I just came off of a flight where I did an entire descent phase in VR on Unicom (122.8). All went well until I was short final, and got the tower’s “Please contact me” on a 1 mile final.
In all fairness:
There was no means by which the air traffic controller could know that I didn’t know of his presence until I was REALLY short final.
There was no means by which I could know he was online without constantly taking my headset off and on repeatedly.
I know of the existence of VSR, but it would be a much more elegant solution if vPilot had a natively supported integration in the toolbar. This would make it easy for someone to easily have all the reference they need (controller list, messages, PMs, etc.) all visible in Virtual Reality without the need to constantly reference a second (non-VR) window.
I mean think about it:
CPDLC through Hoppie integration in the aircraft
Simbrief OFP in the aircraft EFB
Navigraph Charts in the toolbar
vPilot status and reference in the toolbar <---- This is the only thing missing to close the loop on a full VR solution in MSFS
vPilot is written in C#, and you cannot run C# apps inside the sim. Someone would need to make a UI that runs in the sim and communicates with vPilot running outside the sim. It’s not something I’m interested in doing, but I might be able to support someone else who is willing to do it.
I’m the dev for VSR and I am confused when you say “more elegant” than VSR - the only thing missing in from your list is Hoppie (I did poll users and most didn’t feel it was needed as most aircraft flight pads support it). Everything else can be supported using VSR plus something like the tablet on flightsimulator.me.
You can now access:
VSR (VATSIM Radio) on the tablet or standalone
Navigraph charts on the tablet or standalone
Simbrief OFP on the tablet and also in VSR
Also what do you mean by “vPilot status and reference in the toolbar” - VSR and Vpilot communicate via a plugin DLL, you get notifications in VSR when Vpilot and VSR connect and when vpilot connects and disconnects from VATSIM network.
This video shows most of the integrations you need in the tablet
I recently started using VSR with the all in one tablet. It’s awesome. Question, if I am not in frequency and atc sends a texted message in copilot, would I get it in VSR? Or do I need another Vr app?
VSR displays and sends messages via a DLL plugin for VPilot to VATSIm either as direct messages from/to a callsign or as a network message to/from a frequency you are tuned to on Comm1 or Comm2.
I’d refer to the VPilot functionality for plug-ins - if you are in observer or not the primary pilot I’m not sure what occurs with messages @887155 ?