I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on over the past few months called IFATC Companion. I originally built it because I wanted something that made flying on Unicom feel much closer to having realistic ATC when no controllers are online.
The app runs on your iPhone while you fly Infinite Flight on another device (I typically fly on my iPad) and follows your flight through every phase, providing FAA-style commercial IFR communications from gate to gate.
Some of the current features include:
Full gate-to-gate ATC (Ramp, Ground, Tower, Departure, Center, Approach, Arrival, and back to Ramp)
Automatic ATC calls based on your aircraft state, flight position, and phase of flight
Automatic controller handoffs throughout the flight
Interactive pilot responses
Built-in controller voice using iOS text-to-speech
Weather page with your route, METARs, PIREPs, SIGMETs, ride reports, and live precipitation overlays
Simulated weather advisories and pilot-requested weather deviations using real weather data
Automatic clearance back to your filed route once clear of weather
Free Mock Mode so you can experience the full ATC flow even without connecting to Infinite Flight
IFATC Companion 1.0 is now available on the App Store!
Mock Mode is completely free, while Live Connected Mode (which connects directly to Infinite Flight over your local Wi-Fi) is available with monthly or annual subscriptions.
I’m already finishing up the first major update, which should be available shortly. It adds much more realistic vectoring around heavy precipitation instead of primarily relying on general SIGMET avoidance, making weather deviations feel much closer to what you’d experience with real-world ATC.
I’d genuinely love feedback from the Infinite Flight community. If you give it a try, let me know what you think or what features you’d like to see added next!
App Store:
Google Play Store:
Disclaimer: IFATC Companion is an independent companion app developed by H3 Consulting Partners. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or approved by Infinite Flight LLC.
This is honestly incredible. I never expected to see something this advanced for Infinite Flight. Amazing work, and congratulations on the App Store release! Can’t wait to test this!
Yes, agreed that the user still needs to use Unicom. Also for staffed ATC, once the user tunes to a staffed frequency, it has a feature where it locks down and informs the user to follow the staffed ATC instructions.
Yes, agreed that the user still needs to use Unicom. Also for staffed ATC, once the user tunes to a staffed frequency, it has a feature where it locks down and informs the user to follow the staffed ATC instructions.
A few folks have asked this question so I’ll post it to the main thread here. When using the IF local API, it sometimes gets stale if the app stays open. If you are seeing a manifest error when trying to connect, follow the steps below:
Completely close IF by swiping it away and close the companion app. Open a fresh IF first, and then open the companion app and it should connect.
Just a quick update, I pushed the next update to the app store (should be available soon). It includes some fixes for the PIREPs, so they should be showing up on the map. Also now when you request a ride report, it will reference relevant PIREPs in the phraseology as well as suggest a better altitude based on the PIREP data. You’ll also see some better deviations around severe weather with an automatic call from ATC now if you miss it. The suggested deviations will show up as a mint colored line on the weather map (faint until you get within about 75nm, then solid). If you get within 15nm without calling in, it will automatically inform you and you can decide to take the deviation or not, with vectors from ATC throughout the deviation.
Just a note that the weather is much more accurate in the US with NOAA/NWS data as opposed to the NASA data that is used globally.
I just submitted an update to the App Store adding some more robustness around the connection and manifest handling. It should be available in 24-48hrs as soon as Apple approves. I’ll post back here once I see it is available on the store.
Only iOS right now. You can try it in “mock mode” for free but to connect to your actual flight data, yes, the subscription details are above in the chat.
Thanks again for the update. Everything is working perfectly now.
I have one feature request. Would it be possible to add a “Cross Runway” clearance option to the app? At the moment, only taxi clearance to the departure runway is available, and there is no “Cross Runway” option. I think adding it would make ground control much more realistic and efficient.
I can look into it. The hard part will be getting the map, taxiway, runway data from an open source and then parse and process in the app comparing to the aircraft lat/lon position. Infinite Flight does not expose any of the airport map data through their APIs, so I would need to build my own map and calculate separately based on aircraft position, if the data is publicly available.
side note, I could add a simple “Request runway crossing”. “Cross runway”. “Crossing runway”. Without mentioning a runway number as a quick add.
Ok I found a map source with enough data and did you one better. In addition to just runway crossings, I added full taxiway support and the app will create a taxi route and display a map with the route and the aircraft location and include a full ATC call out with taxi instructions. I’m going to do some more testing and I’ll get it released.
. Thank you!