History

Talking Flight Monitor (TFM) began as a modest project called Flight Following, created by blind flight sim enthusiast Jason Fayre. Initially, its sole purpose was to announce the nearest city while flying. But as the community grew, so did the ambition—users began requesting more features, including access to flight instruments, lateral runway guidance, and control over the default simulator autopilot. As the project matured, developer Andy joined, bringing valuable software and web development expertise. With this new momentum, the focus shifted to supporting the PMDG aircraft in Prepar3D (P3D), which offered a robust SDK through FSUIPC. At this point, Flight Following had evolved into Talking Flight Monitor—a name reflecting its expanded scope and capabilities. TFM soon provided varying degrees of access to flight management computers (FMCs) and aircraft panels in the PMDG 737, 747, and 777 series. As the flight sim community transitioned to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS), so did TFM—presenting its work at various accessibility and simulation events along the way. Then, in early 2024, TFM entered a new chapter: a full-scale rebuild that laid the groundwork for what you’re using today. To ensure long-term sustainability, TFM introduced a paid subscription model and formed a voluntary taskforce to help steer its development. Work soon began on the newly released—and initially unsupported—PMDG 777 in MSFS. After over a year of development, alpha and beta testing, and community feedback, TFM now offers blind users complete access to the 777, empowering them to fly this complex aircraft entirely independently. And this is just the beginning—there’s much more to come from TFM.