[ MSFS2020 | VATSIM ] the BAE146 from KONT-KPVU for "Mountains to Malibu FNO"!

Fresh off of an intriguing conversation with the CEO and Founder for SayIntentions.AI and a run-though of the service on our previous stream, we devised an interesting plan for this evening's "Mountains to Malibu FNO" hosted by Denver, Salt Lake, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles ARTCCs. Obviously for a FNO we knew we could expect wire-to-wire ATC services from VATSIM. However, what if we got our ATC service from human controllers, but put SayIntentions' AI cabin crew feature through a more thorough test at the same time? A little bit of back-and-forth on the SI Discord suggested it should be possible. So we disabled the automated cabin announcements built into the JustFlight BAe146, and shut off the COM radios and COM push-to-talk through SayIntentions, with the plan being to run both services simultaneously and see what happened!
The original itinerary, proposed by a colleague at ZDC who flew along in the background, was to start at Ontario, California (KONT) then fly to Provo, Utah (KPVU) and on to Phoenix Sky Harbor (KPHX). Unfortunately a local power failure would cut that plan short -- but luckily for us, the gentleman whose pickup truck took out the electrical transformer serving my neighborhood was kind enough to wait until I landed at Provo to skid off the road!
Ontario is in the northern part of the Los Angeles suburbs and there are some significant terrain considerations there, particularly when departing to the northeast. For our little BAe146 -- which has four engines, but each with scarcely more thrust than a household hairdryer -- being near maximum gross weight (with fuel planned for the two-hop trip, mind you) on a very hot day in a plane that's already generally considered underpowered left us struggling to attain enough altitude to clear the ridge we needed to turn over. Our Departure controller was kind enough to give us some flexibility to allow us to turn late and miss the worst of the high peaks -- and all went well once we were past the most major areas of concern.
SayIntentions offers three different choices for their virtual cabin crews -- a top-notch, A-game team; the "Dynamic Duo" which features their now-notorious tour guide doubling in the role of Flight Attendant, and her unspeaking colleague who constantly seems to be engaging in bizarre antics; and the one we chose, called "Quitting Time". Our sarcastic and hilariously unenthusiastic lead attendant, Jim, punctuated his response to nearly every directive with "... I guess," and it was explicitly clear during his passenger announcements that he didn't really care whether anyone was paying attention. My favorite gem of his was when I asked him to let the passengers know we'd reached cruise and I had turned off the seatbelt signs. "Yeah, like they can't see those signs themselves," was his reply, much to my amusement!
On descent into Provo we were broken off of our filed route and vectored toward the airport, just like I expected. However, what I didn't expect was still to be at well over 10,000 feet when catching sight of our destination. This may have been a side-effect of the high-walled valley that the entire Salt Lake region rests within. But it meant that we needed a bit of a tour of said valley wherein we could lose the excess altitude. We were cleared for a visual approach from a nice high downwind, and hand-flew it pretty decently despite winds shifting throughout the canyon. Ultimately, our touchdown and rollout was one of the better ones we've executed in this aircraft of late.
Jim gave his half-assed arrival announcement on our way to the terminal, which unfortunately turned out not to exist in our version of the scenery -- so we simply taxied up next to another aircraft which was presumably parked there, despite it looking like a dirt-surfaced construction site on our end. That was when our power shut off, though, which (as it turns out) gave me just about seven minutes to wrap up the stream and close up shop for the night. But it was our second experimental evening in two streams, and we were happy to report another success for the SayIntentions.AI service! -- Watch live at / slantalphaadventures

[@dirkcornelisashleytaljaard6673]

nice landing looks like a complicated plane but beautiful

[@SlantAlphaAdventures]

@@dirkcornelisashleytaljaard6673 fun bird, for sure. took a number of flights to get familiar and comfortable. but she's a joy once you get to know her.

[@snap4921]

Great. thanks for video. What graphics card u runnin?

[@SlantAlphaAdventures]

@@snap4921 An RTX2070 Super at the moment.