Fly with a virtual co-pilot that will audibly call out your checklists in MSFS

When you enter your aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator, you have a few options for reviewing and performing your checklists, but all of them require you to open a written list, and divert your attention to this list so you can READ the checklist items. This can be cumbersome and especially challenging when flying in VR. Thankfully, there are more realistic ways to carry on this task!

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dynamic Virtual Co-Pilot, a VoiceAttack profile created by Dave Randall that allows you to fly with a co-pilot that will audibly call out your checklist items for any procedure, for any aircraft. Simply create a list of checklist items in a text file (e.g., Startup.txt), point the profile to that text file, and speak the desired commands (e.g., Open Startup Checklist) to have the Virtual Co-Pilot audibly walk you through the checklist items one at a time.

Dynamic Virtual Co-Pilot comes with two profiles. Checklist Template.vap makes your co-pilot audibly call out the first item in your list and wait for you to say “Check” before calling out the next item. He will also let you know when the checklist has been completed. If necessary, you can say “Repeat” and your co-pilot will repeat the last checklist item.

dynamic virtual copilot voiceattack msfs
Detailed instructions are included to help you through the entire setup.

If you would rather not have to say anything to your co-pilot to work through a checklist, there is a second profile included (Continuous Checklist Template.vap) that will tell your co-pilot to call out the first item, wait for a certain amount of time (can be set to user preference), then automatically call out the next item. If you need to, you can say “Pause” or “Stop” at any time, and your co-pilot will wait for you to say “Continue” before moving on.

You can create a text file to have your co-pilot tell you anything you want (Checklist items, V-Speeds, Flap and Gear extension speeds, frequencies, etc.). You can also configure the profile to use any TTS voice you have installed on your PC. A complete user guide is included to help users set everything up!

Dynamic Virtual Co-Pilot is available for free as a profile package, but you need a paid license of VoiceAttack to use the profiles. VoiceAttack is a speech-recognition software that allows users to add their own voice as a controller in Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s not that expensive at just $10 and can be a significant game changer in how you interact with your MSFS aircraft.