alert, so you don't have to be staring at the dashboard to catch it.
Clears Itself Automatically: Slow back down or climb above 10,000 ft and the tile returns to its normal look right away, no acknowledgement needed.
🛬 Landing Lights Reminder
Flags Lights Off Down Low: Below 10,000 ft, the Landing Lights chip turns orange and reads "LIGHTS ON" if they're still off - a nudge to switch them on for visibility in the busiest airspace.
Flags Lights On Up High: At or above 10,000 ft, it instead warns "LIGHTS OFF" if they're still on, once you no longer need them.
No Flickering Near 10,000 ft: The reminder only flips once you're clearly past the 10,000 ft mark in either direction, so leveling off right around that altitude doesn't make the warning flicker on and off.
🔧 Interface Polish
Adjustable Sound Volume: The volume of the Copilot's interface sounds is now a setting you can change rather than being fixed in the code, and it's been turned up slightly by default.
Shows It's Ready Sooner: The status pill now reads "Standby" the moment the dashboard opens, instead of showing "Copilot Off" until the first time it heard and processed a command.
🛩️ Live Aircraft Dashboard
Live Flight Data: The Copilot tab is no longer an empty placeholder - it now shows data read straight from your aircraft in the sim, refreshing about 10 times a second.
At-a-Glance Instruments: Gauge tiles for airspeed, altitude, heading, and vertical speed (with a climb/descent trend arrow), plus status chips for landing gear, landing lights, parking brake, autopilot, and flaps.
Aircraft Identity: A slim header bar shows the current aircraft's name and type next to a live connection indicator that pulses while the sim is linked.
Altimeter, Either Way: The altimeter setting is shown in both inHg and hPa, so it reads correctly whatever region you fly in.
Built to Grow: All of this runs in its own self-contained module on a separate simulator connection, kept apart from the command-sending side so more aircraft data can be added easily later.
🔌 Simulator Data Reading Fixes
Modernized Data Requests: The calls that read data from the simulator used an outdated style the library no longer supports, so they silently returned nothing - switched to the event-driven approach it actually uses.
Aircraft Name & Type: These always came back blank because the text values were requested with an invalid setting that made the sim quietly reject them; they now read correctly.
Parking Brake Variable: One variable name had its words swapped, which the sim rejected - and because all readings are packed back-to-back, that single bad name knocked every following value out of alignment and crashed the read. Verified the correct name against the official MSFS SDK docs.
Per-Aircraft Resilience: A variable an unusual aircraft doesn't support is now reported by name and simply skipped, instead of bringing down the whole data feed.
🛡️ Stability & Display Polish
Shutdown Crash: Fixed an "Object has been destroyed" crash that could happen if sim data arrived in the moment the app was closing.
Steady Trend Arrow: Smoothed the vertical-speed reading so the climb/descent arrow no longer flickers on tiny sensor jitter, while still reacting to real changes.
📖 In-App Info Refresh
Updated Documentation: Audited the Info page for accuracy, corrected outdated details, cleaned up the formatting, and added new sections covering wake-word activation, command reliability, and how a command reaches the simulator.
⚡ Voice Command Speed-Up
Faster Transcription: Every voice command used to reload the entire speech-recognition model from scratch, and always analyzed a full 30-second window even for a 1-2 second command. The speech engine now stays loaded in the background (like the command-interpretation AI already did), and only analyzes as much audio as a command actually needs.
Real-World Result: Transcription time dropped from roughly 2.7 seconds down to about 0.7-1 second per command.
🔊 Logo Click Sound Fix
First-Click Fix: Clicking the app logo used to play no sound for the first attempt or two after launch, only working from the 2nd-3rd click onward. An invalid audio setting was silently failing during setup - sound now plays immediately and consistently from the very first click.
🧩 Modularity Refactor
Cleaner Codebase: Split the largest files into focused, single-purpose modules with no behavior changes - the AI prompt logic, the speech-server process management, audio-processing helpers, the UI's view controllers, and the auto-updater wiring each now live in their own dedicated file.
Why It Matters: Easier to extend, test, and debug going forward.
📦 Build Verification
Confirmed Leaner Installs: Rebuilt the packaged installer from scratch and confirmed the earlier build-config fix actually holds - the vendored build source tree is fully excluded from the shipped app. What's left in the install size is just the bundled AI models themselves, not leftover build artifacts.
🎙️ Smarter Voice Commands
Command Lock-In: The AI now strictly only picks from your actual configured commands - it can no longer invent or guess something that isn't on the list.
Direction Correction: Fixed a bug where words like "retract" sometimes triggered the opposite direction. Clear direction mismatches are now caught and corrected before executing.
Flaps vs Gear Fix: Fixed commands like "flaps down" sometimes being misheard as gear commands, by balancing the recognized phrase library across every command.
Fewer False Triggers: Idle chit-chat is far less likely to get misread as a flight command.
🎧 Better Speech Recognition
Upgraded Speech Model: Switched the built-in speech engine to a more accurate model, tuned specifically to help with short, easily-confused command words.
Smarter Vocabulary Priming: The speech engine is now primed with the exact vocabulary it needs (gear, flaps, brakes, and every direction word), cutting down on mis-hearings like "landing" coming through as "learning."
🎤 Faster Reaction Time
Real Speech Detection: Background noise (engine sounds, cabin chatter) could prevent the system from reliably detecting when you'd stopped talking, since it was only measuring loudness, not whether the sound was actually speech. It now runs a dedicated speech-detection model that distinguishes real speech from background noise directly.
Faster Cutoff: Once you stop talking, the system now recognizes this and reacts almost immediately instead of sometimes running all the way out to the maximum recording window.
🔒 Security
Sandboxed Main Window: Hardened the main app window so its web content no longer has direct system access, closing off a class of risk that's standard practice to lock down in Electron apps.
🧰 Behind the Scenes
Leaner Builds: Cleaned up the build so packaged releases no longer ship several unnecessary gigabytes of unused source and build artifacts.
Smaller Install: Removed unused dependencies bloating the install size.
Code Cleanup: Removed dead, never-used aircraft-profile logic and a broken sound-file reference left over from earlier development.
Startup Reliability: Untangled a circular reference between the simulator-connection module and the main app module, making the simulator link more robust to load.
🎮 MSFS24 Simulator Connectivity
Simulator Bridge: Partially integrated Copilot with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Flight Controls: Implemented and validated Gear Up/Down and Flaps Up/Down commands for direct simulator interaction.
🖥️ UI/UX Overhaul
Info Hub: Replaced the Settings page with a comprehensive 'Info' database, restructured with accordion-style documentation sections.
Commands Center: Transformed the Debug window into a user-friendly Commands view, displaying all available commands and their associated phrases in an at-a-glance table.
Command Details: Added per-command detail modals to easily view all voice phrase variants.
🤖 Advanced AI Intent Hardening
Conversational Grounding: Trained the AI to ignore non-flight speech (like "laptop" or general chat) using negative examples, significantly reducing false triggers.
Directional Logic Hardening: Implemented strict validation for "UP/RETRACT" vs "DOWN/EXTEND" actions to ensure critical systems like flaps and gear always move correctly.
🖥️ Dashboard UI & Logic Refinements
Persistent Response Bar: Finalized a centered, cockpit-themed status bar clamped below the header for global visibility of the last executed command.
Dynamic Versioning: Automated the UI to pull version numbers directly from the project's package metadata.
Configuration Correction: Fixed a critical mismatch in the command status mapping that previously misidentified flap directions on the dashboard.
🎙️ Natural Voice Interaction
Smart Voice Capture: Implemented Voice Activity Detection (VAD) that automatically starts when you speak and stops after 1.2s of silence, preventing cut-offs.
Fluid Sentence Recognition: Refactored wake-word logic to support one-motion commands (e.g., "Hey copilot, gear down") without waiting for pauses.
Agnostic Wake-Word Position: The system now scans the entire sentence for wake words, allowing for natural, conversational requests.
🧠 AI Interpretation Engine
Contextual Hints: Whisper now uses dynamic initial prompts based on your settings to eliminate phonetic errors like "go pilot".
JSON Output Hardening: Re-engineered the Llama reasoning loop to strictly enforce JSON-only responses, preventing code-block hallucinations.
Refined Confidence Scoring: Tuned the intent logic to ensure clear human commands consistently receive 1.0 confidence.
🛡️ Stability & Security
Binary Environment Fixes: Resolved "DLL Not Found" and "Stack Buffer Overrun" crashes by hardening the binary execution paths and CLI flags.
Hallucination Filtering: Added a strict noise floor to discard common Whisper artifacts like [typing] or isolation "you" hallucinations.
Silent Standby: Corrected VAD triggers to ensure the UI remains in Standby during background noise, only waking for sustained human speech.
🎨 UI Feedback & Lifecycle
New Standby State: Added a low-opacity "Copilot Standby" status to provide clear visual confirmation that the system is ready but dormant.
Ultra-Low Latency Triggers: Optimized IPC communication to reflect the "Listening" state within ~50ms of audio detection.
🚀 Seamless Auto-Update System
Automated Release Integration: Wired the application directly to the release server to automatically detect and download new versions in the background.
Visual Download Progress: Integrated native Windows Taskbar progress indicators so you can visibly see when a massive AI update is downloading in the background.
Smart Installer UI: Configured the update framework to launch the NSIS setup window visibly during application restarts, providing complete transparency into the installation process.
🛠️ Core & Infrastructure Fixes
Artifact Standardization: Hardcoded the electron-builder compilation rules to use hyphens instead of spaces to eliminate 404 mismatch errors when pulling from the release server.
ESM & CommonJS Bridges: Resolved deep module import incompatibilities by restructuring the updater logic to safely bridge modern ES modules with legacy CommonJS structures.
🎨 App Design & User Interface Layout
Dynamic Dashboard Architecture: Engineered a Single Page Application (SPA) system using asynchronous template caching to deliver transitions with absolutely zero window reloading or flashing.
Unified Design System: Implemented a dark cyber-grid cockpit framework accented by custom telemetry panels, an atomic binary real-time clock matrix, and micro-glow structural borders.
Interactive Updates Page: Deployed a wide-spanning smart accordion system that collapses dynamically to protect view workspace while managing rich content layouts.
⚙️ Core Application Infrastructure
Electron Runtime Engine: Stabilized application processes with custom runtime flags to guarantee safe hardware rendering bypasses and secure asynchronous communication channels.
Hermetic Build Packager: Configured dedicated system packaging streams using custom extraction rules to ensure all critical assets map cleanly into system paths across installations.
🎙️ Native Audio Subsystem & SoX Integration
Local Hardware Capture: Integrated an embedded, unmanaged execution layer for low-level audio tracking, eliminating the need for users to manually configure external dependencies.
Simulator Connection Tracking: Wired up real-time Online/Offline telemetry indicators that dynamically toggle based on whether the flight simulator is actively running and broadcasting data.
Voice Assistant State Monitoring: Added an interactive AI status pill that instantly updates to show when the voice engine is actively listening to the user versus when it's idle or processing.
🤖 Local AI Orchestration Matrix
Local Intelligence Core: Integrated a highly efficient, localized reasoning engine powered by Llama-3.2-1B to handle complex intent translation right on your computer.
Speech Transformation Pipelines: Linked local speech processing bridges to feed high-fidelity hardware audio streams seamlessly into our contextual interpretation loop.
📡 Real-Time Telemetry & Status Monitoring
Dynamic Visual Indicators: Deployed contextual monitoring badges to trace live flight environment connections and local server execution rings.
Asynchronous State Tracing: Configured automated background listeners to broadcast updates seamlessly from system backends right into the user interface.
✨ Immersive Sequences & Audio Brand Cues
Animated Startup Splash: Implemented a frameless progress tracking window that tracks framework initialization stages before revealing the flight deck.
Interactive Brand Cues: Wired localized audio triggers into the main identity node, providing an immersive response sequence when interacting with the main logo.
