Learning to communicate with ground, tower, and approach can be intimidating for many student pilots. There’s a lot to remember and sometimes when you push the button to start talking, the mind goes blank. Fortunately, there’s a new app that can help prevent mic fright.

ARSim Radio Simulator by Plane English is a unique app that uses voice recognition to help pilots improve their communication skills. What’s most helpful is the interactive nature of the app, which means that you can speak to your device and get graded on simulated transmissions, instead of just listening to recordings. The app works on iOS and Android devices, and a one-year subscription unlocks all the learning tools.

ARSim starts with a review of the basics of communications, including the familiar “who you’re talking to, who you are, where you are, what you want” sequence. The real meat can be found in the 100+ scenarios, which simulate both VFR and IFR flights. These cover:

• Requesting and copying a clearance from clearance delivery
• Reading back a taxi clearance
• Takeoff and working with tower
• Departure control and climb-out
• Enroute communications with Center, including pilot requests
• Approach vectors, clearances, and requests
• Non-towered airport operations and UNICOM

ARSim includes multiple airports, so you can try scenarios at complicated Class B airports and quieter Class D airports alike. The app shows the relevant airport diagram or charts, so you can visualize your position. Tap the speaker button to hear the simulated ATC call, and tap the microphone button to speak your response. If you’re unsure, you can tap the eye button for a transcript.

This is good practice, but the best feature is that the app listens to your radio calls and offers scoring and suggestions. It will point out which words you got wrong and offer a score in four different areas. You can repeat a scenario from the results screen with the tap of a button. Once you’ve completed the scenarios, you can take a quiz to test your knowledge.

The app does a pretty good job of understanding human speech, and it seems to improve over time—the latest version is better than it was a year ago when we last tried it.  If you talk really fast, you can confuse it, but then again, you shouldn’t do that with ATC in real life.

Overall, we like ARSim. It won’t teach you everything you need to know about communications (you still need a video course or textbook for that, plus some time listening to real world radio frequencies), but it’s ideal for practicing varied scenarios once you know the basics. Next time approach tells you, “turn left heading 240, maintain 3,000, follow the Boeing 737 at three o’clock,” you can be ready to reply confidently.

ARSim Aviation Radio Simulator by Plane English offers two subscription levels: the VFR subscription costs $59.99, and the IFR subscription costs $79.99. You can buy both the VFR and IFR subscriptions as a bundle and save—the package price is $95.99, making it by far the best value. One subscription is valid for iOS or Android devices.

To see the app in action, check out the following video: