[ MSFS2020 | SayIntentions ] Flying Wild Alaska in the PMDG DC-6, PANC-PAYA-PAJN!

Once or twice a month we try to log a flight in our PMDG DC-6 -- and often, we look through vintage airline schedules at TimeTableImages.com or DepartedFlights.com and try to find a real-world historic DC-6 trip to re-enact! Tonight, though, we decided to take the vintage four-banger up to Alaska, as a "make-good" of sorts to last week's stream where we had switched up our Alaska itinerary in the Lear 35A to join a VATUSA event in the Chicago ARTCC area. With VATSIM ATC nowhere to be found tonight, however, we figured it'd also be a good evening to play around some more with SayIntentions.AI!
SayIntentions is a TRUE AI-based virtual Air Traffic Control service which boasts, by far, the most natural-sounding human-like interaction of any computer-generated ATC I've encountered -- and you as the pilot interact with it purely by voice, speaking as you would to a VATSIM or other human controller. Additionally, the service has branched out to include AI co-pilots, AI tour guides, AI mentors, and AI cabin crews -- all of whom you also interact with, simply by speaking to them naturally! Tonight we opted for an AI cabin crew, and during the preflight prep I really had forgotten all about it. Then when the lead attendant started speaking, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't introduced her! You see -- SI.AI allows you to choose from a variety of different "personalities" for these characters you fly along with -- some of them serious and realistic, and some of them a little more silly. And for tonight's trip I had decided to try the one who is "Your Mum"!
We prepped our aircraft at Anchorage (PANC) headed down toward the southern panhandle by way of Yakutat (PAYA) and got what we felt were very sensible taxi instructions out to Runway 25L. We had a little bit of a glitch switching to the Departure frequency we'd been given in our clearance, as it seemed to be inactive -- but found an Approach frequency on SkyVector and tuned that instead, and got re-connected with them that way.
We pulled up through the cloud layer and finally got a nice view of the Alaskan landscape, and arrived at our cruise altitude of 15,000 feet, where Mum went ahead and gave an update to our passengers. We did have a brief issue where the SI app stopped responding to us altogether -- but, a quick close-and-reopen solved it in short order.
We began making our way down to Yakutat -- a venue we'd visited before on stream, but, in a "Bush League Backcountry Fly-In Series" event, so it was quite a different look from tonight. We had great visibility, and realized we were being vectored straight over our destination -- then got into a weird loop with the virtual Approach controller who kept trying to assign us an RNAV approach which we couldn't accept. We wound up self-vectoring onto final, and never did get dropped to CTAF in time to make our position announcements. But in terms of flying the airplane, we did pretty well with power and drag management to get onto a nice stable final and a soft touchdown.
Our departure clearance headed to Juneau (PAJN) was a bit different than we were used to -- it was issued and handled by a Flight Service Station, which we typically don't see simulated on VATSIM, so the clearance and IFR release phraseology was something new to us. It was great to think that SayIntentions has come far enough along to teach us a thing or two about real-world versus VATSIM ATC procedure! However, our trust of SI evaporated probably more quickly than it should have!
We'd known, and we had said from the outset, that SI's ATC is not yet terrain-aware -- so, when vectoring you for an approach, you have to be careful in areas with high mountains because the virtual controller could send you into one. Additionally, we know there are still a few issues where it will "forget about you" and send you way further out on vectors before realizing it's gotten you off-track and turning you in. However, my trust in my own instrument navigation over and above the SayIntentions controller was misplaced, as I forgot to factor in that the airport was not in the same location as the VOR we were tracking -- so I assumed we were on a crazy long final when in fact the vectors we were getting were probably fine.
However, eventually the terrain did become a factor, and we struggled to see it through the low cloud cover -- but we finally finagled ourselves onto a left base for the runway while checking in with Tower for our landing clearance. Again, power and drag management worked well (in terms of landings, I'm on a pretty good run in this airplane of late), and we set it down nice and gently in Juneau as Mum welcomed our passengers with some nice tidbits of Alaskan trivia! -- Watch live at / slantalphaadventures