December 29, 2010 / admin / 0 Comments
If you’ve followed some of my blog posts in the past 4-6 weeks, you know that I started flying on VATSIM again and also re-joined American Virtual Airlines. AvA was founded in the summer of 2001 and was the very first VA to be affiliated with VATSIM. While I wasn’t one of the “Founding Fathers”, I did join in August 2001 and within a few weeks had been offered the role of VP of Operations and managed several of the hubs. AvA was my virtual employer from 2001 until 2004 timeframe.
I started flying again with AvA just over a month ago. I joined the DFW hub and for the month of December have accumulated over 52 hours and I still have one more day to go. Anyway, after a few weeks I contacted the CEO of AvA and offered my assistance in whatever capacity he could use me. Initially his response was that he would keep me in mind for future openings (as there were none at the time). About a week later he contacted me again and told me about an open position for the AvA Training Hub. The position would be to manage the training hub.
So as you can tell from the subject of this blog post, I was officially offered and I accepted this position. I officially got started in the position yesterday and am learning about the automated PIREP system and trying to figure out what pilots are active and which ones need to be showed the door. Don’t worry…I’m not issuing any pink slips just yet. I granted everyone a 2 week amnesty to either start flying and file their required two PIREPS per month or just simply contact me and let me know what is going on.
Since this is my blog, I’m going to insert a little “Help Wanted” notice here. Are you looking to join a virtual airline? Would you like to fly for one of the oldest and best VA’s? Want to fly for the best American Airlines group? At American Virtual Airlines we offer a fully automated PIREP system complete with FSACARS/FSPassengers/FS Flight Keeper/XAcars integration. We offer a low commitment of only filing two PIREPs per month to remain fully active and while all flights must be flown on the VATSIM network, this really only enhances your overall FlightSim experiences.
I would love if you would stop by American Virtual Airlines and submit an application. If you have less than 100 verifiable VATSIM hours you’ll be assigned to the training hub. We offer complete training (soon to be fully automated) to help get you started flying on the VATSIM network.
As Frank Sinatra would sing…..Come Fly With Me, Let’s Fly, Let’s Fly Away.
Happy New Year!
Jerry
December 19, 2010 / admin / 0 Comments
Yes it’s that time of the year and our virtual passengers need our help. Like my discovery of how much I enjoyed flying the Mooney around the world, I’ve also discovered I really enjoy flying online on the VATSIM network. My frustrations of trying to fly online from years ago seem to be resolved with my awesome flight sim PC that I built back in the September timeframe. If you are just finding my blog, please read some of the older posts from September as I describe my new hardware and also discuss how I’m keeping it cool.
Anyway, since re-joining American Virtual Airlines (AvA), I’ve flown over 15 flights (over 30 hours) all of them on the VATSIM network. Of these online flights I’ve covered flights out of KDFW to DEN, LAX, MEM, MIA, MSY, ORD and my most recent flight to our Nations Capital, DCA. In thisblog post I discussed how I simulated a real world flight I made recently. Bottom line is I’ve had a ton of fun and my online experience has been nothing but fun and also educational.
Just like the airlines we simulate, I’m enjoying making every effort to get my flight sim passengers from point A to point B as quickly and as safely as possible. I’m trying to get in as many hours as I can over the next few days. This weekend I managed to find time to fly from KDFW to KMIA then from KMIA up to KORD. Today I picked up my route and headed back to KDFW from KORD. Finally this evening I’m flying from KDFW to KDCA. My PAX are happy today as the in flight entertainment is compliments of Fox Sports and CBS Sports.
The weather across the areas I’ve been flying has been mild. This morning I had some cloud cover as I departed ORD. I enjoy the challenge that real world weather provides us through the various add-ons like ActiveSky and Real Environment Extreme. As previously discussed on this blog, I do own both of those applications and find myself using the REX graphics more and more, but I still tend to run ActiveSky weather engine. I guess it’s my way of getting my $$ worth out of both applications.
Something else I’ve really enjoyed about my new beast of a PC is how much better it functions when flying at night. When I took my wings off five years ago, not only was it a struggle to fly online…it was also hard to fly at night. I pretty much had to simulate all my flights during the daytime hours, but now I can handle the twilight and full night-time operations. I love it.
My flight up to Washington DC this evening was a lot of fun. DFW was in its usual south operations and ATC gave me 17R. Once airborne I resumed the Triss3 departure and began my northeast flight up to KDCA. My route was TRISS3 TXK J42 MEM J42 BKW ELDEE4. I had ATC coverage just about the entire route with both Memphis and Indy Centers providing the coverage. Once I departed the Indy airspace I was on my own the rest of the way.
The northeast portion of the US is the most crowded airspace and it is always typically represented this way on VATSIM. Tonight was relatively light. I began researching weather conditions for the DC area about 300nm out. If all holds I’ll be landing on runway 1.
The ELDEE4 arrival takes you north passing over Dulles then turning south keeping you far away from Andrews AFB, The White House and other important locations in the area. The above image was captured just after I turned south. I checked weather conditions again and winds were from the north at 7 mph, yep runway 1 is still my best choice.
Taking the easy way into KDCA. On final ILS runway 1.
At the gate and shutting down. An end to a great weekend of flying. I’ll try to fly another route or two this week as I will have a day off and can’t think of anything better to do but fly and help my virtual passengers get to where they need to go just in time for Christmas.
Until next time…Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Jerry
November 29, 2010 / admin / 0 Comments
Before my long multi-year hiatus from the hobby I was a regular on the VATSIM network. In the short period of time from first joining VATSIM to my break from the hobby I had accumulated over 420 hours. Keep in mind this was over a period of time from 2002 through 2004 and another brief stint around 2006. Not bad for just a little over 2 years. Of course I know other pilots could accumulate more hours, but during much of this time (2002 – 2004) I served in the capacity of either hub manager or VP of Operations at American Virtual Airlines (AvA).
In those early days nothing was automated like it is today. Pilots expected to see their flight hours updated on the roster every couple of days or even daily. I managed the DFW hub and it was one of the most active hubs in the VA and I found it easier to take 15-20 minutes daily to tally up the hours, then spend an hour or more once or twice a week. My philosophy back then was I would do all the admin duties BEFORE flying.
When I started clawing my way back into the hobby a few months ago, the world of VATSIM and Virtual Airlines was NOT at the top of my list. Due to PC issues in the past, I did find it sometimes to be a struggle to complete an online flight. Either I would find no ATC online or the hit to the frame rates would cause the sim to run so sluggish or crash….it sort of took the fun out of flying online.
While I was on my Around the World – 2010 Journey, I began thinking about how cool it might be to do an around the world flight and do it online. While I hope to do another around the world flight in 2011, I’m not sure it will be online. But I will admit that just the thought of it did peak my interest in VATSIM again.
I did kick around the idea of returning to VATSIM online flying as an independent. I would fly for whatever carrier I wanted to fly for and the rules would be my rules. But I didn’t think that would be much fun. Part of what I find so awesome about this hobby is the people you meet along the way. By the way, two friends of mine that I’ve met since returning to the hobby both have Flight Sim Blogs. Please check out Al’s Clear Left, and Onur’s Clear Right Flight Sim Blogs.
Now what I’m going to say next is NOT a paid message. But the very best virtual airline in existence really is American Virtual Airlines. Perhaps I feel what I feel about AvA because I put so much effort into it. Perhaps it was the way things ended when I left (yes there is a bit of a story here). In a nutshell I had spent much of my free time helping to keep AvA going strong. Both my life as well as the life of the CEO became very busy. We agreed we had nothing else to give and would close the doors. Thankfully….Thankfully……the other hub members gained control of AvA and kept the doors open and it is still going strong today.
If I could go back in time I would not have walked away like I did. My problem was I didn’t know how to ask for help. I felt the CEO slipping away and he had founded the VA a few years prior to me joining. The right thing to do would have been for me to ask for help from the rest of the management team and not walked away like I did. But…..you can’t undo something that has already been done. Like I said, the VA was taken over very quickly and has been in great hands ever since.
Anyway….when I realized I wanted to fly on-line again on the VATSIM network with my super fast and super reliable new PC, I knew I wanted to fly mostly with my real-world favorite airline (American Airlines) and didn’t bother looking if other VA’s were out there. I knew I needed to return home to AvA…and I did.
I joined AvA and am currently a Sr. Captain with a CAT IV rating and assigned to the best hub in their system, KDFW. I am as happy as can be. My first online VATSIM flight was held early this morning (couldn’t sleep) from KDEN to KDFW. I feel I have a few tweaks to make with theSquawkbox client as it crashed my very fast and very reliable system once I landed in Dallas. All had worked fine and once I switched it to squawk standby, it all crashed. I think I’m going to fly a few more trips and see if I can reproduce the issue. If it happens again, I’ll move SB over to another machine and run it in network mode.
Until next time,
Jerry
