Jeff, I have to disagree with you there. When I was working on my instrument rating, I flew online on the west coast, utilizing sectionals, enroute charts and approach plates from skyvector.com and airnav.com without printing a single chart (although doing so would've cost very little). I simply opened the charts on a second screen and referenced them in real time. Flying is flying. Airspace is airspace. :) What I learned from my west coast online flying translated 100% to my real world east coast IFR training. I would say that as long as you can fly somewhere with guaranteed ATC presence and quality, the part of the country doesn't matter a great deal as long as it's within the same country with the same rules/airspaces. As to the expense of getting charts, a CURRENT low enroute chart, sectional chart, and set of approach plates will run a student around $15, or even less for an expired set for online use. That's about 6 minutes of dual flight time. I can't imagine any student would not be able to come up with that. By the way, we're also working on a CFI section on the soon to be released Pilotedge web site that quickly familiarizes you with the airspace and allows you to search a deep catalogue of canned flights. For example, you could search for IFR flights that take about 45 mins in a 120-140kt airplane, involved a non-towered departure, a towered arrival, and involve a precision approach. The search would yield a healthy number of results, instructor notes, the route to file, etc. This way, instructors don't have to spend a great deal of time putting together scenarios for the student, they're good to go.

I'm curious, what is the minimum staffing level for Pilotedge? Is there going to be a time when one guy is covering all the ZLA freqs (ie like vatsim with LA center only online)? Or are you at minimum going to have one guy who works center, one all the approach sectors, and another on the towers? Cheers

Graham, I will answer your question, but first... The radio system works very differently to VATSIM, so even if we did have a single controller working all facilities, pilots would continue to use the real world frequencies for each phase of flight. For example, for a VFR flight from SNA to LGB on VATSIM with just LAX_CTR online, the pilot would look at the controller list, see that LAX_CTR is the only controller, dial 125.80, and that would be the end of it. He'd address the controller as "LA Center" from startup until shutdown. Take the same flight on PilotEdge...SNA to LGB under VFR. The pilot doesn't know/care how many controllers are online, he checks his watch. If it's between 8am and 11pm PDT (1500-0600z), ATC is online. The pilot tunes the ground freq for SNA, receives his VFR departure instructions (it's a Class C airport) and taxi instructions. Pulling up to the runway, he swaps to the published tower freq. After takeoff, he's handed to the local departure frequency (if applicable), or given a frequency change. Approaching Long Beach, he swaps to the tower frequency, lands, swaps to ground and makes his way to the ramp. He's spoken to the equivalent of SNA_GND, SNA_TWR, SNA_APP, LGB_TWR, LGB_GND, all using the right freqs. To answer your specific question, however, the answer is....we haven't decided yet. Due to initial financial constraints, it's likely to be a 2 controller minimum (with ad hoc staffing on top of that). Long term, we simply need to see what kind of traffic levels and distribution we ultimately get. I suspect the long term number is going to be approximately 5 SCHEDULED controllers per facility. Bear in mind, we also allow our controllers who aren't scheduled for that shift to plug in any time they like.For the pilot, the number of controllers simply affects how many unique controller voices you hear, as well as what kind of roles you hear them playing. Obviously it's a sliding scale, the more controllers we have online, the more narrow the scope of their responsibility, and the more specific the calls will become that you hear on the radio. One last thing to know is that we divide the labor among our controllers completely differently to VATSIM. If you have 3 controllers online on VATSIM, they will typically cover the center, the largest TRACON, and the most popular TWR (ie, LAX_CTR, LAX_APP, LAX_TWR). If we take our sample flight from SNA to LGB above, even in a 3 controller configuration on VATSIM, you're only going to speak to one controller in that case, LAX_APP. On PE, with 3 controllers online, you'll hear one voice on the GND freq at SNA, another voice on TWR then another when you swap to departure. As you approach the destination (LGB) and swap to tower, the voice will change from the departure controller to another voice. Astute listeners will notice that it's the same tower controller as before :) Swap to ground and the voice changes again (yes, the ground controller from SNA). As we add more controllers, we begin staffing individual towers and approach sectors or enroute sectors as needed. The beauty, though, is that it's almost entirely transparent to the pilots. They don't see any controller lists. They just dial frequencies and hear voices. Yes, we have to make some compromises because we can't staff to the same level as the real National Airspace System, but the overall pilot experience is pretty close to the real thing.I hope this helps.

The decission IVAO or VATSIM is just a personnal based choose.VATSIM is more US/UK based,which IVAO seriously has shortage there (in UK,mostly ATC is short)Whileas in IVAO SouthAm and Europe covers huge activity,which VATSIM could never achieve. However last time more its getting mixed and ivao also gets more strict in the exams etc..

Graham, I will answer your question, but first... The radio system works very differently to VATSIM, so even if we did have a single controller working all facilities, pilots would continue to use the real world frequencies for each phase of flight. For example, for a VFR flight from SNA to LGB on VATSIM with just LAX_CTR online, the pilot would look at the controller list, see that LAX_CTR is the only controller, dial 125.80, and that would be the end of it. He'd address the controller as "LA Center" from startup until shutdown. Take the same flight on PilotEdge...SNA to LGB under VFR. The pilot doesn't know/care how many controllers are online, he checks his watch. If it's between 8am and 11pm PDT (1500-0600z), ATC is online. The pilot tunes the ground freq for SNA, receives his VFR departure instructions (it's a Class C airport) and taxi instructions. Pulling up to the runway, he swaps to the published tower freq. After takeoff, he's handed to the local departure frequency (if applicable), or given a frequency change. Approaching Long Beach, he swaps to the tower frequency, lands, swaps to ground and makes his way to the ramp. He's spoken to the equivalent of SNA_GND, SNA_TWR, SNA_APP, LGB_TWR, LGB_GND, all using the right freqs. To answer your specific question, however, the answer is....we haven't decided yet. Due to initial financial constraints, it's likely to be a 2 controller minimum (with ad hoc staffing on top of that). Long term, we simply need to see what kind of traffic levels and distribution we ultimately get. I suspect the long term number is going to be approximately 5 SCHEDULED controllers per facility. Bear in mind, we also allow our controllers who aren't scheduled for that shift to plug in any time they like. For the pilot, the number of controllers simply affects how many unique controller voices you hear, as well as what kind of roles you hear them playing. Obviously it's a sliding scale, the more controllers we have online, the more narrow the scope of their responsibility, and the more specific the calls will become that you hear on the radio. One last thing to know is that we divide the labor among our controllers completely differently to VATSIM. If you have 3 controllers online on VATSIM, they will typically cover the center, the largest TRACON, and the most popular TWR (ie, LAX_CTR, LAX_APP, LAX_TWR). If we take our sample flight from SNA to LGB above, even in a 3 controller configuration on VATSIM, you're only going to speak to one controller in that case, LAX_APP. On PE, with 3 controllers online, you'll hear one voice on the GND freq at SNA, another voice on TWR then another when you swap to departure. As you approach the destination (LGB) and swap to tower, the voice will change from the departure controller to another voice. Astute listeners will notice that it's the same tower controller as before :) Swap to ground and the voice changes again (yes, the ground controller from SNA). As we add more controllers, we begin staffing individual towers and approach sectors or enroute sectors as needed. The beauty, though, is that it's almost entirely transparent to the pilots. They don't see any controller lists. They just dial frequencies and hear voices. Yes, we have to make some compromises because we can't staff to the same level as the real National Airspace System, but the overall pilot experience is pretty close to the real thing. I hope this helps.

It raisesthe obvious question. If I am at SBA speaking to "the Pilotedge Ground Controller" who is acting as SBA ground, then anyone at any other airport, probably will not get a response from "their" Ground controller, as it is the same person. Since I am on SBA ground, I cannot hear the other pilot at his airport (out of range -- very cool !!), nor can I hear the Controller talking to him, so as far as I am concerned, GROUND @ SBA is not available to talk to me -- ( and I cannot hear why). Am I missing something in my understanding on how this will work on pilotedge ? It would also seem that as more traffic connects to the server, my potential wait to talk to the GROUND controller is also increased, and I will not be aware that he/she is talking to other pilots ahead of me. BTW: yes, I hope you get some Female controllers -- far easier to ask a female controller for directions when I get lost !!

.To answer your specific question, however, the answer is....we haven't decided yet. Due to initial financial constraints, it's likely to be a 2 controller minimum (with ad hoc staffing on top of that).

Financial Constraints ? Are the Controller PAID out out the pilot's subscriptions ??If the system is up and operational, why do "Financial Restraints" limit you to 2 controillers ?? If Controllers are PAID, how much ? Where can I get a job application ??

Dave, Thanks for your insight. It sounds like your group has found the best way to enjoy VATSIM, which is to use it during its busiest times when there is the closest thing to scheduled ATC, which would be the events. If you fly big tin and you're willing to go where the ATC is, then it actually works quite well. At this point, you've learned how to interpret the controller lists and who to call at a given airport to receive ATC service. In fact, if you're flying at events, then chances are, the airports are individually staffed, which makes the experience even better. We will see what the adoption rate is among the sim enthusiast community. It was always forecast to be rather light, and I don't see any signs of that changing, even if we were to strip away the pricing completely. The limited coverage area is an issue for most of the heavy metal drivers. Within the markets that we are targeting, however, the traction we are seeing during demos at various tradeshows (Oshkosh, AOPA Summit, etc) has been encouraging.

Yes, you're absolutely correct. Several of our members are actual commercial pilots, many are GA pilots or otherwise have years of aviation experience, and we fly the drive the commercial birds 95% of the time, striving for as much realism as we can achieve. Using a TeamSpeak server helps us to fill in the dead air should we fly into an uncontrolled area, and it's also helpful when working with someone new to VATSIM and IFR flight rules. The server also comes in handy for helping new pilots get up to speed on VATSIM. Also, we use a Ventrilo server for multi-crew (shared cockpit), which is finally taking hold with the developers. There are currently three commercial aircraft addons in development that feature Multi-Crew. I can tell you that flying Multi-Crew in an IFR/ATC environment creates an entirely new dimension to online flight. I'd be interested to know if you client software will or does support this feature. Dave

An excellent question. Btw, if any moderator wants to split this into another topic, by all means... Let's say there is one pilot at SBA (as you said), another at BFL and yet another at LGB. Let's say they call for taxi at more or less the same time. Note, SBA gnd is 121.70, BFL gnd is 121.70 (hence, a great example), and LGB gnd is 133.00. Let's assume that all 3 pilots call at roughly the same time (statistically not likely, but not impossible. In fact, over the last 9 months, this has personally happened to me 3-4 times as a controller on PilotEdge, 3 planes calling at once.....read on). The questions, then:1) do the pilots hear each other?2) what does ATC hear?3) what do the pilots hear from the controller? The first question is, do the pilots even hear each other? Let's assume their transmissions somewhat overlap, but there are still times during the call when only one pilot is speaking, for arguments sake. I say that because the system is designed that when you ARE holding down the PTT, you don't hear anybody else, period...just like a real radio. It's only after you release the PTT that you might hear the 2nd half of a transmission that somebody else on the same freq was making. The answer is....no, the pilots don't hear each other at all. The SBA and BFL guys don't hear the LGB guy because they're fundamentally on different frequencies. The SBA and BFL guys don't hear each other because they're on the ground, 71.4nm apart. If they were both a few thousand feet in the air, they WOULD hear each other (the system models tx/rx reception distances based on each participant's altitude. Yes, this applies to ATC transmitters. Yes, we model the location and altitude of each ATC transmitter, like the ones colocated with the JLI VOR up at 4500ft, so you can hear it from further away than you otherwise would if it was at sea level...) Answer #1: The pilots can't hear each other, they're too far away, or are on different freqs in this case. Next question, what does ATC hear? ATC hears three pilots calling at the same time with crystal clarity. I won't go into detail (in the interest of a shorter explanation), but for now, assume ATC had a pretty good idea that these calls were coming soon. By and large, the controller will be able to discern what's being requested (generally speaking) and the callsigns of the pilots. Will he miss one or two words in each transmission? Quite possibly, but it's not likely to matter. Next question, what do the pilots hear from ATC next? Here's where we have a small break from reality (in this particular staffing case). ATC has ONE push to talk key. They can't isolate the transmissions to a unique role when they're serving multiple roles. So, the end result is that each pilot will hear ATC make 3 responses, one after the other. Two of the transmissions will be for other guys, one will be for them. The controller might even say "N123AB, Santa Barbara ground, rwy 25 taxi via..." and then "N456CD, Bakersfield Ground, rwy 30R taxi via..." and then "N789EF, Long Beach Ground, rwy 25L taxi via..." OR, the controller will omit the airport name when identifying his position...ie, he might just respond as "Ground." We're on the fence about that. There are pros and cons to both.What's going on here is a perfect replica of "combined frequencies" that goes on every day in real life, it's just happening on a scale that does NOT occur in real life (in the 'multiple ground' case, at least). In the real world, center sectors get combined, approach sectors get combined and even ground/tower roles become combined. By 'combined' I mean that one controllers works multiple freqs, and each time he/she hits the PTT, the transmission goes out on multiple freqs. We are doing the same thing, except we're combining multiple grounds. I have many r/w experiences at a nearby Class D field (KCDW) where I'll call for taxi at night on the ground freq, and then I hear the controller say to another aircraft, "wind calm, runway 22 cleared to land." Of course, I hear no response (the pilot is on the twr freq, I'm on the ground freq, the controller hears both and transmits on both). I've also flown long distances at night and spoken to a center controller were I heard him talking almost non-stop to other aircraft, yet I didn't hear a single other plane for 20 minutes. He was running combined sectors, and my sector/frequency happened to be empty, except for me. Does this have scale limitations? Without question, it does. We're aware of them and have planned for them. The staffing model allows us to dynamically add/remove controllers as needed to meet the demand. We're just going to wait and see what he traffic distribution is actually like. In short, the pilots will be 'stepping' on each other from time to time, but they won't know it. It's not the pilots' problem to deal with, it's our problem. In the very worst case scenario, you'll call ATC, you'll hear responses for other aircraft and then you'll hear, "calling Santa Barbara ground, say again." Chances are, that's for you. For real world pilots very little of this is new (except for the broader scope of the combining). For sim pilots who have flown online, this is an all-new experience. It takes some getting used to. Now, if there's a 'hot spot' or a fly-in/out taking place, we can have a controller plug specifically into a dedicated delivery, ground, tower freq as needed. Of course, pilots still use exactly the same freqs, and they don't see an explicit controller list of who's online. All that happens is that the 'extra' calls from ATC disappear, and the response time might be a little quicker. Long term, the combined ground/tower positions will be 'spill over' positions for the quieter fields while we have dedicated staffing at whatever the hottest fields are on the day. I hope this helps and you were able to stick through the explanation. I also hope it shows that considerable thought has been put into this entire process. Truthfully, I spent nearly a year working on the radio system from an architectural and procedural standpoint. The rest of the service came together very quickly, but the radio system took some hammering. If you happen to try the system, and you have a quirky experience, I hope you'll recognize the potential of what's been built and realize that we can simply add more controllers to the mix and the quirkiness goes away. Lastly, we had a female controller working the scope for a day when we demoed at Oshkosh this year. Yes, it was awesome and a nice change of pace from typical online ops (although it's completely normal r/w).

Dave, Quick question, do you fly heavy metal 95% of the time because that's the type of traffic which is most prevalent on VATSIM and is well-supported during VATSIM events? By that, I mean that when a LAX-SFO event comes up, there is full staffing at LAX, SFO and enroute. The nature of those airports draw heavy metal planes, of course. My question would be, if there was 'full staffing' at every single Class D field within a facility as well as the B's and C's, what would you elect to fly? Would it be a mix across the board, or mostly GA, or mostly heavy metal? I'm extremely interested in the answer as it will help me understand what kind of traffic we MIGHT get from the sim enthusiast crowd once it's well understood that the little fields are staffed equally well to the big fields. Regarding multi-crew, I am 100% interested in getting a solution together for PE. It's a completely natural fit for so many reasons. I won't list them as you clearly already know them. The pilot client is a licensed, modified version of SB4. We can modify it as much as we like to meet our needs. After we launch, this is something I would like to investigate. My guess is that we simply modify the client to allow it to connect as an observer with a small tweak to avoid displaying the shared airplane as another aircraft. It should be doable and relatively simple, at least it seems that way at first glance.

Financial Constraints ? Are the Controller PAID out out the pilot's subscriptions ??If the system is up and operational, why do "Financial Restraints" limit you to 2 controillers ?? If Controllers are PAID, how much ? Where can I get a job application ??

Yes, controllers who elect to work specific schedules are going to be compensated for their time. If you know of any other way to provide guaranteed ATC 15hrs a day, 7 days a week with 2-3 controllers online at a minimum without offering compensation, It would be refreshing and somewhat of a relief to hear :) The instructors that trained them on our software/procedures are going to be compensated for their time, too. The financial constraints are simple....we haven't launched yet. We have no paying subscribers (the beta is free). On Oct 1 when we launch, the venture starts burning money at a certain rate at 8am PDT when the scheduled ATC begins. It will take time to build up the subscription base of retail users (and commercial users, which haven't been discussed here in much detail, but they're a big part of it). For an unknown period of time, I ASSUME we'll be building up a liability (money owed to controllers) faster than money is coming in. Hence, I have opted to minimize the burn rate by using a limited number of scheduled controllers and only launching with one ARTCC (ZLA), rather than including ZOA in the initial launch. We will aim to have 3 scheduled controllers (rather than 2) as soon as possible. That was the original vision for the baseline staffing (plus whichever volunteers elect to control on top of that). Bear in mind, volunteers and scheduled controllers must meet exactly the same controlling standards. Whether someone is a scheduled controller or an ad hoc volunteer is 100% up to them. It's also worth noting, well-run VATSIM facilities currently enjoy 30-40 hours per week of enroute staffing from volunteers. I'll keep it simple and will say that controlling on PE is enjoyable, challenging, and refreshing on many levels. I imagine that once we DO have traffic, we'll be able to augment our staffing with volunteer controllers who are qualified, anxious to plug in, but either can't work to a schedule, or weren't able to score that particular shift during the bidding process. In other words, we anticipate being able to staff above our self-defined 'minimum level'. Controller applications are on the site under Contact->Apply. The next intake will be after launch, primarily focusing on norcal controllers, but applications are still being accepted and kept on file. The standard is high, I will leave it at that.

An excellent question. Btw, if any moderator wants to split this into another topic, by all means... Let's say there is one pilot at SBA (as you said), another at BFL and yet another at LGB. Let's say they call for taxi at more or less the same time. Note, SBA gnd is 121.70, BFL gnd is 121.70 (hence, a great example), and LGB gnd is 133.00. Let's assume that all 3 pilots call at roughly the same time (statistically not likely, but not impossible. In fact, over the last 9 months, this has personally happened to me 3-4 times as a controller on PilotEdge, 3 planes calling at once.....read on). The questions, then:1) do the pilots hear each other?2) what does ATC hear?3) what do the pilots hear from the controller? The first question is, do the pilots even hear each other? Let's assume their transmissions somewhat overlap, but there are still times during the call when only one pilot is speaking, for arguments sake. I say that because the system is designed that when you ARE holding down the PTT, you don't hear anybody else, period...just like a real radio. It's only after you release the PTT that you might hear the 2nd half of a transmission that somebody else on the same freq was making. The answer is....no, the pilots don't hear each other at all. The SBA and BFL guys don't hear the LGB guy because they're fundamentally on different frequencies. The SBA and BFL guys don't hear each other because they're on the ground, 71.4nm apart. If they were both a few thousand feet in the air, they WOULD hear each other (the system models tx/rx reception distances based on each participant's altitude. Yes, this applies to ATC transmitters. Yes, we model the location and altitude of each ATC transmitter, like the ones colocated with the JLI VOR up at 4500ft, so you can hear it from further away than you otherwise would if it was at sea level...) Answer #1: The pilots can't hear each other, they're too far away, or are on different freqs in this case. Next question, what does ATC hear? ATC hears three pilots calling at the same time with crystal clarity. I won't go into detail (in the interest of a shorter explanation), but for now, assume ATC had a pretty good idea that these calls were coming soon. By and large, the controller will be able to discern what's being requested (generally speaking) and the callsigns of the pilots. Will he miss one or two words in each transmission? Quite possibly, but it's not likely to matter. Next question, what do the pilots hear from ATC next? Here's where we have a small break from reality (in this particular staffing case). ATC has ONE push to talk key. They can't isolate the transmissions to a unique role when they're serving multiple roles. So, the end result is that each pilot will hear ATC make 3 responses, one after the other. Two of the transmissions will be for other guys, one will be for them. The controller might even say "N123AB, Santa Barbara ground, rwy 25 taxi via..." and then "N456CD, Bakersfield Ground, rwy 30R taxi via..." and then "N789EF, Long Beach Ground, rwy 25L taxi via..." OR, the controller will omit the airport name when identifying his position...ie, he might just respond as "Ground." We're on the fence about that. There are pros and cons to both. What's going on here is a perfect replica of "combined frequencies" that goes on every day in real life, it's just happening on a scale that does NOT occur in real life (in the 'multiple ground' case, at least). In the real world, center sectors get combined, approach sectors get combined and even ground/tower roles become combined. By 'combined' I mean that one controllers works multiple freqs, and each time he/she hits the PTT, the transmission goes out on multiple freqs. We are doing the same thing, except we're combining multiple grounds. I have many r/w experiences at a nearby Class D field (KCDW) where I'll call for taxi at night on the ground freq, and then I hear the controller say to another aircraft, "wind calm, runway 22 cleared to land." Of course, I hear no response (the pilot is on the twr freq, I'm on the ground freq, the controller hears both and transmits on both). I've also flown long distances at night and spoken to a center controller were I heard him talking almost non-stop to other aircraft, yet I didn't hear a single other plane for 20 minutes. He was running combined sectors, and my sector/frequency happened to be empty, except for me. Does this have scale limitations? Without question, it does. We're aware of them and have planned for them. The staffing model allows us to dynamically add/remove controllers as needed to meet the demand. We're just going to wait and see what he traffic distribution is actually like. In short, the pilots will be 'stepping' on each other from time to time, but they won't know it. It's not the pilots' problem to deal with, it's our problem. In the very worst case scenario, you'll call ATC, you'll hear responses for other aircraft and then you'll hear, "calling Santa Barbara ground, say again." Chances are, that's for you. For real world pilots very little of this is new (except for the broader scope of the combining). For sim pilots who have flown online, this is an all-new experience. It takes some getting used to. Now, if there's a 'hot spot' or a fly-in/out taking place, we can have a controller plug specifically into a dedicated delivery, ground, tower freq as needed. Of course, pilots still use exactly the same freqs, and they don't see an explicit controller list of who's online. All that happens is that the 'extra' calls from ATC disappear, and the response time might be a little quicker. Long term, the combined ground/tower positions will be 'spill over' positions for the quieter fields while we have dedicated staffing at whatever the hottest fields are on the day. I hope this helps and you were able to stick through the explanation. I also hope it shows that considerable thought has been put into this entire process. Truthfully, I spent nearly a year working on the radio system from an architectural and procedural standpoint. The rest of the service came together very quickly, but the radio system took some hammering. If you happen to try the system, and you have a quirky experience, I hope you'll recognize the potential of what's been built and realize that we can simply add more controllers to the mix and the quirkiness goes away. Lastly, we had a female controller working the scope for a day when we demoed at Oshkosh this year. Yes, it was awesome and a nice change of pace from typical online ops (although it's completely normal r/w).

Thanks for the info, Keith. That was going to be my next question. :) Graham

Dave, Quick question, do you fly heavy metal 95% of the time because that's the type of traffic which is most prevalent on VATSIM and is well-supported during VATSIM events? By that, I mean that when a LAX-SFO event comes up, there is full staffing at LAX, SFO and enroute. The nature of those airports draw heavy metal planes, of course. My question would be, if there was 'full staffing' at every single Class D field within a facility as well as the B's and C's, what would you elect to fly? Would it be a mix across the board, or mostly GA, or mostly heavy metal? I'm extremely interested in the answer as it will help me understand what kind of traffic we MIGHT get from the sim enthusiast crowd once it's well understood that the little fields are staffed equally well to the big fields. Regarding multi-crew, I am 100% interested in getting a solution together for PE. It's a completely natural fit for so many reasons. I won't list them as you clearly already know them. The pilot client is a licensed, modified version of SB4. We can modify it as much as we like to meet our needs. After we launch, this is something I would like to investigate. My guess is that we simply modify the client to allow it to connect as an observer with a small tweak to avoid displaying the shared airplane as another aircraft. It should be doable and relatively simple, at least it seems that way at first glance.

Keith, We fly the commercial stuff because that's what we enjoy the most, mainly because of the complexity of the various systems. We fly GA infrequently at best, because the challenge isn't there for most of us. We will go and mess around from time to time, but it's just that, messing around, especially at an airport in Europe or somewhere we have little chance of flying in real life. Bare in mind that 90% of our group are over the age of 40 and for the most part have emassed quite a few hours in GA aircraft. We're just following our fantasy of flying large aircraft without the headaches that airline pilots have to go through. Along the same lines (and I'm sure you know this) from what I'm seen it appears as if most VATSIM traffic are guys flying regional or heavies. Dave

Keith and Dave, I am 57 years old and have about 600 hours and still love flying Ga and heavy metal online and I have 10 hours right seat King Air 200 where I fly and love the King Air. I will checkout both of your sites and see how they are. JeffG

Jeff, Actually, I don't run a site, and I sincerely hope I didn't imply that I run or have anything to do with VATSIM (I think I posted that earlier). I'm just a flight sim'mer, though I am part of a small group of guys who fly online. Keith is the developer for an online ATC environment called PilotEdge. You are of course, most welcome to stop over and join us for a VATSIM flight. If you need them, the VATSIM software (FSINN) download and installation instructions are located at the link below. You'll need to follow the instructions verbatim. After you have the software installed (if you don't already), we'd be happy to help you with the settings and installation of the AI packages. Dave http://forums.vatsim.net/viewtopic.php?t=20466

PE sound very interesting, I just question the $20/mth model. I think it make economic sense for a pilot in training but for the serious simmer that is currently on Vatsim or IVAO that is a fairly significant payment. I guess its all relative, you pay more than that for cable or internet service but for such a specific service it seems high to me. I guess the market will tell you if that is true or not, just my 2 cents. Perhaps some sort of tiered plan would work. Maybe for $50/year you get 50 hours in a year on the service, for $100 you get 150 hours and then for the $240 its unlimited. Not sure if you guys have considered other types of payment models. Mark.

Mark, agreed, the price tolerance for r/w pilots is likely to be different than sim enthusiasts. Two things to bear in mind: 1) As mentioned in previous posts, we will offer discounts via the Charter Member program, the Frequent Flier Program (free), and will likely offer discounts to specific VA's that are able to bring a reasonable volume of pilots to the system. 2) We are NOT looking to attract every sim pilot that has a passing interest in ATC If we cast too wide of a net then we run the risk of lowering the bar in terms of pilot quality. This is not the network that tries to be all things to all people. If the idea of guaranteed ATC presence, guaranteed ATC quality, a realistic radio system, voice CTAF and a high density of GA traffic doesn't have you quite excited, then it's likely that this isn't the service for you. It will always be too pricey compared to the other options. Yes, we've considered tiered options. In fact, our commercial pricing is based on actual usage. However, we think it's a mistake to put time constraints on retail pilots.