You talk, it listens
Push-to-talk, and Whisper on your PC hears your callsign, runways and taxiways.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024 · Windows
Air traffic control on your own computer.
Talk to controllers from clearance delivery to the gate, with a first officer beside you on the intercom. Real phraseology, readbacks that are checked, a voice and a manner for every station.
Free forever. Local by default. Bring your own key if you want a cloud model.
- $0 forever
- Local by default
- BYOK optional
- Open source
LocalTC
COM1 118.300
COM2 121.700
XPDR 4512
Flying
ATCQuick Settings
Live MapAirport Lookup
DestCYYC
Squawk4512
AltFL350
Rwy08R
Right Ctrl held, talking
Gate to gate, station by station.
Every controller from clearance to the gate, each on their own frequency, in the words real controllers use. Pick a leg, or let it play.
At the gate
Zurich Delivery 121.930
Edelweiss 22, cleared to Palma via the filed departure, climb flight level 80, squawk 1000.
What it does
Everything here is in LocalTC today, and free.
ATC
The controllers
Clearance to the gate, with a person behind every frequency.
Every station a person
Their own voice, manner and habits: calm, friendly, strict, hurried. The same all flight; a new shift after a long break.
Gate to gate
Clearance, SIDs and STARs, vectors, approaches, taxi routes from the sim's own taxiways.
Readbacks that count
"Readback correct." Or "negative, squawk 4512."
An ATIS of its own
Weather, runway in use, cautions, and a new letter when it really changes.
A busy frequency
Other flights on the radio, sequencing, go-arounds against the sim's real traffic.
Off script
Ask for a runway, a shortcut, the weather. A real answer, or a real "unable".
When it goes wrong
Mayday and pan-pan, the nearest suitable airport, ATC starting things itself.
The copilot
Your first officer
Someone in the right seat who talks, watches and helps.
On the intercom
Its own key and voice. Talk to it like a person; it remembers the conversation.
Callouts and watches
V1, rotate, stable at a thousand. Turbulence, wind shear, ice, fuel.
Checklists that ask
Challenge and response: it reads, you answer, it checks the aircraft.
Its own hands
Lights, gear and flaps on schedule, its altimeter, the after-landing flow.
The radio, if you like
Readbacks only, or every call. Switch it mid-flight.
Ask it anything
Fuel, distance to go, the weather ahead, what ATC just said: answered from the flight itself.
The models
Smart, and kept on a leash
Clever where it helps, checked everywhere it counts.
Local by default
Whisper, Piper and a local model on your PC. Flights work offline.
Bring your own key
Want sharper words? Add a free key for a cloud model. Recommended for quality.
Checked, always
Every number, runway, route and readback is checked against the script.
No model? Still flies
Without one it runs on the grammar alone: every call understood, every readback checked.
The apps
Everywhere you look
On your screen, your phone and the web, all at once.
The app
Radios, a live map with ATC zones and traffic, airport lookup, SimBrief.
On your phone
COM1, COM2 and the copilot on INT, the map, talk with dictation.
Live tracker
Your flight full screen on the web: the map, the radio, the copilot.
Logbook and replays
Rewatch any flight, share it, and Wrapped: your year in flying.
Local by default. Your key if you want more.
The ATC, the copilot, your voice and the model all run on your PC. A cloud model is yours to add, with your own free key, when you want better words: then your transmissions go to the provider you picked, and to no one else.
Your PC
Whisper hears youThe ATC engine decidesPiper speaks
The copilotA local model (Ollama)
The provider you choose
Mistral, Groq, Gemini, Cloudflare, NVIDIA ...
Your key, kept in Windows Credential Manager. The words of your calls and the flight's details,
nothing else. Never your audio.
LocalTC itself has no server your flight goes through. The optional account copies your logbook and feeds the phone and the tracker, only if you sign in. Privacy, in plain words.
Why pay monthly for this?
The good paid ATC add-ons are genuinely good. They also bill you every month, need a live internet connection, and send your voice to somebody else's server. LocalTC trades that for a one-time install.
| What | LocalTC | A typical ATC subscription |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0, forever | Usually $10 to $20 a month |
| Works without internet | Yes, that's the point | No, it's a cloud service |
| Where your voice goes | Your CPU or GPU | Uploaded and processed remotely |
| The AI model | On your PC, or the provider you pick, with your own key | Theirs, on their terms |
| Account, login, DRM | None needed | Required |
| If the company folds | Still on your disk, still flies | It stops working |
| Change the phraseology | Edit a text file | File a feature request |
| Read the code | All of it, on GitHub | Closed |
| Usage limits | None, it's your hardware | Often tiered by hours |
What a subscription costs you while you fly
The subscription
$540
If LocalTC saves you that, and you want to say thanks, a coffee is plenty.
Install
Windows, with MSFS 2020 or 2024. One installer does the lot: Python, LocalTC, Whisper, Piper, Ollama, CUDA if you have an NVIDIA card, and the models sized for your machine. No git, no admin rights.
-
1
Download the installer
One setup with everything LocalTC needs to start. No admin rights, nothing else to download first.
-
2
Run it
It installs to your user folder. When LocalTC opens, its setup guide downloads the models once, picking the light, balanced or quality set from your RAM and graphics card. After that, flights work offline.
The installer isn't code-signed yet, so Windows may say it's from an unknown publisher: More info → Run anyway. LocalTC then updates itself, when you say so, and never mid-flight.
-
3
Fly
Open LocalTC from the desktop shortcut. Import your SimBrief plan or type one in, press Start, and call for your clearance. Mute the sim's own ATC first: Sound → Character voices → 0.
From source
Prefer git? Clone the repository and double-click Install LocalTC.cmd
(or run install\install.ps1); update with git pull.
No NVIDIA card?
It runs on the CPU. Whisper's base.en transcribes a transmission in
about 0.4 s on a laptop CPU, and ATC's voice takes about 0.3 s to synthesise. Without the
language model, LocalTC understands you with its grammar alone.
Where it is
What works today, and what's still on the way. Nothing here is hidden behind a paywall or a "pro" tier: when it's built, it ships.
Working today
- IFR and VFR, clearance delivery to the gate, FAA and ICAO phraseology
- SIDs, STARs, vectors, approaches, holds, go-arounds
- Controllers with their own voices and manners, other traffic on the frequency
- A copilot on the intercom: callouts, checklists, watches, its own side of the cockpit
- Your own key for a cloud model, or the local one, or none
- The app, the phone, the live tracker, a logbook with replays and Wrapped
Not there yet
- Ground services: GSX and the like (pushback crews, catering, fuel trucks you talk to)
- A proper cabin crew: announcements, a purser at the door, the cabin ready call
- Airline operations: dispatch, ACARS, company messages
- Careers and missions
- Shared ATC in multiplayer
- Other sims, and macOS or Linux at the controls (they're for development)
Free, and staying free
LocalTC is built in spare time and given away. There is no nag screen, nor any locked feature. If it made a flight better, that's the whole reward. And if you'd like to buy the coffee to support me, that would be greatly appreciated.